Hi! First of all, I am a happy father of two brilliant kids. My eldest is an 11-year old active girl in school, and the other is a 6-year old “sick” boy. He is suffering from asthma since birth. Although he seems “OK” now, but he still cannot talk well. His doctor said it might be due to the anti-biotic he’s been taking. Well, as for my experience, it is really very difficult to have equal time for my kids and my work. However, just like you and any responsible father, my kids are my priority. Since we really don’t want a nanny, my wife is a plain housewife. I think it’s the best tip yet. There’s nothing like the mother care. (You did not mention if your wife is working or not). Another thing, I suggest you just let them “live” alone. Do not be overprotective. Let them play and be curious about everything. Just make sure that the house is clean and safe, and be visible to them once in a while. In addition, you may want to visit me at www.withtips.blogspot.com (PARENTING TIPS)…and hope you’ll learn more. thanks!

Damn you for beating me to this!

The best skill I’ve learned from being a parent is that you really have to firewall your time, and understand when you can and can’t do certain things. I’ve had my laptop lid slammed on my fingers too many times to think I can get away with sneaking a peek at email while my son is awake, so I just got really good at putting all that stuff on the back burner until I have time by myself. It actually makes me more efficient when I do get a chance to sit down and work, because I know the time is limited. I get more done during a two-hour nap than I do during the entire day when he’s at grandma’s house.

And you’re exactly right, a low-tech solution like a notepad, something easy to carry around and resilient against spilled milk and getting thrown across the room, comes in super handy.

My heart is open to the notion that, at least for a awhile, the idea of “managing” my time is going to seem farcical. I’m now no longer the leader of my little enterprise, and I hear the new boss can sometimes be kind of a jerk.

That said, I think this will be a fascinating exercise in harnessing interstitial time — even if, for the first few months, that harnessed time gets devoted exclusively to sleep.

Looking forward to hearing whatever people have to share.

I’m a high-functioning guy who gets his kicks by crossing stuff off of a to-do list. So, when people who are thinking about having kids ask me how it impacted my life, I always tell them that you have to be prepared to:

1) be more ruthless at establishing priorities; realize that you have the same amount of time each day but a huge new priority that (hopefully) is at the top of the list

2) be willing to jettison anything from the bottom of your list of priorities to free up time for the family.

3) be flexible enough to wake up in the morning and say “I’m ok if I don’t get a single thing done today”. If you don’t say this, your kid will get sick that day and have to stay home from school/day care, and you really won’t get anything done, so you might as well come to terms with the variable of the unknown in advance. This was the single hardest thing for me to accomplish. I didn’t know HOW not to be able to do something when I wanted to do it and to have to re-schedule it. I had never had to be flexible before.

In all, I don’t set daily expectations for myself anymore. I still have my to-do list, it is prioritized, and I do things in order - I just don’t set hard deadlines. Boy, I was never a huge procrastinator, but even if I had been, having a kid would have fixed that problem straight away. Because I don’t feel like I can count on getting anything done on any one day, I do everything possible well in advance now (except for preparing for that seminar I’m giving tomorrow…I really should get back to that. Did I say I never procrastinate? Speaking of procrastinate, did you know that the word comes from the Latin “pro” (for) and “cras” (tomorrow)…)

Finally, although not advice, I always like to end on something positive: I found that while my time at home in the evenings and on weekends was spent more with family not getting things done, my multitasking abilities sky-rocketed once my daughter came along. I wound up compensating for not being as functional at home by being much more efficient at work (which my boss no doubt appreciated!) Having kids can be scary, in that it is a life-changing experience - if you feel, like I did, that what you do (your activities and interests) define you, then there will be a new you once your kids arrive - but if you embrace change and look for new opportunities, it will be a great time.

I work full-time (for now) and recently started back to a full-time course load in school. My job is pretty much just a 40 hour a week block of time that I trade to pay the bills, so I have to be as effective as possible when I get home.

My wife is a stay at home mom, and budding photographer. She is able to take care of the baby (nearing 2) during the day, handle doctor’s visits, keep the house in line, and also cooks some nights. This is a tremendous help, and if you are in a situation where your wife can stay at home, I suggest trying it.

When Zoe first came home, we would take turns feeding/changing/holding/playing with her. Not just alternating each time but taking like 6 hour shifts. The off-duty person could then have a fairly large chunk of time to catch up on sleep, get large tasks done, etc. That was a huge help when the baby’s feeding times are only hours apart and diapers are even closer. She slept quite a bit so I could still squeeze in a few e-mails or small tasks during naps. As she got older she no longer needed the constant attention, and enjoyed playing in the floor or pack and play for a while.

I hadn’t heard of GTD at the time, so I was not taking full advantage of my time. Looking back, I could have made vast improvements just by having my next actions ready to go when I came off baby duty. Things like processing e-mail and inbox, brainstorming projects, reading reference materials, can all be done while the baby is sleeping, and even if s/he does wake up, you won’t be in the middle of something that you can’t put down. Get all your big tasks lined up and ready to go, so that when you do get your break you don’t spend half of it figuring out what to do, or doing things that could just as easily be done during the baby’s naps.

The big thing is that each of you need to understand that the other person’s free time should be as interruption free as possible. This is not to say that you should run to other ends of the house, just be aware that your significant other might need some time alone to get things done. You might even work out a system to let the other person know when you need quiet time. Then if you know they are busy on something, ask yourself before interrupting if it would be important enough to interrupt you during your free time (sick, hurt, first anythings, etc.). If both sides don’t take it seriously then one or both of you end up not getting anything done, and becoming frustrated.

We also stay on top of each others schedule, so if I need to go see about a potential job, my wife can watch the baby while I’m out, and vice-versa. We tried to be as structured as possible while remaining flexible enough to allow for un-expected changes.

Shay

Just as you’re going to have different parenting challenges with your newborn than a sixteen year-old, your time management challenges will also be different.

I’ve got two active daughters, for example, 10 and 7, busy with dance and karate, and what my wife and I have made effective use of over the past year or so is a simple family calendar created in Microsoft Word, updated frequently, and posted on the fridge. Everybody knows where everybody is supposed to be for the day. That helps a ton.

But there’s no way we needed that when our oldest was first born. Then the first year was as much about adjusting to the very real time demands of this little bundle of baby that quite literally couldn’t do a single thing for herself. Completely dependent on others for her survival.

As Joe suggests, probably the best advice for GTD with a newborn is to be okay with NOT getting anything done, other than sleep. You’ll be busy enough addressing the basic human needs of your new child that some of the other @HOME tasks just won’t seem as important.

The first six months were fine. I was able to use the tiny bits of time to finish a large project I was working on. After that, fatigue kicked in and I slowed down considerably.

Once I settled in to the new schedule, I found it difficult to replicate my early success working on a project here and there. I suffered from interruption anxiety. I always expected to be interrupted if I was working at home. I couldn’t focus unless I went to a coffeeshop for a couple hours.

I still find myself thinking about my work while I’m supposed to be a puppy dog, and my daughter (now 4) knows I’m not fully into the game. I keep telling myself that when she starts school, I’ll be able to focus again.

Not really time management, but as the big fella said in his post, he’s going to be looking for sleep wherever he can get it. Think about the longest bender you’ve had in Amsterdam and then times by ten. My tip is get the biggest bean bag you can find and sling it in the nursery. You/Madeline(?) can then catch some ZZZs whenever the opportunity arises. Even ten minutes will be a blessing and it will be so much nicer if its on something comfy. Its all worth it though =] Once they start walking, they start to sleep a WHOLE lot better.

shayarnett reminded me of a great point about maintaining productivity while caring for kids by writing “I could have made vast improvements just by having my next actions ready to go when I came off baby duty”. Much like waiting to respond to e-mails until commuting via bus, you can save up tasks and dedicate them to times when your mental cycles aren’t being spent on your kid (much easier when kid=baby). For example, when I have issues that I need to make decisions on and I want to spend a good amount of time thinking about them, I save these tasks for the time I spend feeding my daughter a bottle or taking her for a walk in her stroller. This gives me a good 10-15 minutes to do baby care and also mentally organize for and prioritize upcoming tasks.

Brittp, your post reminded me that I can still make advances in my multitasking abilities. I, too, suffer from interruption anxiety. Some of my co-workers with kids have been able to play with their kids while simultaneously working, and I’m constantly envious of their ability to do so. For some reason, I just can’t start some projects when I have a fear of being interrupted (especially reading, which I do quite a bit of for my research). The way I cope with this: I’ve decided that mom was right: if something is worth doing, it is worth doing well. When I have family time, I devote it 100% to my baby. I’ve adopted the opposite of “Work hard, play hard”. In my mind, if I play hard with my daughter, she’ll enjoy it more (and also sleep better once I’ve tired her out!) Then, my reward is to have time to work hard while she’s napping!