What's the right NA for playing with the child?

[Borisoff]

I have a role Father and a project under that - develop relations with my daughter. How do you think what is the right NA to put under this category. My variants at this point are either "Play with the daughter" or "Play for 15 minutes with the daughter" but I feel that sounds stupid Do you have any ideas on how to move this project further and how an NA should sound better?

Regards,

Eugene.

 

[br4978]

Playing with your kids is an activity that should be spontaneous or scheduled, so if you need a kicker to actually make play time, put on your calendar or daily schedule (hard landscape). Oh, and put it there OFTEN....

- MB

 

[Borisoff]

Then how would I know that this is the most important thing I should be doing in the moment if it's not on my complete Life To Do list? If that's blocked off in the calendar then there's no possibility to check priorities. Maybe the child is not a very good example as it's number 1 priority for me and I belive others but let's take another example - something like "Learn Spanish" or "Draw a picture".

 

[Cpu_Modern]

Playing with child is definetly hard landscape. It is something you have to do today, otherwise your kid grows without you even noticing. And suddenly the deadline is there: he/she leaves your house and you are wondering.

The definition for hard landscape is somewhat along the lines.: "if you don't do it today, it can never be done". This is so true regarding your "project": your toddler won't wait with her/his first running steps or amazing lego-construction or enthralling coffee-table until your n/a-list is there. You either were there or you missed it.

Look, you can get another job, but the kid's heart is unique. Don't mismatch your priority-config here, please.

Back to your question: I think projects would be specifics like "going to Disneyland" (I am not american, just an example ;-)), "taking grandma with us for a walk in the park", "going to theater" ect what you have there.

 

[Borisoff]

Look, you can get another job, but the kid's heart is unique. Don't mismatch your priority-config here, please.

I agree my daughter is not the best example of choosing priorities. Let's take Self-Development Project: how to put NA for Drawing, Learning, Reading, Watching TV or even sleeping ? Draw a picture for 10 minutes for me sounds stupid either...

E.

 

[Borisoff]

The definition for hard landscape is somewhat along the lines.: "if you don't do it today, it can never be done".

If all important thigs should go on the hard landscape then it's obvious to schedule all your areas of responsibility (i.e. Work, Child, Parents, Home) in the calendar. Unfortunatelly I didn't find any schedule-related materials neither in David's book nor on the site (including "Connected" area). Any ideas why?

 

[Cpu_Modern]

Unfortunatelly I didn't find any schedule-related materials neither in David's book nor on the site (including "Connected" area). Any ideas why?

Because scheduling is not the topic of his book. On a technical level GTD is a workflow model, not a method to do your schedule. Offcourse GTD is more than a workflow model...

What is scheduling? Any ideas?

 

[kewms]

I block out time for any kind of ongoing activity. Otherwise, it isn't going to get done.

Covey talks about the difference between "urgent" and "important" activities. Playing with your daughter, or going to the gym, or writing/sketching/walking in the park are rarely urgent. But they are extremely important, and if not done they all represent missed opportunities.

So block out time. Make an appointment with yourself. Decide in advance that nothing else is more important.

Katherine

 

[ActionGirl]

Give your intuition some credit!

I take David's approach to be that one's intuition is pretty well able to handle these types of judgments on an on-going basis ... once one gets clear about one's commitments and has them in a trusted system.

If you review your roles weekly, that might be all it takes to make sure "play with kid," or "draw" comes to mind at the right time/often enough. If not, scheduling time or activities may help make sure you don't forget.

Over-scheduling has serious drawbacks. Schedule too much and you'll become very frustrated very fast. Too little and you're back again to deciding what to do next.

 

[treelike]

I have a role Father and a project under that - develop relations with my daughter. How do you think what is the right NA to put under this category. My variants at this point are either "Play with the daughter" or "Play for 15 minutes with the daughter" but I feel that sounds stupid Do you have any ideas on how to move this project further and how an NA should sound better?

I think you need to move these things up a level. "Develop relations with daughter" is more of a 20,000 foot level area of focus than a project. "Play with daughter" is more of a project than a next action. I think you need some next actions to help decide what games to play and what interesting activities to do together. For example:

Next Action: Search net for kids activities ideas.
Next Action: Go to library and get book about kid's games.
Next Action: Cook pancakes with child.
Next Action: Go for walk in park
etc...

I would see the child as the context for these next actions. Perhaps when you've got a big list of things that you will both enjoy doing then you won't need to worry about scheduling time to do them, the trouble might be finding time to do the other stuff you need to do at home!

 

[Borisoff]

I would see the child as the context for these next actions. Perhaps when you've got a big list of things that you will both enjoy doing then you won't need to worry about scheduling time to do them, the trouble might be finding time to do the other stuff you need to do at home!

Treelike, I like your idea! But I think these NAs will be in my @Home list along with other stuff to do. But if I would always spend time with my child (actually that's the best I can do at any given moment then there will be a lot of undone projects related to my house and personal life. So I think blocking off some time would help to keep the balance. What do you think?

Regards,

Eugene.

 

[darlakbrown]

Priorities

I think scheduling playtime with your daughter is a great idea. It may be that it sounds silly because you are thinking of your calendar as "business" only and not a "life" calendar. To me, "Playtime at park with daughter (insert name)" is a great hard landscape appointment. It's kind of like scheduling a meeting with an important client at work but in this case it is an appointment with your daughter. Hope that helps. I'm going to try this as well.

Darla

 

[Jamie Elis]

do schedule this!

The very next action is to determine in consultation with your child's mum, what times work for what kind of play (quiet, active, arts and crafts, park) and how these can fit in with your schedule. Part of a relationship with a child is the child knowing what to expect from whom and when to expect it, so once you pick some times, try to stick with them. Let's say you are get home from work at 7:30 pm, that might be pretty close to her bedtime, so maybe on the week nights she could have a bedtime snack of milk and a biscuit with you , then you brush her teeth while you sing a song or two, read a story and then tuck her in for the night. If you have time in the morning, some active play might be good, even if you have to get up earlier than you would usually and wake her up, 15 minutes with PaPa rolling a ball or looking for birds, or walking the dog together is something of great value.

 

[treelike]

Treelike, I like your idea! But I think these NAs will be in my @Home list along with other stuff to do. But if I would always spend time with my child (actually that's the best I can do at any given moment then there will be a lot of undone projects related to my house and personal life. So I think blocking off some time would help to keep the balance. What do you think?

I think you should try and schedule time with your child because ultimately this is the only way you will know if it works or not. Personally, I have never found that scheduling time helps but this doesn't mean that it won't help for your situation (or a future situation for me).

I really do think though that you should have an @Daughter context for these NA's because you don't want to reminded of the leaky tap that needs fixed and other boring @Home next actions when you're having quality time with your child! (You might want to call it @Home-Daughter to keep it separate enough but still within the home context).

Note that you can also be working on the "Play with daughter" project during other contexts. For example you might talk with work colleagues about how they keep their children amused. This would be a next action for @work.