Strategic Sundays

It used to be that I would have 1:2 father:child Sundays. They were great...but tiring.

My mom (I don't say mom and dad because of who does the bulk of the childcare work :-)) would take them on Mondays. Now, with my grandparents sick, she spends a lot of time ferrying them to doctors appointments. Calanit's in school and it just didn't make as much sense.

Post-surgery, my mom started taking the kids on Sundays. First, I was recuperating. Now, I find that it is my one day a week that I have to do what I call the "strategic" stuff. Sure, I mow the lawn and other "maintenance" stuff, but I now have 7 hours (non-hectic workday) to do what I need to do for long-term planning (be it career, house, whatever).

What I've learned is that kids help you focus. When I'm with the kids, I focus on being with them. When they aren't here, I focus on being as smart as I possibly can be in allocating my time.

Today was a great example of that. Some accomplishments

• mowed the lawn
• cleaned out the steps to the storm drain
• insulated some of the windows in preparation for winter
• worked on my career development plan
• played around with some technologies I thought might be useful
• built a house project plan road map (things I'd like to do over the next 5-15 years...and when)
• took out the trash (and repaired the trash cans)
• spoke with a friend re: a business idea for 30 minutes

Would I rather spend time w/my kids? Of course, but it's a balance. Now that these big things (at least I think they are kind of big) are out of the way, the time I have with my kids is more focused and less stressed. A virtuous cycle if there ever was one.