Random Thoughts on Fatherhood, Part II
A while back I reflected on a bunch of different issues about being a father. This one contains a bit more focused set of thoughts on time management.
- Parents automatically become very efficient at getting things done. Taking care of babies takes time, and I want to spend time with my kid. That means less time for whatever else needs to get done (at least in the absence of a time machine or a superhuman ability to stop time).
- In this light, prioritizing time allocations becomes (or needs to become) more deliberate and intentional. I’ve been biased towards doing what I need to do over what I want to do. This translates into few very clear areas of responsibility other than taking care of Xander: work (research/teaching), home economics (cooking/cleaning/maintaining), one major hobby (photography) and one minor hobby (Xander and my blogs). Other things get left behind—a growing pile of the New Yorker magazines next to my side of the bed is a very physical manifestation of that. This sounds negative but sharpening my focus on priorities has been very enlightening.
- The uncertainty of parental time commitment is a major wild card in time management. I never know whether Xander will wake up crying and stay up crying at night for more than a hour. (That doesn’t happen often but there is always a non-zero probability of it happening. Kids becoming sick is probably the best example of this type of uncertainty.) One can try to build in buffers for this type of occurrences (e.g. by going to sleep early to prepare for a potentially long night), but that only adds to the time allocation problem. At the same time, this uncertainty pushes me to try to be more efficient and to keep focus on the priorities even more.
- “Outsourcing” starts to make more sense. I become more willing to pay money to save me my time. (There are still some things I refuse to outsource, like cleaning, which I just don’t trust other people to do a good job.)
- I probably have some other/more thoughts on this, but I should turn in, in case Xander has another bad night.
