I did something yesterday that I’ve never done before and it resulted in the best break I’ve had recently.
You might be wondering what on earth this could be. Given my profession, maybe it was scoring a partnership with a big sponsor. Perhaps I’d finally managed to lay my hands on a review unit I’d been seeking for a long time. Surely, it had something to do with hitting a subscriber milestone or a particular video achieving a greater-than-predicted view count?
It wasn’t any of those things. In fact, it wasn’t related directly to this business at all.
My best break came when I took my son swimming, on my own for the first time, at 11am on a Thursday.
I should put some context around this, really, shouldn’t I? Firstly, my son is a smidgen over one-year-old. We’re still in the phase of introducing him to the concept of swimming (or, more accurately, splashing about in a massive bath) via lessons at a local pool. My girlfriend has undertaken most of these lessons due to the fact they’re usually midweek affairs and I’m typically stuck in front of a camera or knee-deep in an edit.
We’ve taken him to these lessons together, but yesterday was the first time I downed tools completely, gave my girlfriend a break and headed to the pool with the little guy. Just the two of us; Batman and Robin.
It was the best time I’ve spent doing anything this week, by an indefinable margin. And this is during a week where I’ve received very important embargoed products, scored new partnerships with important brands, and battled with a to-do list which was verging on impossible (if anyone asks how things are going at the moment, my default reply is “it is utterly manic”).
At 11am yesterday, none of that stuff mattered. I left the studio with work half finished and that to-do list only chipped away at, yet I still somehow completely switched off from work. I haven’t done that for years, and I can confirm that it is something I am going to be doing far more regularly going forward. What I needed, clearly, was a catalyst - and the desire to help my son feel his way further into this world and, more importantly, spend some invaluable time alone with him, provided just that.
It also revealed that I’ve missed numerous chances to do something similar, because, you know what? Nothing went wrong; I’m still on track to finish those to-do list items, and my content production hasn’t crawled to a halt. Given the nature of what I was doing during that extracurricular time, I didn’t find myself worrying about ‘being away from the desk’ - the thought never entered my mind and there wasn’t a conscious effort required to keep it at bay, either.
Yesterday was a big lesson for me. I realised that I’m not a slave to my to-do list, diary, or desire to never lift the gas from the production pedal. The family has always been the most important thing to me, but the arrival of my son and the incredible opportunities that come with being a dad continually force me to take stock of my approach to work. My friends always said that becoming a parent changes everything - I just didn’t realise how far it extended beyond reducing your ability to go to the pub.
We all have more time in our diaries than we think. That bulging to-do list - even if you operate primarily on your own - will get done. But you should never shy away from completely switching off. I returned to the studio yesterday feeling energised, happy, and ready to crack on. And, trust me - I don’t always enter the studio with that frame of mind!
This is wonderful to read. My son is 15 and I still treasure these moments…it flies by so quickly.