How a Stay-at-Home Parent Gets Stuff Done

You know what? You’re not going to get it all done.

Whether you work a 9 to 5 office job, or set your own hours, it’s not going to happen. But as a stay-at-home father who still needs to bring in a reasonable income to ensure we can keep a roof over our heads and food in our bellies, keeping up is a daily challenge.

Productivity systems are put in place by people doing a myriad of jobs in order to try to achieve that elusive state of “balance”. It is far easier to see a stay-at-home parent when they are out of whack, simply because more of their attention and focus is on the home rather than the workplace.

When the home is the workplace, it gets really tricky. While it hasn’t been easy, I’ve managed to assemble 3 key ingredients on how a stay-at-home father can get stuff done on a consistent basis. Sure, there’s a lot of front-end work, but that is no different for anyone else who is putting a system into place. The initial setup may seem like a time-suck, but the payoff is huge.

Look at your week and figure out what days of the week you can schedule in your biggest jobs. Whether it be running errands, a freelance project or developing a means to generate passive income; if it is something that can afford little to no interruption, lock in a day (or multiple days) for it. Only schedule appointments on those days that require your utmost attention.

My “heavy lifting” days are every Tuesday through Thursday from 10 am until 4 pm. That is when I write pretty much everything I need to for the week, produce my podcasts, conduct interviews and work on my book and my talks. By doing this, I’ve ensured that I can go into those days with the knowledge that I can create freely without interruption. This freedom lets me enter a “flow-like” state, resulting in work that has a greater quality to it than had I been having to worry about stopping and restarting every once in a while.

On the days that I don’t set aside for heavy lifting, I return emails that don’t require an immediate response, catch up on reading and work on other things that don’t require my full, uninterrupted attention. That means that nothing gets missed throughout my week.

How can I set aside all that heavy lifting time during the week? How do I manage to watch my kids and get that work done? That leads up to my second key ingredient…

My wife and I have an in-home caregiver come in three days a week, Tuesday through Thursday. She only works 20 hours a week, but those hours give me the time to get my work done.

By the way, if you don’t think you can afford to find a reasonable child care option that can come to your house and “sub in” for you on these days, think again. Our caregiver is a part-time student (working on her Early Childhood Education diploma) who charges us per hour half of what I make per hour. By bringing her in three times a week, I’m more than able to pay for her services. If I didn’t have anyone coming in, I’d be hard-pressed to get any quality work done during the week, and would wind up working weekends. That’s not why I decided to work from home and take care of my kids – the weekends are family time and I do little to no work on the weekends because of that.

In addition, by having someone come in, household chores such as laundry, dishes and overall daily maintenance gets handled when my son is napping and my daughter is still at school. It means that we have less to do on the days when our caregiver isn’t here, meaning we have more time for the less mundane when we’re all together.

Finding someone like we have isn’t an easy task – but it can be done. Putting in the work to do so will allow you to get stuff done for both yourself and your family.

Having the first two ingredients in place is all well and good, but unless you have the third ingredient in place you won’t even be able to get off the ground – let alone hit the ground running.

Since you’re at home with the kids as the primary caregiver, it is incredibly important that you provide the best example for them. How you handle your workload is one of those areas where you can either shine as an example or tarnish your image. Even with heavy lifting days scheduled, you’ll be tempted to work on that great idea once it comes to you. When your part-time caregiver shows up, you’ll be tempted to take a nap when you should be working.

Don’t do those things.

If a great idea comes to you in the middle of a time where you know it will turn into something that will take some time and effort to foster, capture it and let it go until such a time presents itself where you can give it the effort and attention it deserves. Need a nap? Again, take it when such a time presents itself where it will benefit you – and your situation – the most. I take them when my caregiver has days off and my son happens to be napping. It gives me the recharge I need without the regret that I don’t.

Putting the first two ingredients into place will enable you to take the third and create a recipe for success. Not just one for work, but one for the life you’ve crafted for you and your family.

Mike Vardy is an independent writer, speaker, podcaster and "productivity pundit" who dishes the goods at Vardy.me. You can follow him daily on Twitter, listen to him weekly on ProductiVardy, and read more from him eventually at Eventualism.

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Steve Rizzo: Nothing but the Funny Stuff

Real life absurdities mix with animated antics in this hilarious special featuring Mr. All-Star Comedian Guy and his animated twin. Join Steve onstage as he finds humor in the most unexpected places. OK... maybe not the MOST unexpected places but some pretty unusual places nonetheless. Now sit back and get ready to laugh yourself silly as Steve Rizzo gives you 'Nothing but the Funny Stuff' on this video!

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5 Ways to Lose Your Stuff (Not Your Lover)

You feel like you’ve tried everything. You set something outside with the garbage, but find it back inside the house because your spouse couldn’t bear parting with it. Or you plead for help with clearing the clutter, only to have what was supposed to be a guest room transform into a storage area.

You crave a more minimalist home, but not at the expense of your marriage. You’ve resigned yourself that living with all that stuff is simply the price you pay for love.

Or maybe convincing them to part with it is easier than you think …

I’ve always loved my husband’s sentimental nature. I think it’s sweet he stored our hastily scrawled love notes and considers saving gifts from family an act of loyalty (yes, even the wind-up sushi and 4 foot long Spanish sword). Of course, he’s also kept early drawings of airplanes and his high school Letterman’s jacket.

I came to minimalism late in life and goodness knows I still have a long way to go. But as the girl who consigned her wedding gown, I thought I could help him see the benefit of reducing our material burden. I reminded him of all the clutter we never used, yet found ourselves trapped into keeping; I hinted at the money we could earn by selling those things on Craigslist. At times, I’m ashamed to admit, I called his reluctance silly.

Not surprisingly, those somewhat confrontational introductions to minimalism didn’t go well. The key wasn’t just being more delicate, though that certainly helped. As Chip and Dan Heath explain in their book Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, to persuade your family or anyone else to embrace a new idea, you must appeal to both their minds and their hearts.

1. Bring in an outside expert. Maybe this has happened to you: your spouse gives you some advice, about your job or your family, but you don’t believe it until someone else tells you the same thing. I don’t quite know why this happens, but this phenomena can complicate your family efforts with minimalism as well.

In the spirit of leveraging this built-in bias, I let my husband borrow my copy of Chris Guillebeau’s The Art of Nonconformity. I didn’t introduce it as a text on minimalism (it isn’t), just an inspiring read. Before I knew it, my husband was telling me how reducing our material footprint would give us more flexibility in everything from housing choices to travel plans.

Find a book on a subject your spouse already wants to read, but also speaks to the general principles of minimalism. For example, if your spouse loves sailing, try a true story about someone who sold all their belongings to sail around the world.

2. Create a purgatory for your stuff. For you, probably nothing’s quite as joyful as watching the garbage truck turn the corner with ten bags of your former possessions. But if your spouse is still on the fence, that scenario sounds more like a nightmare.

Decluttering in steps takes the edge off. In our case, we designated our garage as our “purgatory.” Anything that stayed there without being missed for more than 3 months could safely be removed. If someone really wanted it, the item could move back in.

If you’re short on storage space, try finding a “foster home” for your things. Maybe a friend needs a stereo or a frying pan–let him borrow yours until your spouse feels comfortable making it a gift. The point is to make the first decision reversible, which reduces the fear factor and allows the emotional side of the brain to ease into the decision (while still removing the item from the house).

3. Lead by example. I’m a modest person and have never been a fan of “I love me” walls boasting diplomas or awards. But the Outstanding Educator award I earned at the Air Force Academy is special–I actually cried when I won it. So when I decided to toss the bust and plaque, that got my husband’s attention.

Determine what truly motivates your spouse’s hoarding. Is it guilt, nostalgia, or just laziness? Demonstrate how your spouse might bypass those issues without making a big deal of it. In my case, I told him I realized I didn’t need the physical object to feel the pride it represented, which triggered my husband’s own revelation that clinging to his childhood memorabilia was likewise unrelated to the happy memories they held for him.

4. Be happy. I’m a lucky woman; making me happy seems to be one of my husband’s life goals. And without a doubt, eliminating items from our house makes me happy–for several minutes at least. Too often, however, I focused on everything we still had to sort and discard instead of celebrating our steady success.

Expressing the joy of less is the secret weapon in your efforts to share minimalism. You can approach it directly by putting your happiness into words, or you can demonstrate your improved mood in more subtle ways. For example, you could invite your spouse to an impromptu dance in the living room, explaining “Look at all this room!”

5. Believe. Addressing our extensive CD collection was the hardest for us. We admitted we almost always listened to music from our iPod. The problem was that we had hundreds of CDs that weren’t yet in our online library.

Although I initially volunteered to tackle the daunting project of converting the music, I never found the energy to begin. I suggested we either give away the discs and lose the uncataloged music, or resign ourselves to keeping the collection. To my surprise and delight, my husband provided the best alternative: he’d rip CDs every night as he surfed the internet.

I told him how proud I was of his initiative. “Don’t be too proud,” he warned. “All I’ve done is put them on the computer. We haven’t gotten rid of those CDs yet.” But with the stereo system already in purgatory and over 100 CDs captured, I felt good. I hugged him and said, “I believe in you.” And I do.

Take a cue from other change management programs, like Weight Watchers and Alcoholics Anonymous, and be that base of support for your spouse. Sometimes, having someone who believes in your ability to succeed can be inspirational enough to make it happen.

At some point, you had an epiphany. Maybe when you had to move and you just couldn’t believe how many boxes your stuff required. Or maybe you woke up one day and said, “Enough is enough.” And once you knew what you wanted, or in this case didn’t want, you were eager to make it happen.

But you can’t convince someone else to have an epiphany. They have to come to it on their own. The more you push, the more resistance you create. Enticing your spouse to follow you to a happier life, not escape an unpleasant one, is the goal.

Remember how you felt when the two of you first met? You probably thought you could subsist on love alone. Here’s the secret: you can. You just have to remember how.

Now hurry. Go clean house.

A scientist by training and an optimist at heart, Jennifer Gresham helps you find the clarity and courage you need to transform your life at her blog Everyday Bright.

View the original article here

Steve Rizzo: Nothing but the Funny Stuff

Real life absurdities mix with animated antics in this hilarious special featuring Mr. All-Star Comedian Guy and his animated twin. Join Steve onstage as he finds humor in the most unexpected places. OK... maybe not the MOST unexpected places but some pretty unusual places nonetheless. Now sit back and get ready to laugh yourself silly as Steve Rizzo gives you 'Nothing but the Funny Stuff' on this video!

Price:

Click here to buy from Amazon