Here’s what a typical day in the life of a U.S. Army reservist, on active duty in Afghanistan, is like.

05:00
Wake up, shake last night’s guard duty off, get dressed and prep for the day.

06:00
Chow time at the DFAC. Grab some eggs, sausages, potatoes and English muffins and make myself a breakfast sandwich. Grab a to-go box with extra food for lunch, since we’ll be outside the gate and won’t return until later in the day.

08:00
Everyone gathers for morning roundup; we go over the day’s activities and roll out by 08:15.

08:15
Roll out.

08:45 - 18:00
Reach destination and work through the day until we leave.

18:30
Head to the gym for an evening workout.

19:15
Dinner chow. Load up on proteins and veggies.

22:00
Lights out.

Day in, day out. It’s a manageable schedule, with little interference from the outside world, and less distractions to stop you from achieving ideal body weight and body fat percentage.

Here’s what a typical day looks like for stay-at-home dads who freelance and try to stay healthy (like myself):

06:00
Wake up

06:15
Get breakfast ready for the kids, aged two and three years old, both boys. (Hopefully they sleep in today so I can have some “me” time.)

06:17
Kids are awake and already asking for popsicles and syrup for breakfast (damn, no “me” time today).

07:00
Get kids ready for school.

08:00
Drop kids off at school.

09:00
Sit down to finally get some work done for a client.

10:00
School calls. Son is sick, has a fever and needs to be picked up.

11:00
Son is at home, feeling like crap, irritable, cranky; wants my full, undivided attention along with popsicles and syrup.

17:00
Pick up other son from school.

18:00
Make dinner. This time the kids want pancakes and Danimals topping. No dice, son.

19:00
Give kids shower.

20:00
Bedtime story and put the kids to sleep.

21:00
Sit down to finish up work that I haven’t started yet.

21:10
Kids are actually super secret spies who can pretend they’re sleeping and start bouncing on the bed. One of the spy monkeys bounced too high and hit his head against his brother’s, while simultaneously pulling them both down to the floor where they’re met with rug to face.

22:00
Kids are finally asleep (I pray they are). What was I doing again? Damn...missed my workout again. Too exhausted. Must...sleep...

06:00 Next Day
Rinse & Repeat

It can be extremely frustrating trying to get everything in order and maintained so you can squeeze in a little workout time when you have kids. You don’t want to neglect your children, but you also need to take care of yourself and get things done.

This is what my typical day looked like after returning home from Afghanistan. I was more stressed out at home than I was on duty. It’s crazy how easily kids can get under your skin and push your buttons like puppet masters.

So I had to make some changes: drastic changes in order to stay sane, manage my time, and decompress from the daily stresses.

I used to be a night owl. I'd put my kids to sleep (usually having to lay in bed with them) and get started on work around 10pm until about 2am and then sleep in till about 10am. Luckily at the time, my wife was a stay-at-home mom. But now that she’s working as well, neither of us can afford to sleep in...which leads me into the five strategies I’ve used that you can implement to get a handle on being a productive parent:

1. Night owl or morning bird — pick ONE

You’re either a night owl or morning bird. Most people will rarely ever change from one to the other and that’s fine. You just need to pick one.

I am now working on joining the 5am Club and throwing myself into the ranks of the successful by actively practicing on waking up at 5am (yes, it is definitely something that needs practice), which is perfect for me. That gives me a couple of hours before the kids wake up to get some writing done and get a quick 30 minute workout in.

I’ll typically wake up (if I do make it at 5am) and have a cup of coffee, sit down and write for about 30-45 minutes, throw on my running shoes and head to my apartment’s gym for 30 minutes, come home, shower, and I’m refreshed and energetic for the day, with the added benefit of having a better sleep. I’m usually in bed by 9-10pm. Usually...

2. Get a virtual assistant.

I’ve just started experimenting with a virtual assistant, and holy hell, I’m loving it.

My business (as a marketing copywriter and product creator), requires client prospecting and customer research. That requires doing A LOT of research. I hate research. Give it to the virtual assistant. Me happy.

It’s so nice to just hand off the boring work to someone else so I can free up some time to just sit, relax, and write caveman style.

Now, this isn’t going to be the right option for everyone, and it is just one way to get things done without having an aneurysm.

Other cool things you can do with a virtual assistant?

• Find a place to take the boys for family trips.
• Remind me when it’s my wedding anniversary and help me find a gift for my wife.
• Book plane tickets, schedule appointments in Gcal, and make phone calls to utility companies.

All in all, it’s awesome having a VA. I can’t recommend or list a bunch of VA services, as I’ve only used one, Zirtual.com. Do your homework, research different companies, and choose one if you can afford it. They all have different pricing models and rates.

3. Set up a daily routine and automate your day.

Okay, this is the unsexy stuff about productivity. Routines and schedules. And it seems a little strict for most parents to put your kids on a schedule, but let’s be honest here. Your kids can’t manage their own time. And if you let them do whatever the hell they want to, that will destroy your productivity and energy levels. Your kids need as much of a schedule as you do.

Their schedule doesn’t have to be as rigid as yours, and you’ll always have to be flexible since kids won’t always be too pleased or compliant with what you want out of them. But this definitely helps in putting your day on autopilot, so you have to think less about what to do.

We’re naturally cognitive misers, meaning we only have enough cognition to do a few things. If you’re constantly thinking and trying to do 20, 30, 50 things, you’re not going to do any of them. Getting on a daily routine and schedule and making a habit of it frees up our brain (and reduces the mental energy used) to continue being productive throughout the day. It also means more energy for “Daddy’s the zombie monster, let’s run away and scream” playtime.

Yep, it’s boring work. Writing down your daily routine and following it. But once you get the hang of it, you’ll automatically go through the motions with ease.

A few things I’ve set up:
• Every night, I reload the coffee maker and set a delay to brew the morning after around 5:30am
• Have breakfast ready by 7am (usually consisting of cereal and fruits laid out with milk ready to pour)
• Playtime hours set throughout the day
• Naptime (which coincidentally falls under Daddy’s work time)
• Feeding times
• Bath time
• Story time
• Bedtime

4. Minimize your to-do list to two to three items, and write them down by hand

Here’s what happens when you use a to-do list app on your phone or computer. You type all these things down that you need to get done, and at the most, accomplish one or two. But now you still have 10-15 items still left, and that’s demotivating because tomorrow you have another five things to add to the list.

So write it by hand on an index card or whatever you have handy. That limits the “hoarding” of to-do items on your list. Prioritize. Pick just two or three items that you’ll feel great about getting done the next day. You’ll get more done this way and not feel like you’re building a mountain of “things” which will never get done.

This is a huge mind shift for most people. I definitely had a hard time restricting myself from just listing out every little thing I needed to get done in one day. Now I have a master list of things I want to get done for the week, and only pick two to three things to get done at a time.

Just make sure they’re items that if you got done for that day, you’d feel great about it. That’s what keeps the momentum going.

5. Keep a time diary.

It’s exactly what it sounds like, and this could be the most useful piece of data you ever record about yourself.

I found this tip from Donald Trump (don’t remember where I read it), and a few other sites, like this one over at The Simple Dollar.

Start tracking your time. You can either do it every hour, every half hour, every 15 minutes (a bit extreme but the more details you can get, the better). Do it for a week if you can. I’m surprised some people can do it for a month or two. That would be ideal, but let’s not kid ourselves here.

Honestly, I think everyone should do this — you’ll find some interesting facts about yourself. But no one does, because no one really wants to know that they wasted four hours a day on Facebook. Yeah it sucks to learn that, but it’s extremely helpful in cutting out wasteful activities.

How I would track my time, and a good place to start, is by using RescueTime. You can get a free account and it’s all automated so you don’t have to enter which websites you were on or which app you used for the day.

The full upgrade lets you block time-wasting websites (aka Facebook, Twitter, and the quicksand of the internet — Reddit), and track offline time such as phone calls, errands, and break times.

The article from The Simple Dollar explains in more details about what you can glean from all the data you collect on yourself as that is beyond the scope of this article.

One Last Thing...

Don’t try to implement all five strategies at once! Just pick one to start, run with it for a week, record your results with it and decide if it’s a good strategy for you. Everyone’s different, and there is no ONE ultimate way to be productive. It’s all trial and error, and it took me a long time to figure out just a fraction of what works for me (mainly because I can be slow at times). Test what works for you. Good luck!