Baby Genesis (Part 2)
Your free time ↓ Your desire for productivity hacks ↑ drastically.
Your free time ↓ Your desire for productivity hacks ↑ drastically.
When I was single and working, I was living a 10 minute walk away from work, could wake up at 8am and be comfortably at my desk at 9am. Free time was abundant and I had so much of it the days seemed like an eternity because my free time would begin at 5pm and end between midnight and 1am. Let that sink in for a moment. That’s another eight hours on top of the eight hours I had at work, so in essence two full shifts except that the second shift was for me to do whatever I pleased.
So let’s look at all the things I did during that eight hour window during the weekday as a single person:
5:00pm — walk to gym.
5:15pm — on the treadmill
6:15pm — in the change room
6:30pm — exiting gym
6:45pm — in the food court or restaurant nearby
7:15pm — heading home
7:30pm — home and start a load of laundry and unwind for a bit.
8:00pm — wash done and goes in dryer; start studying for continuing education course
9:30pm — head out to the dance club
10:00pm — on the dance floor
11:30pm — decide to be a responsible adult and head home
12:00am — enter home, jump in shower
12:30am — review emails and text messages from friends in other time zones
1:00am — turn off the lights
The weekends were even worse! I had a full 16 hours to kill on a Saturday and Sunday. There was a surplus of time and a shortage of ways to kill that time. Being efficient was the last thing on my mind. Parkinson’s Law held very true for me in that work expanded to fill the time that was available.
Now let’s look at my Monday to Friday schedule outside of 9am to 5pm:
MORNING SESSION
6:00am — alarm goes off OR child climbs into your web and starts saying, “I need milk Daddy.”
6:15am — backup alarm goes off and child hits you again in the head and asks where the milk is.
6:16am — swipe open iPhone to sear your retinas with blue light to wake you up because there’s no other way you’re getting out of bed.
6:20am — open fridge, pour four ounces of milk into bottle and put bottle into bottle warmer and set timer for three minutes. Head to kid’s bedroom to turn on the night light, prep change table, clear the floor of any blankets or pillows and head back to kitchen.
6:23am — timer goes off, take bottle out of warmer and bring back to table.
6:24am — head back to bed to bring child to the change table.
6:25am — change wet diaper. Every father imagines that this will only take three minutes. Ten minutes are guaranteed to disappear here due to the time warp.
6:35am — place child back in the bed while you go to wash your hands.
6:37am — come back to child’s bed and bring child to couch to feed milk.
6:45am (if lucky) — bring child back to bed and hand off to mother, who will attempt to get the kid ready for daycare.
6:46am — wash and rinse bottle
6:48am — take daily medication, record medication in iPhone and then head to bathroom
7:00am — commence #2
7:10am — jump in shower and set 10 minute timer for iPhone otherwise 20 minutes will disappear into the shower.
7:20am — get out of shower, dry off, brush teeth and comb hair.
7:25am — select and put work clothes on.
7:30am — assuming that child has not put up a fight, head to entrance of house and put on jacket and shoes; work bag was prepared the night before. Get kid ready to go outside.
7:35am — head down to car.
7:40am — place child in car seat
7:45am — commence driving to day care
7:50am — arrive at daycare parking lot, get in the back seat and put on winter snowsuit if necessary
7:55am — carry child to daycare entrance and as it is COVID, the wait is typically five minutes.
8:00am — depart daycare and drive to work; listen to podcast on the way.
EVENING SESSION
6:00pm — arrive home from work; wife has picked up child from daycare and started on dinner; Usually I am just coming in on the tail end of dinner.
6:05pm — change out of work clothes into home clothes.
6:10pm — grab food that wife has prepared and start eating.
6:30pm — finish eating and take child off of wife’s hands so that she can eat; call parents to Facetime if they’re available.
7:00pm — finish Facetime and negotiate with child for baby bath time.
7:05pm — fill up bathtub and get child ready for bath.
7:10pm — place child into bathtub and commence washing.
7:20pm — remove child from bathtub, dry off and bring back to change table
7:25pm — put baby lotion on, diaper cream and pajamas.
7:30pm — hand child off to mother and go wash hands.
7:32pm — prepare night time bottle, three minute timer.
7:35pm — remove bottle from warmer and bring to couch.
7:36pm — extract child from mother
7:47pm — bring child back to couch and feed nighttime bottle.
8:00pm — if lucky, child finishes milk in a timely manner. Wife comes out with toothbrush.
8:01pm — brush baby teeth
8:03pm — tie up child’s hair
8:05pm — bring child to toddler bed / crib
8:06pm — turn on nightlight and get music playlist out
8:07pm — start playing bedtime music (15 minute playlist) / sing lullaby / attempt to persuade child to wind down
8:22pm. — playlist is finished and place child in bed; wrestling may be involved here if child does not want to willingly lie down.
8:30pm — child is willing to lie down, assumes fetal position and demands that Daddy pat her bum so that she can sleep; review emails, text messages, surf the net in darkness and searing more of that retina.
9:00pm — exit room half-asleep; personal time begins.
9:01pm — at this time, I’m generally too mentally drained to even follow along a TV episode on Netflix, so I’m either playing a game on the iPhone, or listening to a podcast or doing something that doesn’t require brain power.
9:30pm — child wakes up, re-enter room and attempt to put child back to sleep
9:45pm — come back out and pick up where I left off doing whatever I was doing
10:00pm — child wakes up, re-enter room and attempt to put child back to sleep
10:15pm — come back out and pick up where I left off doing whatever I was doing
10:30pm — head to shower for some “me time”.
10:45pm — exit shower feeling refreshed and start prepping for bed.
11:00pm — wind down in bed waiting for wife to join me.
11:30pm — wife joins me in bed and now we have “us time” and talk about our day.
11:45pm — child interrupts us and attempts to sleep between the two of us; take child back to room and attempt to put her back to sleep.
12:00am — come back to bed and attempt to fall asleep.
12:10am — fall asleep
1:00am — child wakes up again; either capitulate and let her sleep between the two of us or struggle to get her back to sleep in her own bed.
So there you have it. At best I have 30 to 45 minutes of interrupted time to do whatever I want on a personal basis, and this includes paying the bills, studying, looking for job opportunities, chatting with friends etc. Anything I do typically has to be done within 15 minute increments.