Parenting & Productivity—Reflections on My First Few Weeks as a New Dad

This is going to be a little different than what you’ll typically see from me. No technical insights to share—just a reflection on what it’s like to become a working parent for the first time.

One caveat—thanks to the incredible company I work for (ClickUp), I have the incredible honor of getting 12 weeks paid time off as a new parent. I couldn’t be more thankful for it, and it clearly colored my experience in a way not everyone is blessed to experience.

My wife and I welcomed our first son into the world a few weeks ago. Immediately, everything was different.

Any parents reading this will immediately know what I mean by that. The rest of you will likely learn eventually.

The first week or two, we didn’t get any sleep. The onslaught of crying, diapers, housework, and all the other needs that come with a newborn consumed my mind almost completely. I did take one or two meetings that first couple of weeks, but I can barely even remember them from how sleep-deprived I was.

After that first two weeks though, I started to think about how I would transition from survival mode back to work and routine.

Transparently—it’s been hard. The lack of sleep, emotional and time demands of a new child, and general lack of consistency make it hard to be productive.

My approach to productivity has always been simple. A few hours of deep, focused work with no distractions will get me much farther than 10-12 hours in a distracted state, bouncing from task to task.

As a new parent, it can feel impossible to find those pockets of “deep work” I typically crave.

Every time I think I have an hour two to make progress, something happens—a diaper change, a crying baby, or something completely unexpected.

I’ve had the flexibility so far to focus on my son rather than my work, but that won’t last forever. I have to find a new way to approach my work.

In just a few weeks, I’ll return to my full-time job. Overnight, I’ll have to start adapting and adjusting to this new way of working.

It feels like in just these few weeks, I’ve forgotten half of what I know about marketing, programming, and all the other skills I use at my job.

I know it will all come back in no time, but my entire perspective on the world is different than it was before.

My wife decided to stay home with our son, at least for the first few years, so there’s a level of pressure, as a new dad, to work even harder to support them.

The drive to work hard and be successful has new meaning. It’s no longer about “success”, in a traditional sense, but about building the best life I can for my son. And at the same time, I want to be there for him, too.

My primary goal in these upcoming months is to find the balance between drive, hard work, and being there for my family. I think everyone tries to find that balance, but many fail. And their kids pay the price.

So many parents neglect their families for the sake of a career—that’s the last thing I want to do.

But others end up losing their drive and ambition entirely. It’s easy to coast when you’re exhausted and overwhelmed with all those new responsibilities. I don’t want that to happen to me either.

My life will need to slow down. I know that.

If I want to stay sane, love my family, and not burnout, I’ll have to slow down and let things go.

In that, though, I don’t want to lose any of my ambition. I want to give my all in my work every day, always pushing towards bigger and better. It will just take some time to learn how to do that.

For now, as I think about what’s to come, I’m trying to step back, and see it one day at a time. Each day will bring it’s own challenges, and I must take them in stride.

I’m excited for the next chapter. With this new level of purpose and challenge I feel, despite it being a little scary, I know I’m in for the best chapter of my life so far.

That all said, it will take some adjusting. You likely won’t get these newsletters in your inbox quite as often for a little while.

If I have something worth saying, I’ll say it, but this is one place I need to slow down for now to focus on my family. I hope to at least publish once a month or so, but we’ll see how things go over the coming weeks.

There’s also a LOT happening in the digital marketing world—almost too much for one person to keep up with—so I want to make sure the information I share here is worth your time and won’t be irrelevant in just a couple of weeks.

Thanks again for all your support so far, and I’m excited for the road ahead.

Onward,

Kirkland