Productivity

by Phil

Where has it gone?

I'm not saying that I don't get anything at all done. I spend a ton of time with my kid, which I think is tremendously productive. When it comes to the work-at-home dad title, I have the "at-home dad" part pretty much down at this point. This little boy and I are really finding a groove.

It's the "work" part of my title that I am struggling with still. I've been doing this full-time for about 4 months now and I haven't figured out a way to get as much done as I'd like. I'm often working in 20 minutes chunks, usually when my son is happily playing with a toy or distracted by his excersaucer. (The excersaucer was a gift from fellow blogger Matt and his wife. While I haven't been able to get enough done these past few months, the inclusion of the excersaucer has really begun to help.) And there are also the periods of time that I get during his naps. Luckily, he still naps every 2 hours, so I can at least eat lunch and do some laundry. There are times, however, when entire days will zip by and I won't even notice. Suddenly, it's midnight and I've only managed a half hour of work for the day.

A new plan must be devised! I clearly need to take a frank look at how I'm spending my day and adjust accordingly. Perhaps there are small bits of wasted time that I'm not even aware are slipping away. Maybe I'm hitting "get mail" on my e-mail too often. Whatever it is, I need to trim the fat!

So for the next week (or most likely 2) I'm not going to change anything about how I handle my day. I am, however, going to keep track of everything I do in an embarrassing amount of detail. I want to know what I'm starting with. I need a list of wasted moments that can be saved or habits that need adjusting. Then I can go back and see very starkly where I'm being inefficient.

The daily logs will not be shared here on the blog. Don't worry. I'm not so narcissistic that I think you need to know how many minutes I spent eating breakfast. (And if you do care about that kind of minutia, you creep me out. Please go away.) I will share an overall view, though, along with routines that I'm working on changing. The public pressure of publishing the progress on this blog will certainly keep me motivated. I embarrass myself enough in front of total strangers as it is. I don't need to add more fuel to the fire.

Time management is something that I think every parent in the world struggles with. How do we all squeeze one more minute out of our day? If anyone wants to make suggestions in the comments about how they get things done, I am certainly open to them.

And lastly, on a totally different subject, I totally dominate my son in thumb wrestling. I even have the photo to prove it.