Feel Like You Did Nothing Today? A Fix for Working Parents

I stared at my to do list for the week.  11 things, 3 crossed off.  Slowly adding more each day, nothing getting completed.

My first instinct was to push harder.  

“I’ll just come back tonight after bedtime.”

But I knew that was a stop gap.  More effort wouldn’t fix it.

The problem was what counted.  That was in my head.  More effort wouldn’t fix it.

The truth was that week had 2 kids home sick - that knocked out 2 days of the week.  Then I had to scramble to fit the other parenting and household chores into the other days.  Grocery shopping got pushed.  I had extra sets of laundry to do (IYKYK).  And on top of it, I was more tired from two full days of top notch care I was giving my poor little dudes.

I had done a phenomenal amount of activities.  Just not many of them were under the “work” category.  So I felt like a failure.

The fix was simple.  When things get pressed like that, I make a comprehensive to do list.

Not just for work stuff.  For everything.  Even the things that I do everyday.  

Make breakfast and lunch.

Launch kids for the day.

Clean up breakfast.

Those three tasks take me from 6 am to 8:30 am every single day.  And at the end of it, I may be ready to start up the day or I could be completely exhausted.  To my work list, that effort was invisible.

Same with pick up, meal prep, bed times.  

5-6 hours of “effort” that didn’t count.

Also - exercise, a walk, even eating lunch.  Not counted.  So sometimes not done.

I made sure that I had done the things that mattered along the way.  The feeling of not accomplishing things was gone very quickly.  

I was staying true to my mission: fitting my business in where I had space, but prioritizing my family.  That looked different every day, but it was never a matter of me being lazy or slow.  It was the reality of a life with 4 kids and wanting to really be present and ready when they finish their hard days.

When I had 11 things and crossed off 3 for the week, it felt like failure.  When I wrote down 14 things for a day and crossed off 12, it felt like a superhuman effort of a day.

And the only difference between those was what I chose to write down.

I was taught to judge my day based on the “work” tasks only.  That led me to push myself harder (good) but also feel terrible along the way (bad).

If you work full-time, it’s the same math. Eight hours of meetings, then pickup, dinner, and bedtime, and you grade the day on the two things you shipped.

Here is how you can adopt this:

Tonight, write a “done list” in four columns: work, house, kids, you. Notice which column you usually ignore.  If you keep a list like this, even after the fact, for a few days, what patterns emerge?

The list is the action to take.  The mindset shift follows.

Alex Egeler is a former aerospace executive and certified EQ coach who helps tech parents find work that fits their family.