Dadvice Weekly #40 / Start with Nothing
Dadvice Weekly - #40
I am a reasonably organized person. My calendars sync. I’ve got a solid budgeting strategy in place. I have systems. And still, on any given Tuesday morning, my computer desktop tends to look like a crime scene.
Forty-something browser tabs in each instance of Chrome, a downloads folder that I treat like a junk drawer. An email inbox that I get to zero, only to fill back up in a week. I do not lack ambition when it comes to organization, I just lack the right idea.
Most of the productivity advice out there is about adding more structure. Buy this planner, use this app, build this system, color-code these folders or tags. And I’ve tried most of it. Some of it sticks, a lot of it doesn’t, and almost none of it solves the actual problem, which is that before I can do the work, I have to first dig out from under the evidence of all the work I haven’t finished yet.
Realization: before we begin working on something, we should first start with nothing.
Not a better filing system or a new app. Nothing.
A work surface, whether it’s your physical desk, your computer desktop, your browser, your notebook, or even your kitchen counter, is meant to hold only the thing you are actively working on right now. When you’re done, you put it away. In a folder, a drawer, a cabinet, somewhere that is not the surface. The surface stays clear.
My immediate thougt: If I clear my desk I’ll lose everything. If I close my tabs I’ll forget what I was doing. If I file something away I’ll never find it again. And I hear that. But here’s the reframe: Am I using my desk as a work surface, or am I using it as storage? Same with your 47 browser tabs. If I’m not actively working on all of those things, I’m just hoarding.
Think about it the way you think about rooms in your house. A chair is for sitting. A closet is for clothes. A counter is for cooking. We all know what happens when a chair becomes a storage unit. You can’t sit on it anymore, and at some point you start to resent the chair for a problem you created. The desk, the desktop, the open tabs, it’s the same thing.
Our house has four kids in it right now. Two of ours, two in foster care. The chaos is not a metaphor. It is literal. There are days when I walk into the living room and cannot identify the floor. And I have noticed that on the days when I sit down to work without clearing even just my laptop screen first, I get about a third as much done. The mess does something to my brain before I’ve even typed a single word. It’s like trying to think clearly in a room where someone is yelling.
Starting with nothing sounds like giving up or falling behind. It actually feels like the opposite. It feels like a clean slate, a breath before a sentence, the moment before the music starts. You can see clearly. You know exactly what you’re doing and when you’re done with it. The work is just the work, and nothing else is competing for your attention.
The world of a dad is going to be messy. Your kids and inbox will see to that. The downloads folder will keep growing whether you deal with it or not. But your work surface is a space you can actually control. And it turns out that small space is where the best thinking happens.
Start with nothing. You’ll be surprised what you can build from there. -KC
Create a “Done for the Day” List
This is something I do for work but can be applied to family life as well. I want to start the day accruing new tasks and not start the day finishing what should have been done the day (or days) prior. A key habit I' learned from this book is to create a “done for the day” list.
This list is different from a to-do list. A to-do list is infinite. This is a list of items that need to be done before today ends. Its not a running list of items to do at some point this week, at some point this month, before the next status call next week, etc. The idea is you create a finite list of what is attainable to complete before signing off work or going to bed (depending on the context). It forces you to prioritize your time and discern is this something I can actually do today? This task management framework has given me peace of mind after logging off work and allows me to disconnect to enjoy whatever my day has in store after 5 pm. -SW
DIY Electrolytes
I’ve been starting each morning with water mixed with powdered electrolytes, and while I’m feeling great, single-serving electrolyte mixes like LiquidIV can cost well over a dollar per serving. This led me on a mini journey to figure out how to make my own for less money.
The blend I landed on is just three ingredients: 32g of sea salt, 25g of NoSalt (a potassium chloride substitute you can grab at Walmart for a few bucks), and 32g of magnesium malate (the ingredients make way more than this, but this is my ratio). Weigh them out once, store the batch in an airproof container, and you’re done.
I use half a teaspoon or so per 32 oz of water. I pair it with a couple squirts of Great Value Glacier Freeze water enhancer and it tastes indistinguishable from Gatorade. The whole setup costs around $25 and potentially lasts years—a fraction of a penny per serving, and one less trip to the store when spring sickness rolls through and we’re looking to keep everyone’s fluids up. –KC
Reset the House
As far as defining what “reset the house” means you can make it what you want. In my context it means that every night we run the dishwasher, pick up all the toys on the floor, and run the robot vacuum. This allows us to wake up without dishes in the sink. It also creates a clean slate for our daughter to take out new toys. I personally love running the robot vacuum at night to get dog hair and whatever else is on the floor. I can’t put to words why I get so much peace of mind resetting the house in this way but my encouragement to you is define what that means and do it. Ten minutes goes a long way.
Side note - if you don’t have a robot vacuum they really are nice to have. Since being married we’ve had a few and there’s literally thousands of options. My rec is to figure out how much or little you are wanting to pay and get one with good reviews and on sale from Amazon. When we purchased our most recent one I did a lot of research but I found at the end of the day its pretty much all the same. -SW
Tools You Need: Long Pick Set
A cheap hook and pick set is one of those tools you don’t think about until you desperately need one. I grabbed this Performance Tool set from O’Reilly after one of my sockets got stuck in a spark plug cylinder and a mechanic told me a long pick was my best bet to fish it out. It worked beautifully. Since then it’s also pulled a conditioner lid out of a shower drain and helped with a handful of other small jobs. The set is under $15, fits in a drawer, and it keeps showing up useful. –KC
Dadvice Weekly is Kyle and Skyler—two friends in their thirties, living in Colorado, settling into fatherhood and trying to stay sane. Every Tuesday we share what’s working in our homes: gear we use, routines we’ve tested, ideas we’re trying. It could be a recipe, a product that solved a problem, or just what we’re thinking about as dads.
If you have a tip, tried something we mentioned, or just want to say hi, reply to this email or message us on Substack. We read everything, and we’re always looking for what works. Glad you’re here.