2 Changes To Create More Control As A Dad

It’s uncomfortable to admit, but the weeks after our 4th child was born I found myself thinking:

“This is all too much”

New role at work + Kindergarten off for the summer + No sleep.

Every day was a draining version of groundhog day.

But feeling like that was unfair on everybody. I was much more short-tempered due to a lack of ‘personal/reflective’ time, I felt frustrated and unproductive most days and most importantly I felt I wasn’t doing a good job as a husband and father.

What got me out of that were two things. First, I stumbled across the methodology of ‘time blocking’ which is assigning a task to every part of your day. This sounds very restrictive but is actually freeing, as you are taking control of your day rather than being reactive.

And more importantly for me was planning in how the days were actually like. Not how I wanted them to be like.

I put down the kitchen cleanup, the laundry, preparing meals etc. And then I looked at what time was available to fill it with the other things on my to do list that left me stressed and axious as I had been in reactive mode for the past few weeks.

The second thing was the real game-changer though. Somehow having one, then two and then three kids seemed ok. We coped fine.

But the change to four threw us.

My wife needed the time to recover and bond with the baby and it was my job to cover the rest. I had to accept that life was different now. Not forever, but it was for now. There was no point hoping for things to be as they used to be. And when I thought about it, I didn’t want them to be any different. We had an amazing family, gorgeous kids and the gift of time. Time to be together.

So once I realised that and stopped throwing a pity party for myself every day, I was free.

Free from the frustration I had felt before. It started by taking control of my days. And accepting what was our actual reality and embracing the ‘tougher’ weeks when a newborn comes into a family with other kids around.

The change in mindset developed over time into one of “servant leadership” for my family. And I kept the time-blocking practice up too. Below is a typical workweek. But running a company and having a large family ensures one thing: our days are never ‘normal’. And we wouldn’t want it any other way.