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No mention of children in this article, or anywhere in this thread. I guess parents are just doomed to be annoyingly unproductive, no matter how early we get up

No mention of children in this article, or anywhere in this thread. I guess parents are just doomed to be annoyingly unproductive, no matter how early we get up.

MRD85 8y ago
I'm a single parent of two young kids. I go to bed with them (i.e. 7:30-8pm) and I wake at 4am. They tend to wake about 6am, this gives me a solid 1.5 hours of productive time and about half an hour of muck around time.
- ttul 8y ago
  Single parent of three kids reporting in here. We make Timothy Ferris types look like total losers by 6am.
SllX 8y ago
I think it was only two or three days ago I was on HN reading a comment from a single working (Army) parent who takes a few credits every semester. It didn’t sound pleasant, and he specifically stated this was a temporary state of affairs because he is setting himself up for after he leaves the Army so he can best be there for his kid when it matters, but it was at the very least, a productive routine and lifestyle that matched his circumstances and life choices. Routine, Discipline and a regular amount of sleep, regular in this case meaning routine amount, not necessarily a lot or a little. That is my takeaway from every single not-worthless article or piece of commentary that has helped me get my own shit together. The actual details generally don’t matter, the actual lifestyle doesn’t matter, and the actual job or field of study doesn’t matter. So long as you have those three elements, you, the general you and not necessarily you specifically, can figure out the rest. The amount of caffeine consumption or lack thereof, whether you shower in the morning or at night or both, how you commute, whether you work from home or not, what you eat in the morning, et cetera. I guess in the case of two or more working adults in the same house, cooperation/division of labor is another key element in that mixture, but I am not speaking from experience, just observation, on that one. Not to discredit the difficulties of parenting, it is the hardest job in the world to do well, but somehow we’ve collectively increased our population to 7 billion of us and a not insignificant fraction of us generally turn out alright, and the how you go about it matters a little bit less than the why. The parents that are enthusiastic about and enjoy being parents will always be better than the ones that had it foisted upon them somehow, and in that sense, it is just like another job: you learn how to do it, you learn how to do it well, you make it an integral part of your day, and that means building it into your routine so that you always have time to be a parent, that way your kids don’t turn out like those of us where our parents weren’t present and we were background details, distractions, when they were.
- MRD85 8y ago
  I'm the single parent who made that comment. It's so important to be an involved parent. Not just for the children but this is also your life. If I can't take the time to enjoy being a parent then why am I even a parent? Also, discipline is king. Anyone can pull a couple of all-nighters to get some work done but it takes discipline to make a multi-year plan of hard work come to fruition. I have previously considered stopping my studies but I can't accept how my life would look in 5 years if I did this. I'm giving myself a few difficult years to give my future self a much better life.
  - SllX 8y ago
    Can confirm you were, I could not remember your username until I just now saw it. Your prior commentary that I referenced struck a chord with me because I’m facing facing down the path of a life that in some ways, might look something like yours, actually with fewer pressures, but still enough to seem daunting to me right now. I’ve gotten better about my own time management than where I was a few years ago and still have a long way to go. If you, if anyone, can do all of that and still be there as a parent, then I ought to be able to hold myself to a standard that is at least almost as high. I’m not sure what I’m saying here, except, thank you for your commentary, your thoughts. In a way that is difficult for me to properly explain here, it helped me to read your point of view before and now. Good luck, for whatever that is worth to you, and I hope the best for you and your kid.
codingdave 8y ago
I have 3 children, and wake up at 4 AM every day. I have my kids put me to bed at 8 PM, then they stay up for another hour. I then get 3 hours of quiet, isolated time every morning before they get up. We have breakfast together, do the morning chores, get dressed and send everyone off to school, then I go back to work and start catching up with my team. Admittedly, that didn't work when they were toddlers. But once they hit school age, you can certainly figure out a way to make things work.

No mention of children in this article, or anywhere in this thread. I guess parents are just doomed to be annoyingly unproductive, no matter how early we get up.

MRD85 8y ago

I'm a single parent of two young kids. I go to bed with them (i.e. 7:30-8pm) and I wake at 4am. They tend to wake about 6am, this gives me a solid 1.5 hours of productive time and about half an hour of muck around time.

ttul 8y ago
Single parent of three kids reporting in here. We make Timothy Ferris types look like total losers by 6am.

SllX 8y ago

I think it was only two or three days ago I was on HN reading a comment from a single working (Army) parent who takes a few credits every semester. It didn’t sound pleasant, and he specifically stated this was a temporary state of affairs because he is setting himself up for after he leaves the Army so he can best be there for his kid when it matters, but it was at the very least, a productive routine and lifestyle that matched his circumstances and life choices. Routine, Discipline and a regular amount of sleep, regular in this case meaning routine amount, not necessarily a lot or a little. That is my takeaway from every single not-worthless article or piece of commentary that has helped me get my own shit together. The actual details generally don’t matter, the actual lifestyle doesn’t matter, and the actual job or field of study doesn’t matter. So long as you have those three elements, you, the general you and not necessarily you specifically, can figure out the rest. The amount of caffeine consumption or lack thereof, whether you shower in the morning or at night or both, how you commute, whether you work from home or not, what you eat in the morning, et cetera. I guess in the case of two or more working adults in the same house, cooperation/division of labor is another key element in that mixture, but I am not speaking from experience, just observation, on that one. Not to discredit the difficulties of parenting, it is the hardest job in the world to do well, but somehow we’ve collectively increased our population to 7 billion of us and a not insignificant fraction of us generally turn out alright, and the how you go about it matters a little bit less than the why. The parents that are enthusiastic about and enjoy being parents will always be better than the ones that had it foisted upon them somehow, and in that sense, it is just like another job: you learn how to do it, you learn how to do it well, you make it an integral part of your day, and that means building it into your routine so that you always have time to be a parent, that way your kids don’t turn out like those of us where our parents weren’t present and we were background details, distractions, when they were.

MRD85 8y ago
I'm the single parent who made that comment. It's so important to be an involved parent. Not just for the children but this is also your life. If I can't take the time to enjoy being a parent then why am I even a parent? Also, discipline is king. Anyone can pull a couple of all-nighters to get some work done but it takes discipline to make a multi-year plan of hard work come to fruition. I have previously considered stopping my studies but I can't accept how my life would look in 5 years if I did this. I'm giving myself a few difficult years to give my future self a much better life.
- SllX 8y ago
  Can confirm you were, I could not remember your username until I just now saw it. Your prior commentary that I referenced struck a chord with me because I’m facing facing down the path of a life that in some ways, might look something like yours, actually with fewer pressures, but still enough to seem daunting to me right now. I’ve gotten better about my own time management than where I was a few years ago and still have a long way to go. If you, if anyone, can do all of that and still be there as a parent, then I ought to be able to hold myself to a standard that is at least almost as high. I’m not sure what I’m saying here, except, thank you for your commentary, your thoughts. In a way that is difficult for me to properly explain here, it helped me to read your point of view before and now. Good luck, for whatever that is worth to you, and I hope the best for you and your kid.

codingdave 8y ago

I have 3 children, and wake up at 4 AM every day. I have my kids put me to bed at 8 PM, then they stay up for another hour. I then get 3 hours of quiet, isolated time every morning before they get up. We have breakfast together, do the morning chores, get dressed and send everyone off to school, then I go back to work and start catching up with my team. Admittedly, that didn't work when they were toddlers. But once they hit school age, you can certainly figure out a way to make things work.