When we have a free day coming up, I’ll look at the magazine’s web site (all their articles are online), search on a town within about 50 miles of us, and decide on a destination. And of course, in our own area (Research Triangle Park), there are probably 100 new things that have popped up in the last 10 years we could go to.

LOVED your article! I am a cat lover and also a productivty buff and you have combined these two passions so nicely and best of all, related it to human behaviour flawlessly! Thank you so much, I really enjoyed reading this. And your other articles in the past as well.

I can definitely talk about this. I’ve survived parenthood so far (my daughter is currently in college) but I agree – the focus for “productivity” always seems to be the office. One of my pet peeves with productivity “experts” is that they assume that the stuff that needs to be done for living – food, cleaning, laundry, etc – will magically be done. I suspect these experts may have staff to do these things, but I certainly do not, and it is a challenge to do those significant tasks and be involved in children’s lives and still have any time to do anything else.

Being on the outer fringe of parenthood, too, also allows me to see how things changed over the various ages of my daughter. It did not get easier as my daughter got older, but it did get different. That has to factor in as well.

So short answer – yes I will definitely start spinning some articles up about this! And if you have specific questions, please add them here or send me a note via the contact form.

I enjoy your writing but I wish you wrote more about being a parent to children in this productivity sphere.
Almost all productivity content I consume pretty much expects you to work 8 hours, sleep 8 hours, and have the rest of the time available as you want. As a parent it obviously doesnt work that way, add in sleep deprivation etc and you have a completely different environment compared to the people usually giving the advice.

What do you think about this and what do you find is most important when trying to live a fulfilled deliberate life as a parent?

I dread recording because it doesn’t come naturally me to speak my thoughts. I am always much more comfortable on paper. So when I need to sound something out and reinforce, I find it easier to do so with the written word. Vocally is just not a comfortable realm for me.

That being said, I am not ruling out future video or audio posts when the format fits what I am trying to convey. But as a regular podcast, I believe those days are done.

Randomizing tasks is a neat tool for my utility belt particularly for days where there are tons of tiny tasks and no big deadline driving the day.

I sing in praise of puttering – CSMonitor.com
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/The-Home-Forum/2018/1003/I-sing-in-praise-of-puttering

The Value of Puttering Around
https://www.mysteinbach.ca/blogs/11258/the-value-of-puttering-around/