Crazy for trying

Kevin Lamping

I'm going to try something crazy. I'm going to try and type a blog post while watching my 2 year old son. I should follow that up with "watching him destroy the already messy kitchen as he unpacks dirty dishes from the dishwasher I was trying to fill moments ago."

Yeah, parenting is like that. An ultimate trip for folks with ADD, you're constantly jumping from one unfinished task to another. Yesterday it was, "try and get the kids breakfast no wait I need to clean up my son's drink and why is he putting ice in his mouth then spitting it out on the floor? NO! Stop that! Oh great...now he's throwing his toys need to go pick them up Oh he wants cheerios that's easy enough let me just grab a bowl no he wants mama's bowl no he wants to pour them himself ugh I already poured him a bowl and now he's made and now he threw the bowl of cheerios all over the already dirty kitchen floor guess it's time to get the broom and dustpan."

All within the span of 5 minutes.

So sometimes I laugh when the best advice folks have for making time for side projects is "wake up early" or "work on it on the weekends". I already wake up early. My toddler ensures that. And there are no "weekends" for a parent, just a switch to your second job of trying to raise little human beings with all their complexities and sickness and messes.

Don't get me wrong, it's wonderful. There's no logical reason why I should want kids, but I do. They're the best.

I should get to my main point before the toddler really starts getting in to trouble.

If you're a parent of (a) young kid(s) and trying to work on a side project, whether for profit or fun, here's my advice:

  • Fit it in in any way you can
    • 100 hours = 20 X 5 or 1 x 100
    1. Even if you can only work 30 minutes or an hour at a time, with enough time, you'll finish what you want
    2. You're going to have to take it slow and one day at a time
  1. Be okay with leaving things temporarily unfinished
    • Yeah, your kid is going to interrupt you. There's just no way around that. Even when they're quietly sleeping like an angel, they're one treacherous car alarm from being awake.
    1. Leaving things in an unfinished state is actually not terrible, as it makes it fairly easy to pick back up when you have a moment. Just keep a note of what you were working on to trigger your brain in to, "oh yeah, that was interesting"

Okay, both kids are awake now and my 6 year old just asked "Daddy why aren't you getting us breakfast?". I'd like to write more, but I'm afraid my time is up :)

Hopefully that short bit of advice is enough to get y'all going. You can do things on the side as a parent, you really can. It just takes a lot of patience and a ton of little chunks of work.