4 ms·

Are you speaking from personal experience? I am a parent and have a younger daughter and I have many other parent friends, we all had kids within a similar age

by Kranar 4y ago

Are you speaking from personal experience? I am a parent and have a younger daughter and I have many other parent friends, we all had kids within a similar age range. I have plenty of time to spend with my family and I am also the founder of a successful company. If anything, being a parent taught me how to be very efficient with my time and how to cut things out that were meaningless. The arrangement I have with my spouse is that on weekdays I take care of the morning, and she takes care of the night. That means I'm responsible for getting breakfast ready, getting my daughter ready and sent to school, and my wife is responsible for dinner and putting my daughter to bed. On weekends our arrangement is usually that Saturday morning I get to sleep in and my wife mostly handles the day, and on Sunday it's the opposite. I can't speak for everyone, but as I said before when I became a dad I realized there are just soooo many little things that consume 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there, some procrastination here and there and I could cut them all out and add on the order of an additional 120 minutes per day, which is not at all trivial. It used to take me 40 minutes to an hour in the morning to shower, use the bathroom, brush my teeth, get dressed... now all of that is done in about 20 minutes. I used to do various daily errands during busier times of the day and get stuck in lines, now I do them during less busy times of the day. Finally, changing my life in this way not only has given me more time, it also makes me a much more organized person and a more effective business leader.

SoftTalker 4y ago
Congrats to you that you've made this work. I've made attempts at the "super efficient optimise every moment" thing and it always eventually collapses for me with severe mental exhaustion. I cannot be "on" that much. It just isn't in me.
- Kranar 4y ago
  Yep absolutely, it's not for everyone. One question I'd ask of you is do you exercise regularly? The one thing I'd say that gave me the kind of energy to be "on" all the time is having a daily exercise/cardio routine and changing my eating habits. Not saying this works for everyone, but the effect that doing that had on my life was enormous.
  - SoftTalker 4y ago
    I lift weights. Not too big on cardio, after many attempts at doing it (running, cycling, swimming). Lifting weights is the one thing that I finally found I can stick with. My diet is decent, mostly cook for myself and avoid highly processed foods and a lot of sugar. I am not strictly following any dietary program though. I like the effect the weightlifting has on my body. It's nice that I have some definition and strength. But honestly cannot say it's had a big effect on my energy, motivation, outlook, etc. I have tried enough things that other people say have made a tremendous difference in their life, from exercise to supplements to diet to reading philosophical books and they just... don't. I still feel like the same person. I don't think there are any secret tricks. People are who they are, fundamentally. Accepting that feels like giving up sometimes, but also brings some peace and freedom.
  - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
    Kranar, with all due respect, you are lucky to have a partner who shares the responsibilities equally. All it takes is for one 1/2 not to contribute equally - or to be a single parent - and your plan would simply not work.
    - Kranar 4y ago
      I am very lucky and never said otherwise. I am lucky to have an amazing daughter, to live in an amazing country, an amazing wife, to have had all of the opportunities afforded to me. Not that you explicitly state it, but don't assume that because someone is successful or is giving advice to people about potential paths they can pursue, that they are ungrateful or don't appreciate their life circumstances. One of the other things I'm grateful for are the mentors and role models who have shared their knowledge with me and I'm happy they did so without being drowned out by people dismissing their success as simply due to luck.
      - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
        Thanks for the flippant comment. You completely missed my point, but that’s ok, this is the internet.
- j45 4y ago
  Me too on falling at it. The answers to do that is not in our current selves. Had to read a lot to learn ways.
scruple 4y ago
As a counter-balance: I have 3 children, twins who are 3 (and I am the twin parent) and a 1 year old. My wife is still in recovery and on partial (she works 20 hours / week right now) disability from the birth of our youngest. I've reduced my hobbies down to: 1) reading before I fall asleep at night, 2) exercising during my lunch hour on work days. That's it. I managed to change jobs earlier this year but it was challenging and it remains a challenge to remain ahead with my current role due to my family obligations. My situation is somewhat unique but is certainly not an outlier.
- j45 4y ago
  I’m a twin parent as well. Similar situation for a bit. Becoming a parent during the pandemic or shortly before is no joke on its own. Wish there was a way to connect with them at scale lol. Maybe we can start up a discourse forum together. Hang in there. It was nice to see another parent here identify as a twin parent.
sibeliuss 4y ago
Can second this. My arrangement with my spouse is the opposite. She takes care of the mornings and me the evenings, and then I take weekends. It gives me a lot of free time.
ip26 4y ago
The chain you are responding to is talking about working full time, and working a startup on the side, and still having a family life. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like you are able to focus on working your company. My experience is that with two parents, both working full time at demanding jobs, challenging kids under 7, there is hardly time for even the necessities. That said, we do know one-earner families with easy kids, and they do seem to have time for it all. There’s a theoretically spare hour or two in the evening after bedtime, but at that point both parents have been going flat-out for about fourteen hours, so exercise and passion projects are only going to happen through sheer grit- which both parents have pretty much used up over the last half decade.

by Kranar 4y ago

SoftTalker 4y ago

Congrats to you that you've made this work. I've made attempts at the "super efficient optimise every moment" thing and it always eventually collapses for me with severe mental exhaustion. I cannot be "on" that much. It just isn't in me.

Kranar 4y ago
Yep absolutely, it's not for everyone. One question I'd ask of you is do you exercise regularly? The one thing I'd say that gave me the kind of energy to be "on" all the time is having a daily exercise/cardio routine and changing my eating habits. Not saying this works for everyone, but the effect that doing that had on my life was enormous.
- SoftTalker 4y ago
  I lift weights. Not too big on cardio, after many attempts at doing it (running, cycling, swimming). Lifting weights is the one thing that I finally found I can stick with. My diet is decent, mostly cook for myself and avoid highly processed foods and a lot of sugar. I am not strictly following any dietary program though. I like the effect the weightlifting has on my body. It's nice that I have some definition and strength. But honestly cannot say it's had a big effect on my energy, motivation, outlook, etc. I have tried enough things that other people say have made a tremendous difference in their life, from exercise to supplements to diet to reading philosophical books and they just... don't. I still feel like the same person. I don't think there are any secret tricks. People are who they are, fundamentally. Accepting that feels like giving up sometimes, but also brings some peace and freedom.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
  Kranar, with all due respect, you are lucky to have a partner who shares the responsibilities equally. All it takes is for one 1/2 not to contribute equally - or to be a single parent - and your plan would simply not work.
  - Kranar 4y ago
    I am very lucky and never said otherwise. I am lucky to have an amazing daughter, to live in an amazing country, an amazing wife, to have had all of the opportunities afforded to me. Not that you explicitly state it, but don't assume that because someone is successful or is giving advice to people about potential paths they can pursue, that they are ungrateful or don't appreciate their life circumstances. One of the other things I'm grateful for are the mentors and role models who have shared their knowledge with me and I'm happy they did so without being drowned out by people dismissing their success as simply due to luck.
    - TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
      Thanks for the flippant comment. You completely missed my point, but that’s ok, this is the internet.
j45 4y ago
Me too on falling at it. The answers to do that is not in our current selves. Had to read a lot to learn ways.

scruple 4y ago

As a counter-balance: I have 3 children, twins who are 3 (and I am the twin parent) and a 1 year old. My wife is still in recovery and on partial (she works 20 hours / week right now) disability from the birth of our youngest. I've reduced my hobbies down to: 1) reading before I fall asleep at night, 2) exercising during my lunch hour on work days. That's it. I managed to change jobs earlier this year but it was challenging and it remains a challenge to remain ahead with my current role due to my family obligations. My situation is somewhat unique but is certainly not an outlier.

j45 4y ago
I’m a twin parent as well. Similar situation for a bit. Becoming a parent during the pandemic or shortly before is no joke on its own. Wish there was a way to connect with them at scale lol. Maybe we can start up a discourse forum together. Hang in there. It was nice to see another parent here identify as a twin parent.

sibeliuss 4y ago

Can second this. My arrangement with my spouse is the opposite. She takes care of the mornings and me the evenings, and then I take weekends. It gives me a lot of free time.

ip26 4y ago

The chain you are responding to is talking about working full time, and working a startup on the side, and still having a family life. Forgive me if I’m wrong, but it sounds like you are able to focus on working your company. My experience is that with two parents, both working full time at demanding jobs, challenging kids under 7, there is hardly time for even the necessities. That said, we do know one-earner families with easy kids, and they do seem to have time for it all. There’s a theoretically spare hour or two in the evening after bedtime, but at that point both parents have been going flat-out for about fourteen hours, so exercise and passion projects are only going to happen through sheer grit- which both parents have pretty much used up over the last half decade.