http://www.dadtoday.com/
There is no “I” in “team,” sure, but if there isn’t one in “family,” it’s time to run spellcheck.
Are there passions and pursuits you put on hold when you became a parent? You’re not alone. Your family certainly needs your time, attentions, and affections right NOW. Yet, over the long haul - for marital bliss, for showing (not just telling) your kids what it means to follow their dreams, and for yourself - you have got to figure out how to take those passions off ice.
My passion is for writing - especially writing plays. Literally hours before I became a dad, I finished a draft of my last play. After that, my writing went into a kind of hibernation. But a little over a year later, it started to come awake again. I launched a blog (dadtoday.com). Two years (and a second child) later, I published a book for new dads. Now, I am climbing back on the playwriting horse too. The going is slow, the path unclear, and my arrival at a place where I actually make a living from my writing very uncertain. And yet, I am making forward progress again. Here’s how:
1. Give Yourself a Break
What? This is a first step? Actually, yes - especially for that first year. Your hands are FULL enough. It is awesome. It is rich. It is also not easy. Don’t be too hard on yourself if you set things aside for a season. The fact you feel a restlessness about getting back to your writing, your art, your music, your whatever is good. That restlessness will fuel your return. If you don’t set it aside, you’re playing with the dual fires of burn out (see #6 below for some help), and resentment, just when you and your spouse need to be stepping it up as a team.
2. Run Your Own Race
One of the harder things about growing older is watching my peers - and increasingly people younger than I - tearing it up as writers in ways I haven’t (and, honestly, may never). It is so easy to get discouraged by that. On Sundays, I used to scan the theatre section of the New York Times and devour, with a mix of interest and jealousy, the stories of the hot young writers.
Recently I’ve started training for another marathon.I have tuned in some to the twitter buzz from other runners. Now and then there’s a tweet something like, “so and so just ran 15 miles at a 7:10 pace. I am SOOO slow!I Almost invariably, somebody replies with a reminder to, “run your own race!” It’s simple advice, but so important. And it is as true for running as it is for creative work. Restlessness may fuel it. But jealousy and resentment just poison the creative well.
Run your own race.
3. Remember It’s a Marathon, Not a Sprint
While we’re running with running metaphors, remember that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. When you find your new equilibrium as a parent, windows of time do start to open up. They are small, unpredictable, and unreliable. But they are there. Maybe 20 minutes on the bus or train on the way to work. Maybe the last twenty minutes before you cut the light and call it a day. Maybe the one time in your 40, 50, 60 hour work week where you lock in 30 minutes on your calendar for you to get out, sit outside, or in a corner coffee shop with your notebook or laptop. It’s not a lot on its own. And it may feel utterly inadequate - especially if your pre-parenthood style depended on long stretches of uninterrupted time (not impossible. But definitely tricky. And depends on #4 - see below). But twenty minutes a week, over months, over a year, or years - it does add up. Each marathon stride is just one stride - barely bringing the finish line any closer. And yet it does - if you keep running.
4. Cue off (and Cheer Lead for) Your Partner
One of the things that has helped me more than anything to get back into writing, to begin to make real progress again, is the fact my wife has returned to one of her passions - rowing. Three or four days a week she is up and out the door by 5AM. I started just getting up with her. Days she rows, I write. Days she doesn’t, I run. So far, I have used this time mainly to be more reliable and (I hope) better on dadtoday. But it is also the kind of time and routine I know I need to get playwriting again. The downside of this new rhythm is more time like ships passing with each other. But it pays such clear dividends in the sense of fulfillment and joy we each feel individually, as a couple, and as a family. Most weekends or vacations, our first impulse is to do something all of us together - and rightly so. But it’s not too much to reserve one, two, three times a year for just you. And it’s too little not to. It makes the together time scarcer - but richer.
5. Sleep Less
I’m sorry about this one, but I don’t see any way around it. There are only so many hours in a day. And this work takes time. I find that if I don’t give up some of my sleep - after everyone else is in bed, or before they wake - I either don’t get anything done, or the work starts to steal time from my marriage, from my kids, or from the work I’m actually paid to do. And that’s not right.
6. Now and Then, Chuck it All
Now and then, the lack of sleep, the demands of kids, the need for real QT with your spouse, late night meetings, events, or tight deadlines at work - it all catches up to you. Don’t quit outright. Don’t ever quit. But do give yourself a break. Chuck it all for a day, a week, even a month. Know you’ll get back to it soon enough. Drive yourself too hard for too long without pause, and you’re bound to crash. Better to make it an hour or more later to the marathon finish line, than to finish in a medical tent somewhere along the course because you pushed too hard and didn’t listen to your body. I am finding that, with my current routine, it seems to catch up to me once or twice a month. But after a day or two, a weekend of 8, 9, 10 hours sleep, I am feeling better, not falling asleep at my desk anymore, ready to go another mile.
7. Put First Things First
Years ago, I read Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. One of the few things I remember is Covey’s two by two about the urgent vs. the important:
I remember Covey’s observation that we spend far too much time in the urgent, unimportant quadrant - giving our first and best, and far too much time to the unimportant, imminently defer-able tasks. Covey wrote this before this domain was crowded by email, blogs, IM’s, and tweets. But his insight is as pertinent now as ever. If you’re serious about making progress on work that is deeply meaningful to (and demanding of) you, and if the best you can give it now is 10, 20, 30 minutes an hour or two a week, you have GOT to put first things first. You could burn through that time with the urgent, unimportant so fast it is not even funny. You don’t get that time back. I have learned that getting the word out about my book requires some level of attention to, and care for, and cultivation of my online network. So there is non-trivial payback for the time I invest there. But it is also a black hole that can suck up WAY more time than I have to give it. Chris Brogan talks about setting an egg timer on twitter, because it is so addictive. This is great advice. So I write now. I scan, read, comment, retweet, and “like” later. Traffic on dadtoday suffers as a consequence. But my writing makes strides.
That’s my “I” in “family.”
What’s yours?
Images by Creative Commons Attribution License:
“Shut Happens” by Alan Cleaver
“Runner on the Trail” by Dawn-Pink Chick
“Alarm Clock2’ by Alan Cleaver
“Keep Your Pace” by Alan Levine
“Sports Fans” by Duncan Rawlinson
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