I’m all about efficiency and effectiveness. I spend the better part of my time reading business books delving into the wilds of productivity literature. Over half the podcasts I listen to are about productivity. My latest book purchase was the new addition of David Allen’s Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. In short, I spend a lot of time thinking about how to be productive.

The problem that I face is that life keeps getting in the way.

I’ll be rocking along on a project, and something will come up. It’s usually something that’s brought to my attention by somebody in the Hectic Household. Take yesterday for example…

It was a Sunday. A bright and shining Sunday, with the promise of spectacular weather (for mid-March) with very little wind (a rarity in Central Kansas), very pleasant temperatures, and not a hint of precipitation in the forecast. The kind of day when you get up and you think “I really can get it all done, even the weather is on my side”.

I awoke feeling refreshed, ready to tackle the day. I’ve been trying to get to a proper Weekly Review as outlined in GTD for a while. Yesterday I sat down and went through some of the projects in my Todoist task manager and selected those that were going to get my attention. I’ve decided to start slowly and make the weekly review about what projects I am going to address during the week. Then I plan to perform a daily review to ascertain what tasks need to be tackled each day. It’s a modification of a system that I’ve been using for a while that hasn’t been working for me. I know my psyche, and I recognize that trying to upend my entire process will just lead to a reversion to my old habits. So this is a conscious effort to install some new habits that will lead to better use of my time and less stress. See, that whole efficient and effective thing permeates everything I do.

I got pretty deep into the review and created a really good plan for the day. I knew that I had a bit more on my plate than I would probably be able to accomplish, but I wanted to bite off a tad more than I could chew rather than leave too much unplanned. It was a conscious decision to fill the day to the brim.

One of my tasks was to attend church, and that task went off without a hitch. In fact, my entire morning ritual went over very smoothly. During the service I even jotted down some ideas for a blog post. Some things just hit me in church and several of them have turned into my most popular blog posts. Again, even when I’m not trying it seems my brain is working. Efficient and effective is so ingrained that I can’t seem to turn it off.

On the drive home, I was musing over the tasks ahead and actually made a plan of attack as to which task I was going to address first. I used the short drive to prioritize my day, which was something that I hadn’t done earlier. I felt very accomplished, and when I strode into the house I felt like I had the world at my fingertips…all sorted, organized, and ready to go.

Have you ever heard the Yiddish proverb, “Man plans and God Laughs”?

Yesterday was definitively one of those days. I entered the house with my plan in my head, ready to be executed. All I needed was some time and space. I was going to check things off in my Todoist like a champion. I was going to win a productivity gold medal. I was going to end the day on an efficiency and effectiveness high. So accomplished that they would be talking about me in Heaven.

Hahahahaha…

They were talking about me in Heaven alright. God was probably sitting at the table with his buddies (who are God’s buddies in Heaven, anyway?) and said something like “See that guy, Hectic Dad? Watch how I throw a wrench into his neatly planned day!”

As you can guess, it hit the fan about the time I got four steps into the house. Hectic 18 reminded me that we hadn’t made a decision about the car that had broken down the day before. Hectic 12 asked me if she could go to the skating rink with her friend Brandi. Hectic 15 and Hectic Mom told me they had been working in his room, had disassembled most of the ceiling fan, and wanted to know if I thought they were capable of removing the remainder of the fan and installing a new one without guidance. Hectic Grandson needed a hug, and his Mom (Hectic 25) had some questions that she wanted to bounce off me about her graduate Business Law class.

Even the kids out of town got in the act. Hectic 19 sent me an iMessage with some questions about nested functions in Excel and Hectic 21 texted me about a scholarship she’s applying for.

Exactly zero of those items were in my neatly sorted, organized, and prepared plan. Zero.

Honestly, at that moment, barely in the house for two minutes, I felt like everything had fallen apart. The idea “my life is in tatters” rose up in my brain. I was at the breaking point and overwhelmed. I just wanted to shout “You guys, I have a plan and none of this is in it…leave me alone!” But I didn’t shout that. I addressed each of the issues at hand. Admittedly, I did a better job at some of them than at others. I outlined the next actions related to the car, helped plan the skating adventure, solved the Excel function issue, handled the scholarship questions, hugged Hectic Grandson while addressing the Business Law questions.

I’m a tad embarrassed to admit that I was pretty grumpy as I changed clothes and went upstairs to remove and replace the ceiling fan. I had explained that we couldn’t turn off the breaker for that fan because of other appliances on the circuit, so it was best that someone experienced in ceiling fan replacement do the work. That meant the job fell to me. I asked how soon they needed the work done, and it was made clear this was an emergency. Hectic 15 and Hectic Mom had a very small window when they could work together on the rest of the room…and I was a bottleneck to their plan. The informed me that they had a lot more work to do on the room, and my work needed to be completed before they could proceed any further.

I came this close to blowing a gasket.

*I* was the bottleneck? The one person who hadn’t been consulted about when this project would take place? The one person in the entire family who had actually made a plan for the day. The one person who never gets to do things on his own time. I was the bottleneck?

It was a struggle, but I kept my mouth shut. What good would it do to be pissed off? And even more, what good would it do to let them know I was angry? Nothing ever seems to come of it…heck in over 25 years nobody in the Hectic House has changed their approach, so why should I expect that to suddenly start now?

I trudged up the stairs in a foul mood…all my neatly outlined plans tattered. I envisioned my planner pages torn to shreds with the scraps of paper strewn about. I was at everyone else’s mercy, my plans were irrelevant. It was frustrating, to say the least. Everyone else in the house fails to plan ahead, creates emergencies, and then dumps it all on me. Talk about feeling sorry for myself. The vision of the tattered pages of my planner kept rising up in my head, and my angst continued to rise.

Fortunately, I kept my head clear enough that I didn’t electrocute myself. Having had some very bad experiences with ceiling fans in the past (including a trip to the hospital after shorting one out), I was feeling bit fortunate. The nature of the fan replacement was physically and mentally rigorous enough that my mood began to dissipate. In fact, it wilted enough that I was able to think about what was really going on.

I realized that I’m the one person in our household who has a set of skills that no one else has. I’m the one who has fairly complete control over my own time. That happens when you don’t have a job outside the house, do all your work on your own schedule, and your primary job is to take care of a toddler. That time flexibility means that I can attack a lot of tasks on short notice. And I bring a fair bit of knowledge to most of them.

It also hit me that the Hectic Family depends on me to be able to pick up their messes. They leave for school, work, or sports with full knowledge that anything they haven’t completed I can bring across the finish line. Start a load of laundry and need to go to bed? Just ask Dad, he’ll put it in the dryer. Need the car filled with gas? Ask Dad, he’ll swap cars, fill it, and even pay for the gas. Forget some paperwork for work or school on the counter? Dad will bring it to you.

I’ve heard it said that the lowest face on a totem pole is the one that keeps all the other faces out of the mud. Yesterday I realized that not only is that true, but that bottom face is vitally important. I’m the bottom of the Hectic Totem pole. I keep everybody else’s face out of the mud. I’m the go-to guy in the house. The one that everybody can depend on to pick up the slack, fill in the gaps, and generally do what everybody else can’t get to.

It’s what I do.

As part of that realization, I also discovered that my life isn’t really in tatters. It’s not a bunch of torn pieces of a well-intentioned, well-considered, and excruciatingly detailed plan scattered all over the floor. It’s a puzzle. The kind of puzzle where the pieces are all different shapes and sizes. But a puzzle that is held together by creativity, energy, and execution. While I’m still not sure what the puzzle is supposed to look like, I finally understand that it’s probably not important that I understand the whole picture. I sure as Heck know that I’m not supposed to be able to control what pieces are available. My job is to put the pieces together as best I can to enable the rest of the Hectic Household to do their thing. To succeed in their areas. To achieve everything that they can.

On the one hand, that means that I have to sacrifice a little bit of my efficiency and effectiveness. It means that I have to be ready and able to attack emergencies created by the other members of the family at a moments notice. More importantly, it means that I need to slough off my attitude and embrace my role. Oddly, just writing this post has helped me start on that journey. I’ve come to realize that while I’m not going to get a lot of accolades for what I do, the Hectic Household runs far better with me than it would run without me. I’m not a star player. I’m not the one that the media wants to interview. I’m not going to be the one that gets my photo splashed across the front page. But I am the one who creates an atmosphere where the family stars can shine their brightest. I’m the guy who lifts them up so they can succeed. I’m the behind-the-scenes, supporting cast member…but one who’s vital to the success of the entire production.

And quite honestly, I’ve finally realized that I’m OK with that. In fact, I’m GREAT with that.

It’s what I do.