“I once attended a seminar on time management where the speaker advised trimming obligations down to those that were high-priority, high-yield. After the seminar, I told the speaker he had just described the juggling act of parenting. Rid your agenda of low-priority, low-yield tasks that suck up your energy, yet yield little return. Instead, concentrate on those, which give a good return on your investment of time—being a dad.”
—Dr. Bill Sears
Clear your deck. Strip it down. Unburden it from those drudgery tasks that play the double role of time leeches and energy vampires. They’re sneaky, those tasks. Slipping in under the radar, pretending to matter. But in reality, they’re as consequential as a shadow in a dark room—always present, yet unnoticed and inconsequential.
Picture this: You’re a gold prospector. You’ve got a pan in your hand. You swirl it around, watching the dirt and pebbles flow away. What you’re looking for? The nuggets. The big, chunky bits of gold that will make your time worthwhile. So why do we spend our days panning for dust? Grains of inconsequential tasks that, when added up, amount to a whole lot of nothing.
In this busy hive we call life, it’s all about the honey. Seek out the sweet spots. The tasks that, like bees to flowers, draw you in and deliver a payload of satisfaction. You want to feel like you’re humming in tune with the universe, not dragging a cart of worthless pebbles up a mountain.
So what’s your gold? It could be anything that makes your heart beat faster. That ignites a spark in your soul. Something that leaves you fulfilled and satisfied, like a hearty meal after a long day. The punchline here? It doesn’t have to be grand or world-changing. It could be as simple, as profound as being a dad.
Fatherhood. Now there’s a high-yield task. A dad isn’t just a title—it’s a role. It’s an investment, and it’s one that pays dividends. Every laugh, every bedtime story, every shared victory, every lesson learned—it’s a rich return on your time investment. A currency that can’t be measured in dollars or hours, but in heartbeats and moments.
So trade your shadow tasks for gold nuggets. Prioritize fatherhood. That’s a prospect worth mining.
