Yesterday afternoon, my youngest son discovered a lake. Not a big lake, and truthfully it wasn’t even the first time he had seen it. He had even taken the same walking path from our home last year, and we had driven to the park over the summer a few times. This was the first time he could remember seeing it, though, and that’s all that mattered. He peddled his little car through a wooded trail and expecting nothing more than more trees he came face-to-face with a great opening and a body of water instead. We quickly found a small rock, settled full of turtles enjoying the last warm day of the year for all we know.

We had no plans for this walk. The kids attend a private school with no bus system and I picked them up myself, taking a break from work, simply to see them. When we got home I decided to extend the break (I had already finished what was necessary for work for the day), and the walk began. Unexpected but exactly what we needed to do. After a half hour playing at the park, we came home. A couple miles is exhausting on small legs, peddling or not.

Productivity

I have a point to all of this.

There isn’t a “productivity” system I haven’t tried. They’ve fascinated me since college, or at least since the time in college I began to take it all seriously. Here’s a way to have everything in place. To never miss another task. To get more done. To “outsource your brain” and “free up space”. To be more efficient with your time.

Trouble is, none of the systems really worked. None of them made me more efficient. Most of them just took more time. I’d plan out every day, try to get as much done as I could, plan projects and goals far beyond me and then compound them with other things to do that I’d never get done. Overwhelming and unnecessary. I grew disillusioned with all of it. Now, it’s mostly repulsive to me.

The fundamental truth is that we are not machines. Men are made to work, among other things, and so we need to find ways to be fruitful, but the whole productivity cult treats men as just another component of some process. “Human resources”, if you will. This is unlivable. If you numb yourself to the passing days and forget your own mortality, you can do this, maybe for a long time, but you do it at great cost.

One of the first productivity “tips” I burned in my own life was the plan each day fully. I was never quite proud of my calendar because I could never seem to keep it truly filled, but that was my intention. Every moment needed a purpose, most of them built around projects or “missions” I thought were worth the time. Mostly, they weren’t even worth thinking about, let alone planning, let alone doing. You find as you get older that you aren’t as important as you thought you were, and this turns out to be liberty.

My System

There are more pieces to how I organize my life than this, but I’ve reduced my daily planning down to a few minutes. I can’t imagine needing to do more.

I once listed out tasks and then tried prioritizing them, but after reading a short post by Michael Foster (of “It’s Good to Be a Man” fame), I made some refinements.

First, as before, I write out all of the things I need to do, or think I need to do. I also keep a long list of tasks and projects and check to see if anything was planned to be done that day.

Second, I break the tasks down on two scales: speed and urgency. For example, a task might be quick to complete (under 10 minutes) and urgent – I may have an obligation I need to meet that very day like a confirmation that I’ll attend an event. On the other extreme, I might have a slow task that isn’t urgent, like checking out a book at the library on something I’d like to learn more about when I have time.

Third, I look at tasks that are not urgent or fast. Can I give them to someone else? If not, should I really be doing them another day? Maybe not, but if so, they come last during the day.

Fourth, I just go ahead and do every fast, urgent task. This usually takes less than an hour, and it’s by far the most productive part of my day.

Last, I work through whatever needs to get done that is urgent but will take more time. I usually save “not urgent, but fast” for after work.

Conclusion

Being a father and husband means being divided. You should want to be with your family, but your family needs you to be working to provide for them. Even if you work alongside your children, you still want to make good use of your time. This is just one technique I’ve found to help do that. Rather than a convoluted, detailed system, this gets the most good done in the least amount of time, in my experience.

More time for watching a little boy discover the world.