Parent productivity

A lot of productivity routines are simply unrealistic for parents….

Personally, my most typical and productive day as a parent looks like this...

Note: the purpose of this short blog is to highlight that parents can realistically get 1-2 hours of personal time each day, which they can use to grow, plan and be creative.

Morning:

Wake up at least 1 hour before the kids do – if they wake up at 7am, then 6am it is for me. This is the most impactful change I’ve made in the last few years.

My favourite things to do during this 1hr include some combination of – praying, reading / learning (non-fiction or Quran), journalling, thinking about the day ahead or exercising. I usually do this with a coffee and outside if possible.

Before I made this a habit in my life, I found it very hard to dedicate time to my growth outside of work.

This is the hour where I learn new things, think about goals and life more generally. Over time, the accumulation of these hours will definitely change your life for the better.

When the kids are up, its playing, breakfast and getting ready for school - I usually head to the office after the school-run.

At work:

If I’ve planned the week ahead, which is good practise, then I will already know the key tasks for the day already. If not, I think about the most important 3 things to progress and bullet them in priority order.

If I don’t do this, then I default to doing the things I enjoy or those that are the easiest, even if they aren’t the most important.

I prefer meetings in the afternoon and the mornings for focused work.

Lunch: I take a good hour lunchbreak and stay a bit later at work - 30 mins to walk outside, get lunch and eat mindfully (looking at and tasting the food); then 30 mins reading, updating social media or writing something.

I then prefer to tackle less important tasks in the afternoon, relatively speaking.

Evening:

Have dinner with the family and talk about how our days – highlights, what we’ve learnt, anything interesting etc.

Getting the kids in bed by 8pm is my ultimate challenge in life, but, when successful, I have a good hour or two before bed to relax with the Mrs or watch some interesting videos on Youtube.

This time is crucial for me to work on one of my most important projects (the relationship) as well as learn things that are well suited to visual / auditory content e.g. interviews, podcasts, history documentaries, travelling blogs, how things work etc.

Then bedtime around 10pm, with the phone in the corridor set to alarm at 6am.

I think this is a much more realistic day in the life of a parent. As you will see it doesn’t contain crazy amounts of stuff and you may be able to do more on the days when your partner spends more time with the kids. Again, the most important thing is 1-2 hours of growth time across the day.

Sometimes, a portion of this growth time might have to be used to life admin.

Things which help me achieve this day:

·??????Switching the Wifi off at 9-10pm to force me to get ready for bed.

·??????8 hours sleep.

·??????Coffee :D

·??????Having an electric Brompton.

·??????Having access to my work calendar on my personal phone, just to check meetings and communicate as and when needed e.g. dialling in flexibly to a meeting if I need to – you can easily share your work calendar with your personal email (sometimes with limited permissions).

·??????Having a shared calendar with my wife so we can plan family life (extra-curricular activities, drop offs etc.)

What does your productive parent day look like?