The stresses of being a stay-at-home dad

You know, being a stay-at-home dad is pretty freakin’ awesome. Time to write, time to read, maybe even slip in an hour of video games. Leisurely (somewhat) coffee in the morning once the kids are off to school, cuppa tea in the afternoon. Yeah, it’s kinda sweet.

In theory.

In reality, I just dropped the youngun at school, just got home, blinked, and I have to go get that youngun from school. Seriously, where the hell did my day go? Zero words written, zero pages read, and it seems like the dishes mated overnight. Oh, and no new high score on the video game end, either. What’s a lonely boy to do?

One thing I’ve found, thanks to input from my lovely wife, is to set a timer for 25 minutes. During that time I work on one thing, like the kitchen or laundry. After 25 minutes is up, I stop and relax for five minutes. This is actually a time management technique called Pomodoro (link opens in a new window). When it works, it’s great! When I get interrupted, it can throw the whole thing out of whack. That said, I still try to stick to the schedule by pausing the timer to do whatever I am dragged off to. It doesn’t always work as I might forget to restart my timer, but at least I gave it the old college try!

What are your methods for keeping yourself on track? Do you do something similar, or do you have something specific that you do to get your day done? Please share your ideas in the comments below!

Okay, that’s it for now. Cheers!