Don’t think, just dad
Last weekend I learned a secret dad technique. I have been working on a small IT central in our walk-in closet for a while, with a patch bay, router etc. Basically, the hub of our home network connecting all the rooms and buildings. I had a small shelf system that was supposed to carry a couple of devices, but it had been lying around for several weeks and it annoyed me more and more every time I put my eyes on the unfinished project. But this time, something snapped in me. I couldn’t stand looking at that mess anymore, so I simply grabbed my tools and ruthlessly started working. Meanwhile, our two sons and Labrador retrievers were busy tearing the home apart. It’s standard practice and the primary reason why the IT central was still unfinished. My wife was screaming for help, but I just replied, “No, that’s your problem now, I am busy” and locked the door. To say that it wasn’t popular, is a slight understatement. But sometimes you must make a choice. Take a hit now or suffer death by a thousand cuts. I chose the former. And it was a good choice.
It is rather destructive for the soul to have unfinished projects lying around all over the place. Each one might be insignificant, but when you have ten small things that you think about ten times per day, it adds up! It also normalizes the behavior of not finishing projects, which is not a good skill to hone. In my example above, we are talking about mounting two wooden consoles to the wall and attach a shelf to them. Super simple, yet so far out of reach as a dad with two dogs and two sons. But the issue here is that these things add up. The floor in our walk-in closet has been very messy for months on end, because there is nowhere to store stuff so some of it ends up in a pile on the floor. Not good. By installing the little shelf system, I would free up precious floor area. That little change also adds up tremendously over a couple of months.
The only time I can remember when I have worked faster, was when I was water skiing in September some 20-odd years ago and my friend stopped the boat with a big grin so that I had to swim ten meters in 10 degrees Celsius. That shelf came flying and basically attached itself to the wall. I did some quick cable routing, and it was done. I am a strong believer in the motto: “Happy wife, Happy life”. My life was now getting Un-happier by the minute. And then, when I was done, I noted that we had one of those battery powered vacuum cleaners lying around on the floor, also waiting for someone to install the wall mount and provide easy charging. I knew that my wife had been eye-balling that device for a while, so I just kept the momentum going and within minutes, we had a “vacuum cleaning station” as well, with nicely routed cables nailed to the wall just perfectly.
Being a dad is the greatest blessing in life. A somewhat unexpected life change that came with the package, was a significant boost in productivity. I have often heard people complaining about how they don’t have any time any more to do stuff since becoming a parent. The secret dad technique I mentioned in the beginning is to stop thinking and just do it. Just like Tom Cruise says in Maverick: “don’t think”. As soon as you stop analyzing and start acting, you have bought yourself a couple of minutes of productive time. By now, I opened the door and called for my wife to behold the results. My high-risk bet turned out to be correct. Sometimes you must be strict with your beloved wife and say “No, I will NOT do that now. I don’t care what you say, I shall finish this first”. Had I waited for the right opportunity to install the IT shelf and the vacuum cleaner, they would still be on the floor in a big pile of mess.
Rarely have I seen such a quick forgiveness and recoiled back to happy life mode. My work was spot on what we both needed, but our tunnel vision had prevented us from acting. The power of incremental improvement is staggering. My wife now uses that little vacuum cleaner all the time, and the walk-in closet is very neat and tidy. And last but not least, the home network works better than ever. All these little changes now keep adding incremental value over time. And that’s why they are extremely important to carry out. The accumulated time we now save is easily 10X more than the time it took to execute the required actions.
Don’t think. Just dad.