When you go into your week with a game plan, you're much more likely to get your important work done so you can spend time with your family.
Unfortunately, many dads struggle to plan their day.
They often have a general idea of what needs to be done but still finding themselves busy and reactive, but not getting much meaningful work done, leading to working eating away at their family time.
Why this is so difficult:
- Lack of clarity on critical tasks: When you’ve got tasks coming from email, Slack, and your project management system, it’s often hard to know which tasks are actually the most important.
- Unrealistic expectations: Trying to accomplish too much in a day without accounting for breaks, meetings, and unforeseen delays can lead to working late.
But, by spending just 15 minutes at the start of each day coming up with a game plan, you can get your important work done so it doesn’t cut into family time.
Here’s how.
Step 1: Identify your most important tasks
It’s critical to decide what the most important tasks are for your day - the ones that NEED to be done by the end of the day.
It sounds obvious but how many times do you find yourself at 4pm realizing you still haven't gotten done the MAIN thing you needed done that day.
What this could look like:
Ask yourself:
what needs to be done before tomorrow?
These are your most important tasks (MITs).
Don’t pick more than three things.
If you’re working on a bigger project, be specific about what part of that project you’re wanting to complete today.
Don’t just write THAT ONE BIG PROJECT.
Not every MIT needs to be part of a big project. It could be an important meeting or a thoughtful email reply.
I recommend writing these down on a physical note card.
Then cross them off as you do them.
Step 2: Decide the order to complete these in
Often the MITs aren't the only thing I do in a day, but they're first thing I focus on.
For the rest of the tasks, deciding in the beginning of the day what order you will complete the tasks in removes a lot of the cognitive load later in the day of wondering ‘what should I do next?’
What this could look like:
Beyond my MITs, I like to write out literally everything I plan on doing that day. These are in my digital task manager.
In most digital task managers, you can just drag & drop your tasks in the order you want to complete them in.
I put them in order based on my anticipated energy levels.
My MITs are earlier in the day. Tasks that take less mental energy (or aren’t super time sensitive) are later in the day. This also allows me to push any unfinished tasks to the next day without much consequence because my MITs were done earlier.
Schedule your breaks in there too.
- When do you want to take lunch?
- When do you want to try and get some exercise in?
- When do you want to just go sit on the couch for 10 minutes and watch YouTube?
Step 3: Set realistic expectations
You’re not going to get 37 things done in a day.
And if you’ve got 5 meetings, don’t add the same amount of tasks that you would if you had only 1 meeting.
If you’re not used to writing out all your daily tasks, it’ll take some time for you get a gauge on how much you actually CAN get accomplished in a day.
It’s not just the number of tasks, but also how long you anticipate certain tasks taking.
Tasks often take longer than we expect.
On days that I don't finish all my MITs, it's because one of the tasks that I thought would take me about an hour ends up requiring 2.
Not to mention that there will be unexpected tasks that come in throughout the day that will need your attention.
So a good rule is to fill your task list with 80% of what you think you can actually do in a day.
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Hope this gives you some ideas on how to plan your work day so it doesn’t cut into family time.
Recommendation of the week
Milkless Podcast
I came across THIS INSTAGRAM REEL a while and thought it was a hilarious and painfully accurate look at what it means to be a dad today.
As I explored the guy’s other content, I found he had a podcast.
I don’t actually listen to too many dad podcasts but this one is such a great blend of humor and authentic dad reflections.
A good first episode to listen to is THIS ONE.
What about you?
How do you plan your day, or what challenges do you face in doing so?
Email me at thom@wfhdads.com and let me know—I read and reply to every message.
Thanks again for being a part of this community!
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Thom Gibson
Founder of WFH Dads
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P.S.
Here's another newsletter I highly recommend. It's by Tiago Forte, the author of Building A Second Brain which has really helped me organize my digital life in a way that I'm able to find what I need more easily and actually use the various notes & ideas I find online and save.
