#050: Free Up 5 Hours a Week: A Plan for Single Fathers

In this episode, Rob delves into the critical topic of time management for single fathers. With practical strategies and insights, he guides listeners through reclaiming control of their schedules to achieve greater balance and fulfillment in their lives.

Overview:
Rob Rohde, a single father himself, understands the unique challenges faced by single dads. In this milestone episode, he shares a three-step plan to help single fathers optimize their time and reduce stress in their daily lives.

Key Highlights:

1. Creating More Time: Rob emphasizes the importance of ruthlessly eliminating unnecessary tasks, meetings, and obligations to prioritize what truly matters. By identifying top priorities and delegating or automating tasks, single fathers can reclaim valuable time for themselves and their families.
2. Optimizing Time: Rob explores various techniques such as time blocking, batching similar tasks, and creating a distraction-free environment to maximize efficiency and productivity.
3. Leveraging Time for Impact: Rob underscores the significance of leveraging available time to make the greatest impact. By revisiting their calendars and prioritizing non-negotiables, single fathers can ensure that the most important tasks are accomplished while still allowing for meaningful moments with their families.

What to Expect:
Listeners can expect to gain valuable insights and practical strategies to improve their time management skills as single fathers. Rob's three-step plan offers actionable steps to create more time, optimize existing time, and leverage time for maximum impact, empowering single fathers to achieve greater balance and fulfillment in their lives.

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Transcript

Rob Rohde: 0:02

You are listening to The Business of Being Dad. Get ready as we delve into the world of fatherhood, leadership and legacy. I'm Rob Rohde, your humble host and fellow single father, and I'm so excited you're here to join us. This podcast was intentionally designed for you, men who believe they're destined for greatness, those who never settle for excuses but instead take meaningful action, and individuals who reject the notion of being ordinary. We're here for the ones who understand that being a phenomenal leader goes hand in hand with being an exceptional father. Why? Because we believe in you. We believe you hold the power to shape your identity as a man, a father and a leader. We believe you are the architect of your future and you get to determine the impact and legacy you'll leave behind. So get ready to explore the depths of personal growth, strengthen family bonds and create a legacy that resonates through time. Together, we'll rise, inspire and change. Let's get started. Rise, inspire and change. Let's get started. Well, hello men.

Rob Rohde: 1:17

This is episode 50 of the Business of Being Dad, the podcast dedicated to help single fathers lead their families with impact and find fulfillment in every aspect of their lives. I'm your host, Rob Rohde, and I am here as a single father myself as a single father who understands the unique challenges that we face, and I'm here to provide you with inspiration, support and practical guidance designed to help you thrive in your life as a single dad. So I just want to start by saying welcome and thank you for joining us, and I want to take a minute to just acknowledge the fact that we have now completed the 50th episode of this podcast and, while it's still early, it's been an incredible journey for me. Thank you for tuning in, for providing feedback and for really being my inspiration as I've moved forward with this project. It has been so much fun producing this show, as well as getting an opportunity just to meet some great people, and over the next couple of months, we're going to start bringing in some expert guests to try to get other perspectives on what it's like to be a single father. But let's go ahead and jump into today's conversation. Today we are going to be talking about a topic that we could all use a little help with time management.

Rob Rohde: 2:29

As single fathers, we often find ourselves trying to juggle so many different things at once. We have all these responsibilities and we struggle to find this balance between work and family and personal life, and in this episode, we're going to take a look at some practical strategies and some hacks that you can take that will help you make the most of your time and reduce the stress in your daily life. So, if we're being honest with ourselves, the truth is most of us, as single fathers, fail at balancing our career and family for one simple reason we don't have a plan, and so instead, we just go through life, reacting to whatever comes our way, and often we're left with a calendar that's full of meetings and obligations and endless tasks that don't even align with our priorities, things that we don't even actually care about. So we constantly feel busy and we feel like we're not accomplishing anything. So we constantly feel busy and we feel like we're not accomplishing anything. And here's the real kicker Most of the items on our calendar were put there by someone else. Does that sound familiar to you? Because it does to me. That was my story for years, but not anymore, because I realized that, as a single dad, my time was way too valuable to allow this to continue to happen. So now I do have a plan, and by the end of this episode, you will too. As a single dad, my time was way too valuable to allow this to continue to happen. So now I do have a plan, and by the end of this episode, you will too. In a few minutes, I'm going to share the simple three-step process that I created to help single fathers, men like me and men like you take back our time. So that's what we're diving into today.

Rob Rohde: 4:02

If you struggle to find the time you want to pursue your goals and your dreams, this episode's for you. If you wish you had more time to spend with your kids, this is for you. Or maybe you're a time ninja, but you're always looking for more ways and more tips on how to level up your TMS, your time management skills, then this is also for you. So let's settle in, grab our beverage of choice For me that's a martini and let's get started, because by the end of this episode, we will have a plan. So are you ready? Let's go.

Rob Rohde: 4:35

So, in the words of William Penn, time is what we want the most, but it's what we use the worst, and you know this is so true. Those words certainly ring true to me. We go through our lives always saying that we don't have time. We wish we had more time, but yet we don't use the time that we have effectively, we certainly don't use it to its maximum potential. And so why is time management so important to us as dads, as single dads? Because we are busy, because we often feel overwhelmed, because we have stress and new responsibilities, and when we feel like we don't have enough time to do what we want, especially to focus on the important things, our stress increases and we tend to feel like we're failing if we don't have the time for the things that we really want to be focused on. So let's just start by acknowledging the fact that time management is crucial for us as single dads In order to really balance or integrate the demands of work and parenting and our personal obligations. We have to become masters of time, and if we do this, then we can prioritize the things that truly matter to us, we can reduce our stress and we can create more meaningful moments with our families. So that's what we're chasing after in this episode.

Rob Rohde: 5:56

So let's take a look at the three-step plan. The first step is to create more time. I know that sounds silly, like it's impossible to create more time, but this is what I mean by that. What I am referring to is ruthlessly eliminating all unnecessary tasks, all unnecessary meetings and all unnecessary obligations, and so, really, this step starts out with prioritization, identifying the tasks and responsibilities that are essential so that we can allocate our time accordingly. So, in simple words, what do we care about? What do we want to spend our time accordingly?

Rob Rohde: 6:35

So, in simple words, what do we care about? What do we want to spend our time on? What are, kind of the biggest things and the biggest areas that we want to make sure that we have time for? And if our calendar and our lives are filled up with things that do not fit into this category, then we need to take a look at those. Can we eliminate some of those things? I firmly believe that we can do almost anything, but we definitely cannot do everything, and so look for things that you can eliminate.

Rob Rohde: 7:02

So, once you've eliminated all the unnecessary things and you've identified your top priorities, then take a look at things that maybe you couldn't eliminate, but it doesn't necessarily have to be you that does it. So are there things that you can delegate or even potentially automate in order to free up some time? So don't be afraid to ask for help or maybe outsource certain tasks that can be handled by other people, because this allows you to free up some really valuable time for yourself and for your family. So for me, these are items like shopping, cleaning, running errands and things along those lines. So that's number one create more time. And then number two is to optimize the time that we do have. So there are several ways we can do this, and we've talked about these in other episodes techniques like time blocking or creating a distraction-free environment, or batching, and so that's what I'm talking about here.

Rob Rohde: 8:01

So I really like to start by batching similar tasks so that we can streamline our workflow, and then I look at blocking off time for the things that require more deep work and then creating an environment where my distractions are eliminated and not forgetting to take frequent breaks in order to help increase our productivity. So step one was to create more time through elimination, delegation and automation. Step two is to optimize the time that we do have by becoming more efficient through batching and eliminating distractions and also remembering to take breaks to increase our productivity. And then step three is to leverage our time in order to make the greatest impact. So, again, this can be accomplished in a variety of ways. Often, it helps to just start with some small changes to not overwhelm yourself, but instead look at creating these incremental improvements to your daily routine. So, again, you could treat it like an experiment that you could modify and adjust based on the results that you get.

Rob Rohde: 9:06

But the way that it all starts, when it comes to leveraging my time in order to make the greatest impact is with my calendar, and so, for me, I take a look at my top priorities, like the big things in my life that are most important to me. So my top priorities and my non-negotiables, I take those and I put them into my calendar first. That's the key. First, I don't try to fit those around everything else. I do the opposite. I've defined that these are the most important things to me, and so I enter them into my calendar. First, I try to include free time and buffer time, and then an other key is to make sure that we had time in here for our relationships and our self-care as well. But once we have inserted our top priorities and our non-negotiables, then we take a look at whatever's left, and that is the time that we have available for items that we would view as being less important or less urgent. So, again, the three-step process create more time, optimize the time you do have and leverage your time to make the greatest impact.

Rob Rohde: 10:13

This simple three-step process can help you free up four to five hours every single week. What would you do with an extra four to five hours? Maybe spend it with your kids, maybe do something fun, or maybe even just plain relax, but the key is, you will free up time in your schedule while also still making sure that the most important things get done. So our action item for this week is to choose one of these three areas and focus on that. Perhaps look at ways of creating more time by eliminating all unnecessary things, delegating items that need to be done, but maybe you don't have to be the one to do them, and look for things that maybe you can even automate so that you don't have to do it or have someone else do it. Then, number two, look for ways to optimize your time by batching similar tasks, blocking off time for deep work, eliminating distractions and increasing productivity. Or, number three, look for ways of leveraging the time that you do have available in order to make the greatest impact. And so the way I recommend doing this is to revisit your calendar and enter your top priorities and non-negotiables first, without forgetting to include time for relationships and self-care.

Rob Rohde: 11:31

So, as we wrap up this short episode, I hope that you found some value in it. My goal was to encourage you to think about time management in a different way, to consider new ways of implementing old strategies and to explore how you can maybe rethink your approach to time management as a single father. Remember, the goal isn't actually to manage our time, it's to create more time that allows for these meaningful moments to occur, whether those are meaningful moments with our family, or meaningful experiences for ourselves, or whatever that might look like to you. So, again, I want to thank you for tuning into this episode. If you found it helpful, then please subscribe, and you can also follow me on social media. I am most active on LinkedIn and Instagram, and you can find me at Rob Brody, where I offer daily tips and strategies to help you thrive as a single father.

Rob Rohde: 12:26

So, anyway, until next time, remember to make the most of every moment that you have and prioritize what truly matters. Take care, men, I'll catch you in the next one. Thank you for joining us for the Business of Being Dad podcast. If you found value in today's episode, I encourage you to share it with a friend who could benefit from our discussions on fatherhood, leadership and legacy. Together, let's build a community of like-minded men who embrace ownership, commit to growth and make an impact. And now, before we go, remember greatness is within your reach, so stay strong, stay focused and create your legacy. I'm Rob Rohde and you've been listening to the Business of Being Dad, where fatherhood meets success. See you in the next episode.