It is challenging to distill one particular observation from the experience of sharing your life with a newborn baby – as the cumulative effect is so overwhelming. That said, one very noticable survival mechanism that does kick in is an ability to maximise the utility of every single one of the smaller (hitherto throwaway) segments of your day. “I have three minutes Right Now, so I can iron that tee-shirt.” and “I have two minutes Right Now, so I can empty the bins.” and so on.
Combining lots of these chronological lego blocks gets the larger tasks done. Consequently you can forget about such left-brain niceties as starting a task and then finishing it. You live in more of a right-brain state of flow, with all of your tasks ongoing at the same time in a perpetual state of near-but-not-quite-completition. Then, when you do get an idle moment, you can ask yourself “whatever did I do with all of that free time I used to have?” Write blog posts is probably my answer.
Thoughts on creating disruptive organisational transformations with design thinking.
Aido, I concur with this absolutely....in fact I think I mentioned it before to some of our friends! This phenomenon (not exclusively experienced by parents of newborns, but very busy people in general) is know as the Swiss Cheese method of time management. Chipping away at larger tasks in little bits so they don't seem so big and daunting...filling available moments with little chores (that may or may not be part of a larger one), and which contribute to breaking down seemingly collossal 'to do' lists or things that you keep putting off!! It really works. Hilary
ReplyDeleteyou wonder to yourself "whatever did I do with all of that free time I used to have?"
ReplyDeleteAh yes, definitely remember that feeling. Now three years on and my productivity has gone to pot!