0:00:00 - 0:00:20 Do they have topics here? Uh We're gonna talk about some, some very practical ways of spending time with Children more effectively for higher impact. Uh I'm, I'm quite excited about this because it's a nice um, brief chunk of ideas that, that costs very little to implement once you understand it and 0:00:19 - 0:00:43 um yields a tremendous, huge impact that's lifelong. It touches on um everything we care about as parents. It's, it's the easiest thing in the world to convince someone of or it ought to be because it doesn't matter if we're talking about doing things that, that have a uh uh lead to greater benefit for 0:00:43 - 0:01:05 our Children or for ourselves. You know, when, when we talk about being parents, sometimes people put on a mask of altruism and pretend that there's some disembodied spirit of benevolence, um or that they have to be in order to be a good parent and, you know, maybe that's the ideal, I don't know. But 0:01:05 - 0:01:27 along the way, we have to, we have to uh contend with things like the need for sleep and, you know, we don't have infinite energy or infinite good mood or infinite excitement about the things that excite our Children and that's ok. If we're not realistic about that, we're not gonna get very far. If the 0:01:27 - 0:01:47 things we're talking about can only be implemented by perfect people. We're in big trouble, but this is not like that at all. It's a very practical thing and no matter what lens you look at it in, uh, whether it's, it's more pure benevolence towards Children or practical. What do I do? Because I don't 0:01:46 - 0:02:07 have any extra energy or time. Well, guess what these ideas will get you more of all good things. It's gonna get you more time. Uh, more energy. Uh you, you'll be able to do more with what you have this, uh if you apply these things, you're not gonna end up with less, you'll end up with more and better 0:02:07 - 0:02:26 . And so it's the easiest thing from a logical perspective in the world to convince someone of because there, there is no cost. You will only get more out of this than you put in if you do it right. And this is um very easy to talk through. It's, this is a short presentation as far as things go because 0:02:26 - 0:02:45 there just isn't that much to it. So what seems like a cloud of darkness right now? A scary thing. Who knows what's in there? It's gonna create extra demands on. No, we're just gonna turn the light switch on. It'll be super clear and then you just go and do it and it's infinitely flexible as you'll see 0:02:44 - 0:03:03 , just from a generic point of view. Um, the, the bottom line up front is you can't do this incorrectly. There, there are, of course, better ways of doing it and worse ways of doing it. But anything you do, this is like a magic machine. You throw anything into it, you will get more out of it. So, what 0:03:03 - 0:03:20 are some generic benefits of spending, um, more high quality time with your kids? Well, they're gonna feel loved. That's, that's pretty easy to realize. Uh, maybe something that's not so obvious that every minute you spend with them is a minute they can't spend doing something worse. And depending on 0:03:20 - 0:03:38 your Children, I've got one in mind, you know, kids have a way of, of drifting towards things that they probably shouldn't be doing and certainly things that wouldn't be the best possible way a human of their capacity could spend that time. Right. And this is one of the great benefits of spending time 0:03:38 - 0:04:00 with them is that, um, by, by joining together your presence with theirs, you can help guide them into greater uses of their time. And what you'll see is this is a win, win, big time for you if you do it right. And, and you'll see that, uh, hopefully, hopefully it opens your mind to ways of doing this 0:04:00 - 0:04:19 , that you hadn't thought of before. But, but once you're shown, it's gonna become, it's just gonna be so straightforward. Uh There's this idea of osmosis, th this could be a really deep thing to talk through and let's just keep it shallow, but suffice it to say that when you spend time with someone 0:04:18 - 0:04:43 and if someone, um it's someone that's, that's not as far ahead in some respect as you are, the benefit you render to them will exist even if you say and do nothing. That's the, that's the extremity of it. Just being in the presence of a person better than you changes you. There's something about that 0:04:43 - 0:05:01 and it's deep and we could go there. But we, we're not going to, this is just very practical explanation of, of some ideas, but you need to know that. And what that does is it establishes a baseline that, that cements this idea that you just, you can't do this wrong just being there makes a difference 0:05:00 - 0:05:21 . And um you know, there, there may come a time in life and, and I think as a parent, I think we all share this hope that our Children surpass us as people. But we've got this enormous head start and so just being around them is imparting value and that's great because anything we add on top of that 0:05:21 - 0:05:42 , it's just icing on the cake and this, this whole presentation is about the icing. But you, if you, if you just take a step, you've already won. That's, that's my point here. So you can do as much or as little as you'd like. And it's all good. And then, um, as you, as you, as you become, and hopefully 0:05:41 - 0:05:59 you've made a lot of progress in this already in your life as you become a better person. Um, spending time with your child, you don't realize that every minute is increasing their trust for you. They're seeing more and more of you and what it's doing is building up this catalog of evidence for why they 0:05:59 - 0:06:14 should believe that you have any idea of what you're talking about when you say something. And as some of, you know, this is sort of a ticking time bomb or, or maybe better think of it as san through an hourglass because once you get to the teenage years and they start building evidence that they are 0:06:13 - 0:06:37 capable of developing an independent view of the world, which is good. That's, that's definitely a necessary thing for them to learn. They will start challenging yours, which is also good. But the hope is that they pick their battles uh wisely, namely on the things where they do have something extra 0:06:37 - 0:07:07 to con contribute. Um As, as uh one of my mentors once told me uh morphing it into general terms, do what I do better than you as well as I do it. And then you can come up with a better way and, and that's sort of the mentality that we will implicitly teach or at least develop evidence to support. You're 0:07:06 - 0:07:30 , you're basically stockpiling um weapons for a future battle there or hopefully avoiding the battle altogether in, in every, every way that's possible. Anyway, don't want to dwell too long on that. But the point is um you will convey tremendous effects just by being there and uh everything on top of 0:07:30 - 0:07:56 that is just extra. So let's talk about the extras. Um The another, another takeaway of this is that this is not overwhelming, it shouldn't be overwhelming. This in no way, should be seen as tedious or some labor that you have to do. Um Whether it's your heart, meaning how much you care about this. Um 0:07:55 - 0:00:00 your your strength, your mind, your time, it doesn't matter this, this approach, this idea spending quality time with your kids for high impact, it can scale to anything you can give it meaning no matter how much you put in, you will get more out and it will accept as much as you're willing to give. 0:00:00 - 0:08:35 But also scales down the tiniest little bit. If all you do is to resolve this presentation is spend five minutes of your life differently toward the benefit of your kids. You will get something out of it and it will be greater than the five minutes. There's, there's no limit on how much this scales down 0:08:35 - 0:09:00 . So you can't be overwhelmed. You just do what you can and that's going to yield huge impact. OK? So how is it that, that this is always going to sort of spring back at you more than you give it. Well, we're here for, uh, to have an abundant life and that's for ourselves and for everyone we, um, can 0:08:59 - 0:09:24 interact with in some way. Well, when it comes to our kids, this is, this is how it works, the more effectively you spend your time with your kids in the more of that effective time you spend, it's going to yield more time and more capability in yourself and in them. Now, that might seem like a mystery 0:09:24 - 0:09:49 . We're gonna go through it. But basically, as they become better people, they're going to help you with the things that you feel need to be done. Ok? So there's that, but um, you will also get much more meaning out of your life. And so you're trading a little bit of time in exchange for getting a heck 0:09:49 - 0:10:08 of a lot more meaning not just out of that time but out of everything just to get super detailed for a second. It's easy to sort of wash down the river of, you know, my whole life is, is flying before me and I'm getting old. And what do I have to show for it? All I do is go to work every day or all I 0:10:08 - 0:10:31 do is, you know, uh, make dinner and change diapers or whatever, every day, do laundry every day. I know some people just feel like they do laundry and that's their full time job. So, um the question is why, what are you exchanging this for? And this is the amazing thing, their little pockets of time 0:10:30 - 0:10:55 through each day and little moments in life that are the point. But if we don't live those moments, those tiny little pockets, if we don't live them, just right, if we don't take advantage of how they could be lived because it's like a, a dimmer switch. If we don't crank that sucker up, see, see that 0:10:55 - 0:11:22 , how that switch is set in those brief moments. That's how it makes everything else feel. So maybe as a pie chart, if you add all those up, maybe it's just this tiny little chunk of time, but it turns out that flavors the rest of the pie. And so if you want more meaning in the, in the uh majority time 0:11:21 - 0:11:42 of how you're spending the majority of your time, you need to really think about how you're spending those little moments. Now, if you don't even recognize those moments, that's step number one, but using them well, is really important and the amazing thing is, is, is if you just tweak those moments 0:11:42 - 0:12:03 a little bit, just a little, you're gonna find tremendous changes in the rest and all of a sudden you, you're gonna be able to say why you're doing the other things and actually care a lot more about it and get more meaning out of it and it all comes back to doing more and doing better. That's, you're 0:12:02 - 0:12:25 gonna do more and you're gonna do better. But your kids will too. And all of that mixes together to yield greater and greater resources for you because you can't, um you can't create extra time. We're set to 24 hours in a day, but you can make it feel like extra time if you can get more done in the same 0:12:24 - 0:12:46 amount. And if you have help in the things that are important to you, it's as if you're adding hours to the clock every day and you cannot fully appreciate how much this can make a difference until you do it. It's insane because it's, it's, it's a, it's like a magic trick because what you put out of 0:12:46 - 0:13:10 it is so much less than what you get out of it. So all of this combines to more joy and how is that how that chemical reaction work? Well, um the value that you see in something and whether or not you have it, that's where the joy comes from. Joy comes from value. And so you need to obtain the things 0:13:09 - 0:13:28 that have higher value and you need to see the higher value that they have and really feel it. And that's what this yields. Ok. All right. Well, a lot more could be said about that, but obviously, we're just kind of trying to keep it brief here. All Right. So now we get into the practical instruction 0:13:28 - 0:13:50 of this and we, we only have a few slides here. So, um but they're concentrated. So the first question is, what is your overarching purpose? Now, I talk about this elsewhere, but you really need to think about this. The good news is um I think people, I think people get stressed out because they feel 0:13:50 - 0:14:06 like this is something that has to be given to them. You hear folks saying like, well, I need to find what my calling in life is. What's my destiny. You know, all these things that you hear folks say or they're thinking, even if they don't say it, we have movies and stories about all of this. But at 0:14:06 - 0:14:25 the end of the day, it's really just a choice. It's what you choose and you ought to choose what you see, the greatest value in. But whatever you choose, the point is that you think about this and you decide it always remembering that you can come back and change it anytime you're free to do that because 0:14:24 - 0:14:48 it's just your choice. Ok? And it's fully up to you. But once you've set that and whether you re refresh that and, and modify it or not, whatever. But in the moment it's gonna be set uh as long as you're not changing it at, at that very second, it's gonna be set and one secret to spending time more effectively 0:14:48 - 0:15:13 with your Children. Is spending that time in ways that line up with and contribute to your transcendent purpose. Now, we call it, I call it a transcendent purpose because if you do it right, it's going to be bigger than you, it transcends all the things in your life, but it also transcends you. So, however 0:15:12 - 0:15:41 , to whatever extent you actually get there uh to that ideal of having it be a transpersonal purpose. Um hopefully it's sufficiently close to that, that it doesn't seem like some grand mystery as to how your the time of your Children could contribute to that. So, uh if your purpose isn't obviously sable 0:15:40 - 0:16:01 through the contribution of others, maybe you should spend more time at that. Like if you're trans, uh if your transcendent purpose is to become a mediocre golfer, you probably need to start working on that a little bit more not being a golfer. But um coming up with a better purpose because, but even 0:16:01 - 0:16:22 that, even that, that yields ways that you could spend time with your kids to that purpose, doesn't it? You guys could go golfing, you go to the driving range. So it, it turns out that it's not that hard to get there. So you, we really don't have any excuses. Um Or I should rephrase that there are no 0:16:22 - 0:16:44 barriers impeding this. You just press a button and you're there. So it, it's almost that all this takes is thinking about it a little and you're on your way. Um, so one snag that people get hit with, with all of this is they think of this as something extra. Oh, great. Here's yet another thing I need 0:16:44 - 0:17:07 to do that's not at all what this is, this is like going to the store. And, um, I don't know, suppose, suppose you're using cash and, you know, you've got a $20 bill. So you're walking around saying what's the best stuff I can get for 20 bucks. And, um, and you just need more than can fit on that $20 0:17:06 - 0:17:30 bill. And then all of a sudden you find another 20 bucks in your pocket. That's what this is like, this isn't an extra thing that you have to do. It's an extra resource that you didn't know you had to get what you already want. That's what this is ok. So if you do it right, that's what it becomes. But 0:17:30 - 0:17:52 what people would do, uh, naturally in most cases is they will think of this as an external bolt on yet. Another thing I need to do. And sure enough, if you look at how parents spend their resources for their Children, it, they are, uh, doing external things that don't really help the kid and that the 0:17:52 - 0:18:12 parent doesn't care at all about or if they do care they shouldn't like, uh, like if you're one of these sports parents and you're just downright obsessed about your kids performance in sports and that's not connected into something greater. There are a lot of those. Ok. Why are you spending all this 0:18:12 - 0:18:36 time and money? You're, you're absolutely devoted to something that just peters out. It doesn't plug into anything greater. And if we're living our lives correctly or to the fullest extent, everything will plug into something greater. It's a chain that never ends. Ok. So, um, if you, if you, if you arrange 0:18:36 - 0:18:58 this wisely and you choose activities that, that contribute to your transcendent purpose, you'll find that you have tremendous motivation to achieve them. You won't drag your feet so much when it's time to do it because it is hard to do more than you would otherwise do and it is hard to do differently 0:18:57 - 0:19:18 than you would otherwise do. But um that's just relative to the strength of your purpose and your desire. And if your purpose is great enough, your desire for it is great enough and your belief that what you're doing contributes to it uh is strong enough, you're gonna do it and it doesn't matter if you're 0:19:18 - 0:19:50 , you're, you've got nothing left to give, you'll give whatever little drop you have gladly. So, um one principle of this is um this is, this is sort of lateral, but I think it it fits. So I'm gonna mention it. Um We, we tend to act in the present uh based on how we feel in the present. And I, I just 0:19:50 - 0:20:07 sort of alluded to one of these examples, say it's the end of the day you're tired but you, you have a block of 15 minutes that you could use for something. So, what do you do? Do you just pull out your phone and scroll? Um, do you turn on the TV or do you, do you go eat something even though you're 0:20:07 - 0:20:30 not hungry or? Um, do you think about what would have value? Hopefully you don't have to think about it because you've got a ready made list of things you could be using your time for, in such situations in habits of doing so, or do you look to the future? I'm sorry, this is part of the same. Do you 0:20:30 - 0:20:52 look to the future and think about future value and trade that for your present trade, your present feeling for future value? In other words, uh, do you try to maximize your long term feelings based on your short term actions rather than the other way around or do you say? Well, I don't feel very energetic 0:20:51 - 0:21:15 right now. I don't feel very hopeful. I'm really tired and, um, I just wanna not do anything right now. And so that's what I'm gonna do because, um, the best way to live is so that your past choices are a vehicle for your present feeling and, and you're stacking the deck in every moment for the next 0:21:14 - 0:21:33 , for, for tomorrow, for how you're gonna feel tomorrow or how you're gonna feel three hours from now when you just completed a really worthwhile thing, even though you didn't wanna do it, even though you didn't feel like doing it. It's a total reversal of, of motivation. But anyway, that this is an 0:21:33 - 0:21:54 example of this thinking about your long term transcendent purpose. And then thinking about how your, your present use of time can contribute to that. Instead of thinking, well, if I just do what feels good right now, I guess long term, I'll end up in an OK place because that never happens. OK? And now 0:21:54 - 0:22:18 we also have to talk about uh not just your uh transcendent purpose, but hopefully, somewhere on there is maximizing the, the abundant life of your Children, the abundance in the lives of your Children. So, um this isn't about what do my kids want to do and what would yield the greatest amount of fun 0:22:18 - 0:22:41 for them in this moment. It's not about, let's take him to the trampoline park, let's put him into softball. OK? And, and just we have money and time. Let's burn it for their current pleasure. It's long term. What kind of person do I want my kid to be knowing the worth of, of things in life that I do 0:22:41 - 0:23:02 . How do I want them to feel when they're my age and what decisions do I want them to have made at that point in their life by that point in their life? And Now, what can I do to help them do that? And that's gonna be there, there will be some things you can extract that are across all of your kids that 0:23:02 - 0:23:33 are shared and there will be things that are specific to the, to the specific qualities of each kid. But you have to have an aim. If you have not thought about this and chosen a direction, then you can't do any of this. It's not meant to be passive. The next tip here is that if you can find ways to use 0:23:33 - 0:23:58 your resources more efficiently, you will get more out of the same exact time and effort. This is an incredible thing. If it, if you're not catching on here, this is, this is a magic trick. There is no extra input, maybe a little bit of thought. But compared to what you're already spending, it is nothing 0:23:58 - 0:24:23 . It's like if someone, I don't know, someone came by and they, and they said, you know, if you take your pinky off the steering wheel while you drive, you'll get an extra 50 MPG. It's a ridiculously simple thing you could do for, for an absurd gain. So it's definitely worth it to find more efficient 0:24:23 - 0:24:42 ways of spending your time and resources, not necessarily giving more, just spending it in ways that yield more. It's, it's a, you know, it's like water down a river, it's gonna flow either way, but it makes a huge difference when you put a hydroelectric generator in that thing, the water is going through 0:24:42 - 0:25:09 just the same. But um now you're getting tons out of it that was just wasted flowing down the stream before. OK. So the keys of getting more out of the same time and effort with your kids are to prioritize activities that are stacked and synergistic. I'm gonna explain what I mean by this. So, and in 0:25:09 - 0:25:30 fact, this, this, um this is exactly what God does with us. He, he almost never has one reason for doing anything. I mean, he has one overarching reason for doing all things, which is for the greatest benefit. But when it comes to specifics, he's, he's got a million threads on the tapestry and each thread 0:25:30 - 0:25:55 is a composite of a million more that it's just a lot going all the time. So what, what do I mean by stacked activities? I mean, things that yield more than one benefit at the same time. So same thing, but many benefits, if you want to see these more clearly, which is important if you're ranking them 0:25:54 - 0:26:18 because you have to choose which ones you're going to do, pay attention to downstream benefits. So for example, if your kids in gymnastics, a positive downstream benefit would be fitness long term, maybe they develop a habit of, um, of continuing that, which actually is, is unlikely because you've trained 0:26:17 - 0:00:00 them to think that fitness comes through an external program and, uh, adults don't have time for that. So, something they could do at home would be, would be more likely to yield that one. But they, they develop a muscle base which is good and maybe a downstream, uh, effect of that is if they, well, 0:00:00 - 0:27:01 um, maybe it'll help them attract a high quality husband or wife or if they're a lady, um, maybe that muscle foundation will help have a less, uh, troubled pregnancy or something, right? Um But there are also a lot of negative downstream benefits and you need to think about those because you need to 0:27:01 - 0:27:24 discount them from the expected benefit of the activity. So I've, I've said bad things about cheerleading before. That's, um, that's what that is. Um, what about synergistic? This is one of those, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts scenarios. So there are a lot of things where coupled together 0:27:24 - 0:27:47 they will yield much greater benefit than either than any of them would singularly. So, um there's this, this mutual boosting of the outputs and again, this the, these ideas, they're cases of getting more out of the same sort of cost. The only difference is you just have to think about it a little bit 0:27:47 - 0:28:08 more or look around a little bit more and see what's out there and, and how, how it's going for other people who've chosen those sorts of things. So I wanna give you a practical example of this a spec a specific example so that it's not just some ephemeral thing. Um When you're thinking about stacked 0:28:07 - 0:28:28 and synergistic objectives, one way of breaking this down is in terms of uh different topics, different approaches, timing, meaning when you do it and for how long the people involved, the tools you're using and so on, that's not an exhaustive list, but that's the kind of thing you wanna think about 0:28:28 - 0:28:45 . And again, don't take this too far and think that this needs to be a master's thesis worth of work that you can think about this for five minutes on the toilet and it'll change your life. You know, we're just, we're just throwing out the framework here. You take it as far as you'd like. Uh I, I recommend 0:28:44 - 0:29:05 just making it kind of a background process running in your mind that you think about explicitly from time to time for a couple of minutes with a notepad and a pen. Anyway, here's a specific example. Um this is not made up, this is one of my kids. OK. So I have a kid who I thought would benefit from 0:29:04 - 0:00:00 getting into design. And so uh knowing nothing about this, I reached out to some people who did and had some conversations and by that, I mean, I spent five minutes writing an email, you know, at that sort of level of, of sacrifice. OK. So what, what are the stacked and synergistic uh elements here? 0:00:00 - 0:29:56 Well, through my very brief research, I found um resources that were online in the form of extremely well done and inexpensive recorded coursework. And um so getting, getting my, my kid into this, what, what the child is learning is, it's not just limited to design, which by the way has downstream cascading 0:29:55 - 0:30:20 benefits. Um This might lead to work that's, that's directed. It's, it's, it's um very uh specific to design, like like being a web designer or something or it might be lateral where these skills that, that the child learns, it impacts the things that they do uh in some job that you wouldn't think was 0:30:20 - 0:30:39 necessary necessarily directly related. Um But you could, you could come up with examples of that like, I don't know, being a carpenter or something and you don't realize just how much of it has to do with that. And then they have an advantage there that they wouldn't have otherwise had or in other facets 0:30:39 - 0:31:06 of life, like knowing how to decorate their house. So um there's that, but there are these, these uh synergies here, sorry, those, those um 00 my gosh, I'm sorry, getting uh losing my train of thought here because I'm trying to not think about something. It just popping into my mind. Ok. There are other 0:31:06 - 0:31:33 skills that the child is picking up though. So this kid is young. Um Let's do an age range of 9 to 12 to keep it anonymous and this is their first exposure in watching a, an adult oriented professional class. And so the, the speed of the class is a lot higher than what they're used to and they can't 0:31:33 - 0:32:02 interrupt, to ask questions. And so there's a skill set being developed here around independent learning and processing speech uh faster than you otherwise could including note taking. And so I'm, I'm stacking into this, um a sort of a gradual easing into this where we can pause the videos and eventually 0:32:02 - 0:32:25 the pauses are further apart and eventually they go away, right? And then following up by looking at notes. And that's another thing I'm stacking into this, introducing to software showing how to make an outline all these skills. And this is the thing I don't care who you are. If you're an end, if you 0:32:24 - 0:32:51 are an adult, you have an enormous catalog of skills that you take for granted and ideas about the value, the cost, the benefit of things that you take for granted. And when you do things like this, it gives you a canvas to paint on, it gives you uh an interface to communicate and share these things 0:32:50 - 0:33:11 that you would never think of if you're sitting around the dinner table talking about whatever. And now you have a way to give these things of value to your kids that you absolutely would not otherwise have. It's, it's a tremendous blessing. You're, you're conveying way more than you would realize, and 0:33:11 - 0:33:34 if all you're doing with that time is, um, entertainment, you're missing out big time and almost everything we do with our kids on a normal basis. It, it, it does devolve down to entertainment and we might say, well, they're getting exercise or it's this or it's that it's, it's quality time as a family 0:33:33 - 0:33:57 . Ok. But it's really just entertainment compared to what you could be doing, which would be just as fun, but uh not just devoid of other value. Um So this child's learning to type faster to think in certain ways that are new. Um There, there will be downstream impacts to this that you might not expect 0:33:57 - 0:34:19 like um getting more out of the time this kid spends in scripture. Why? Because they can take notes faster and navigate word processing programs faster, they can think faster. Um So if, if they can process spoken speech, they can process text faster as well. Um And then there's little crazy things like 0:34:19 - 0:34:38 eventually. So the kid asked me if I could slow down the, the speed of the video to like three quarter time, which is an option in this player. And I said, no, I said, we gotta go the other way and I said this thing goes up to two X and that's the goal we're gonna get you up to two X. Uh So I, I watch 0:34:38 - 0:35:00 almost everything at two X and the reason I watch it at two X is because there's no option for three X. Um, and I'll tell you where I got this crazy idea from. I consulted for a guy, uh, as, as a programmer, I consulted for a guy who got this idea from somewhere else and he had taken it to such an extreme 0:35:00 - 0:35:22 that he could, he, he claimed, I don't know how much I believe this, but he claimed he could, he could listen to four different things at the same time, like nonfiction, instructional kind of videos or talks or whatever and process all of them. At the same time. I don't know if I believe that, but I 0:35:22 - 0:35:40 have mastered two X. There are very, very few things that I can't listen to at two X and some of, you know, that I know how to speed read. That's another, I met a guy who could speed read it, blew my mind and he proved it. He, he wasn't just, uh, making it up and I thought if that can be done, I absolutely 0:35:40 - 0:36:03 need to try to do it because this is just gonna blow wide open what I could accomplish. And, uh, in the same amount of time, there are things that I can't speed read. Um, but they're few and far between, most people communicate. It's at a density that I can process very much faster than they can, they 0:36:02 - 0:36:29 can, uh, speak or, you know, if they're writing, I can, I can, I could process that very quickly. So anyway, so helping impart that is a really big deal because that's gonna pay dividends her whole entire life. Oh, I revealed it to her. Whoops. Anyway. Um OK. Next tip, an approachable approach. Ok. This 0:36:28 - 0:36:49 does not need to be hard. Basically, the only extra thing you need to do is spend a couple minutes thinking about a couple of minutes. I mean, it really doesn't take more than 15 to think through this. And then you get a start, you can change it later. It's totally flexible. In fact, I think the more 0:36:48 - 0:37:11 changes you make, the happier your kids will be because they tend to get bored. So the first step is make a plan brainstorm. And again, you know, this is one hang up. People get people hit with homeschooling. They're like, how can I homeschool I'm not a teacher, bro. You've spent your whole entire life 0:37:11 - 0:37:28 teaching. You have no idea. You spent your whole entire life learning and you probably agree with that faster. You've spent your whole entire life teaching you, you, you don't need to go get a four year degree to learn how to do something you've been doing your whole life. Could you get better at it 0:37:28 - 0:37:50 with intention and, and study? Sure and practice. Sure. But you don't realize how low the bar is that you're competing against and it's like that, um, when you, when, when we talk about brainstorming here, don't, you're not inventing Cold fusion folks. This is, you're, you're just trying to come up with 0:37:50 - 0:38:14 a better way for your kid to spend time when you feel like it. That's, it's such a low bar. You're not competing against them, you know, getting this, this uh world class talk by the top person in the world on astrophysics. You're competing with them, sitting in a corner and picking their nose, you know 0:38:13 - 0:38:35 , or, or just watching cartoons or something or talking with some idiot friend of theirs. It's, it's, or scrolling through Instagram, which if please do not let your kids do that. Um The bar is very low, it's very low. You could show them how to sharpen a knife and it's life changing for them compared 0:38:35 - 0:38:54 to what they'd be spending their time on, right? How to make a bed. Like if this is not, when we say brainstorm, it's more like, hey, here's a challenge. Think of the best thing you can. The, the challenge is not think of a thing that, that's better than what they'd be doing. Otherwise you could do that 0:38:54 - 0:39:14 in a quarter of a second and then just spend as much time as you'd like getting as good as you can very easy. Now write down all the ideas you have, you don't have to use them. But in brainstorming, you don't wanna filter things, you just go ahead and put it down on paper or digitally is, is even better 0:39:13 - 0:39:30 once you're through with as much time as you want to spend on that, then you start analyzing these things and again, just because we're using fancy words, doesn't mean it's a fancy thing. It's a piece of cake. You're just, it's like shopping, you're just looking at what you've got and thinking about 0:39:30 - 0:39:57 the value. And so you wanna remember not to just think about in the moment like, oh, I want my kid to learn how to juggle, ok? But, but that's great for right here and now it's something to do. What's the downstream benefit? Well, they could be in a circus one day, ok? Um It's a nice party trick, ok 0:39:56 - 0:40:20 ? And think about the cost and benefit of each option and then you compare the options. And so if it's juggling on the one hand and then learning how to farm on the other, probably the farming is a better idea. So um you've got to look at that cost benefit, what are the options? Pick the best option 0:40:19 - 0:40:48 ? Highest impact? And in case you don't know, you say what's the benefit? What's the cost subtract the cost from the benefit and whatever you get left over, that's the net benefit. If you want the expected benefit, then you, you multiply the net benefit by the probability of it happening and that, that 0:40:47 - 0:41:07 one might throw you. But you have to realize that benefits are probabilistic meaning um not meaning that they're based on chance, but meaning that a lot of things could turn out differently than you think. And maybe the best benefit of juggling is that they become the first world star of juggling and 0:41:07 - 0:41:32 the richest person in the world based on their juggling skills. The astronomically low probability of that occurring is going to have to reduce the value of taking that option. So not to get into the weeds on that, you don't have to go that far in parsing through this. It's very simple. It can be. Um 0:41:31 - 0:41:51 And then you execute. So now you've got a plan which by the way, you can revisit any time for any reason, you're free to change this any time. So when you, when you pivot to execution, this is the long term mode that you'll stay in until you have reason to go back to planning if you ever do. And this 0:41:51 - 0:42:20 is very simple. You think about, well, what can I do about this over six months? What can I do about this? Over one month? What can I do about this over the next week? What can I do today? And you do the thing that you can do today? And that's it very simple, right? So to give you some extra tools here 0:42:19 - 0:42:42 , I wanna emphasize a few ideas. One uh take advantage of asynchronous time. What do I mean by that? Um If you get an idea and you write an email and you send it to someone that's an asynchronous communication. You're writing it and sending it right now, but they might not read it for, for another hour 0:42:41 - 0:43:03 or day or week and that's ok. Whatever action you're asking them to take in that email, it's not emergent. It doesn't have to, it's not urgent, it doesn't have to happen right this second. Ok. If it was, you'd find a way of getting a hold of them right now. It turns out that we live our lives as if all 0:43:02 - 0:43:25 interactions with our kids need to be in the moment or, or that they need the tasks need to be completed in the moment or that the benefits need to be reaped in the moment, but you need to take advantage of asynchronous timescales. Ok? So let me give you some practical tools with that. You may have noticed 0:43:25 - 0:43:48 that Children have a ton of time. You do not, they also have a ton of energy. You ever noticed that after they eat dinner, they're crazy and you are ready to go to bed. Um So until they invent a way of transferring that energy to balance things out, which would be nice. Um It turns out that they, they 0:43:48 - 0:44:13 just have this power plant of time and energy. If you only think of, of things that you can do where your time and energy matches theirs, you're going to be vastly under performing here, there will be things that are tremendous benefit that you're not uh engaging. You need to think of ways that they 0:44:12 - 0:44:40 can do things with their time and their energy when you have neither or only one. So you prioritize your interactions with them so that you can make the greatest use of their time and energy outside of yours. Does this make sense? This isn't some grand idea. You already do it. You just don't think about 0:44:39 - 0:45:04 it and you're leaving a lot of opportunities for doing it more than you are to, to, to uh skirt by one example. Have you taught your child how to read? This is a tremendous example of this where uh and I'm getting ahead of myself here, but you're using your time on something and it's intensive to teach 0:45:04 - 0:45:23 a kid how to read. It takes time and persistence more than anything else. Consistency, which is hard because your schedule is not consistent and you're gonna have things where, where sometimes that takes a sacrifice to sit down with them for 10 minutes a day or whatever it takes till they're there. But 0:45:23 - 0:45:44 what happens once they're there? So I call this the training wheels principle. It's a pain in the butt to teach a kid how to ride a bike. But guess what happens after they learn, they're able to ride a bike anytime and you don't need to be there. Not only that, but they can also teach someone else how 0:45:43 - 0:46:04 to ride a bike. So if you do it right you should only ever have to teach one of your kids how to ride a bike and they'll take care of the rest. And that's a cascading benefit. So, what are the long term benefits of teaching one kid how to ride a bike? Well, they're infinite. It's this infinite eternal 0:46:03 - 0:46:23 chain of bike riding, right? So, and this maybe is an appropriate time to talk about something that might not be obvious. But when we talk about these kinds of principles, I, I think there are folks out there who have a tendency to say, well, this is self help. Who cares about that? What does this have 0:46:23 - 0:46:40 to do with the gospel? It's funny because a lot of secular people will say the opposite about the gospel. Well, this is religious. Who cares about that? Tell me how I can change my life. Folks, they're not different, they're not different. And until you integrate both sides of that coin, you're missing 0:46:40 - 0:47:10 out on the, on more than half till you integrate both sides of that coin, you're missing out on more than half. So it turns out that using your time wisely with your Children is fully, fully in line with the concept of eternal exaltation. That's about as religious as you can get? Ok. Um So, so focus 0:47:09 - 0:47:35 prior pri prioritize the training wheels principles, kinds of things, prioritize the the the expenditures of time that yield cascading benefits and give you more time over time. So let's say example. So say you homeschool or even if you don't, OK, if your kid is a whiz bang reader and because you've 0:47:35 - 0:47:59 invested some time in that early on and they're ahead of the game cause you did what you could do before you had to do it. Now, are you spending more time or less time helping them read over time? Way, way less time they come home with homework. You're never ever gonna have to help them with the reading 0:47:59 - 0:48:16 part because they, they're way ahead of the curve. But more than that, if they're being annoying, you tell them to go read a book. Right? And then you get these really interesting conversations where they know way more than they should about something because they've been reading things. I mean, good 0:48:15 - 0:48:36 things and they're independently learning. Well, if you consider it your job to, um, to be responsible for them learning things. Well, isn't this wonderful? You've just given them a tool where they can use their time and energy independent of yours to help further your goal, which is to help them learn 0:48:36 - 0:48:55 , you see how it works. So the point is you're already doing this, you're just not taking that lesson and applying it to all these other ways you could do it. Um, a lot of times we were working out in the yard, I try to help my wife focus on because she's like the crew, you know, she'll go out and do 0:48:55 - 0:49:17 crew work with the kids and I'm off doing something dangerous, hanging off a roof or, or something. And, um, I, I try to tell her the most important thing you could be doing with these kids is not whatever you're doing, it's helping them learn how to do it and do it themselves. So, so if you have to 0:49:17 - 0:49:37 pick up rocks or pull weeds or whatever that the project is, um, that's fine. But do it in your downtime when you're, when there's not some way you could be helping the kids do those things more effectively because everything you teach them is going to cascade forever. And so once they become master 0:49:37 - 0:49:57 rock pickers or weed pullers or garden uh planters or whatever, that's actually I do that one, the most important thing you could be doing is advancing your kids' capability at doing things because that's what's going to cascade. Whereas if it's just you doing something, it's just you doing something 0:49:56 - 0:50:19 that's a limit of one person. Again, that's an eternal principle. The best thing you could do is help other people do things because it keeps going whereas it stops with you. So back to this asynchronous idea, we have to cover some very important things that are different from how you probably do it 0:50:19 - 0:50:47 . Now, I just told you about delegating, inspecting and reviewing, but let's be explicit about it. Um You take time to fully explain the task, you explain what needs to be done, why we're doing it. You explain what the standard of completion is. You set up limits of this is acceptable. This is not. And 0:50:46 - 0:51:08 , um, and, and what I mean is, uh, in the means to the end. So if you say like, ok, we're gonna do this thing, we're gonna make some money but don't go rob a bank because that's not what we're doing right here. Um, or we're pulling weeds but don't destroy the entire area. Uh, just be kind of neat with 0:51:08 - 0:51:27 it. I don't wanna see dirt all over the place kind of thing. And then, um, usually you want them to repeat back the instructions. Ok, maybe get them to write it down. It's a really good idea. Get them to write it down. Don't write it down for them, get them to write it down and then read back what it 0:51:27 - 0:51:52 says or, or tell you, uh, back. Oh, my gosh. Repeat to you the instructions that you gave them. Then step two is inspect, don't tell them when, but let them know that you're going to be coming by to see how it's going and then do that. Um, the best inspections are the ones that are unannounced and you 0:51:52 - 0:52:10 should tell them that they will be unannounced because then they'll be thinking about that the whole time whether you're there or not. And then the final step is to review at the conclusion of every delegated activity. You need to sit down and talk about the strengths and weaknesses of what was performed 0:52:10 - 0:52:34 . That is the most valuable part of all of this. It's not in what gets done. It's in the feedback that they get because there are lessons that go beyond the task that are conveyed in that moment. Also, people need credit for good things that they do. It's very important. They also need to be tweaked 0:52:34 - 0:52:54 when they're off base. Ok? Another thing that, so that's probably way more structured than what you do right now. And it doesn't have to be formal. But those elements really, really, really need to be there. If you leave any of them out, the benefits just will not be anything close to what they could 0:52:54 - 0:53:16 be. But the good news is you really get used to this and then it's second nature. You don't have to even think about it. You just do it. Um If you don't inspect, you're gonna, it's gonna be um lord of the flies, kids, kids. It doesn't even just a, a lord of the flies situation with one kid. It's some 0:53:16 - 0:53:41 crazy thing. They will go off the rails. So you gotta inspect, um, all right. One thing that's also not naturally occurring is that you have to teach your kids to yield to you that that's gonna ruffle feathers. There are gonna be people who don't like that. I don't care if you're not living your life 0:53:40 - 0:53:58 where that would be a good thing for them to do. Then you're really, really messing up. You're an adult. You have had your whole life to get ahead of them. If, if, if it's not the case that you have that much to impart to them, that whatever they're doing should stop when you have something for them 0:53:57 - 0:54:14 . Then, um, you really messed up. Now, obviously that wanes as they get older and better, but in the beginning when they're young, it should absolutely be obvious. Now, it won't be obvious because that's not the world, the, the way the world goes, that's not the way parents raise their kids. It's not 0:54:14 - 0:54:39 what they're taught in school, but it is something you ought to teach them when you have something for them that you raise because you understand it to be way more important, they need to drop whatever they're doing and go with that. This is also a gospel principle. Um w when you adopt asynchronous approaches 0:54:39 - 0:55:05 , what it, what it does is it transforms tiny, unexpected or unpredictable gaps in your time into extraordinarily powerful contributions to their life, the life of your kids. But like I said, it takes a framework to be able to make use of those. So let me give you an example. Um Let's say that my kid 0:55:04 - 0:55:35 is uh playing LEGO and all of a sudden um I'm in the midst of some project outside and there emerges an opportunity for that child to contribute to it. So if I'm not going to interrupt that kid or that kid's gonna get really mad at me. If I do, then this isn't going to work, right? Or let's say something 0:55:35 - 0:55:53 comes up and I'm like, all right, this is a, a delegate task. I was doing this thing and now it's in a state where I can hand it off to someone else, you have to interrupt the kid. If they're doing something that's less important, sometimes they won't be, sometimes they will. But given just how much 0:55:53 - 0:56:12 time kids spend on things that aren't ideal odds are, it's pretty high that they're available and they could help, but they need to understand the way that that rolls and that, you know, if they're playing a video game or something. But, you know, your, your, your situation will be whatever it is. But 0:56:11 - 0:56:35 if it's something like that or they're even, they're reading a book, it's like, OK, well, you're doing a leisure activity right now. It's time to do something with a higher impact. Let's roll to that end. It's really important. Um So just to emphasize here, you know, kids aren't slaves. Your, your setup 0:56:34 - 0:56:55 is such that you're pointing towards their higher purpose. OK, which hopefully is aligned with your higher purpose. But whatever it might be, you're taking them from something lower in that hierarchy or maybe off that hierarchy because kids do waste a lot of time and you're putting them higher up on 0:56:55 - 0:57:25 it, so you're helping them do what they, what helps them, you're helping them do what helps them? Ok, so the final idea here is really be careful about scheduling out your kid's full calendar. This happens way, way, way too often where you've got recurring things of questionable value filling the schedule 0:57:24 - 0:57:47 . Why is this bad? Because you'll be way less likely or you just won't interrupt any of those things for things of higher importance, even if you wanted to, you know, if you have to drive them to an event three times a week at a place that chops all of those blocks out of a higher purpose. Should one 0:57:47 - 0:58:12 emerge an opportunity come out of that? And so maybe you look at that and you say, well, yeah, but I got them into this thing because it contributed to their higher purpose. All right, if it's really high up on that triangle because these things are pyramids. If it's really high up in the high in the 0:58:12 - 0:58:34 priority scheme, then great. But odds are, it's not, odds are, it's not, even if you look at public school, it's a great example of this. Ok, because most people would say, yeah, well, it's important for kids to get an education. Ok, fine. But what are you really trying to accomplish with that? And if 0:58:34 - 0:58:56 you break it down into detail, you will probably find that there are better ways of doing this and that they probably aren't so scheduled. I'm not a fan of free range kids. It's not what I'm saying here at all. I'm just saying if you make the purpose explicit and the means explicit, it breaks down blocks 0:58:55 - 0:59:20 of time into smaller things, shorter things. And that one I think is the most justifiable, big chunk of time. Uh, daily school for a kid. I think that's the most justifiable recurring block of time. But it should probably even that one should probably be way shorter. So if you homeschool a kid, you can 0:59:20 - 0:59:40 teach them way more than they're gonna learn in a day of public school in about 2.5 hours. That's even if you have other kids there. So even if it stretches to four, now you're saving two hours plus a day that could be used for more productive things. Plus all the homework, which really, really, really 0:59:40 - 1:00:01 isn't necessary. Ok. Anyway, so those are some, some tips for taking advantage of chunks of time and making sure the priorities are as high as they can be. And again, don't get bogged down in all these details. If something sticks, that's great. But the most important thing is just to march down this 1:00:01 - 1:00:24 path at all and you can tweak it as you go, you find what works for you, another tip is to change it up. So if you lift weights, then you know that if you do the same routine for long enough, you don't get any more gains out of it. And, um, sometimes people become bored even when you're hardcore and 1:00:24 - 1:00:47 you love lifting weights and you're not bored, you still aren't getting gains. And so you need to change it up. I'll tell you, um, 11 thing that I learned in doing this because I've been doing this for years, one mistake I made early on or one opportunity I had for improvement early on is that I scheduled 1:00:45 - 1:01:10 time and I scheduled which kid I was gonna spend it with. And so we were doing things we called them nights. That's what the kids would call them. Is it my night tonight? And so five kids, five week nights and then the weekends were mine. Um, and we'd rotate a kid each day and so each kid got 30 minutes 1:01:09 - 1:01:32 , one on, one with dad right after dinner. And, uh, at first we would do whatever the kid wanted and we were doing the dumbest things. Now, you might say, well, that's not fair if it's important to the child. Yeah. But here's the thing and this is my point. Kids don't make good decisions. Kids don't 1:01:32 - 1:01:54 make good decisions. They don't choose things of high value, but they also don't choose things that align with what they want. Those are two separate problems and by the way, adults have that problem too. Um, but kids are really bad at it. And so they would choose things that they would get bored of 1:01:54 - 1:02:16 , they would choose things that they didn't really care about. And um furthermore, it's also the case that they would choose things that were of very low value in my eyes for them. So this started with a lot of momentum and a lot of excitement. And then over months, I think we did this for more than 1:02:16 - 1:02:39 six months. Um So I get an award for that consistency, but oh, it was brutal and we were all dreading it. We all hated it in the end. And I turned to my wife and I said, you know, I just can't, I want to spend more time with the kids. This just can't be the way. And um I'm exhausted. I dread this every 1:02:39 - 1:02:58 day. It's like going to the dentist and this isn't the way I want to spend time with my kids. So, one of the secrets I learned is do not schedule this time. You could have slots earmarked for like potential times. You might do this just like you have projects that you're like, you know, a Saturday would 1:02:58 - 1:03:16 be a good time to do this. But that's different from saying every single Saturday, I'm going to do this for three hours from this time to this time. You've got enough in your life. That's like that learn to take advantage of, of opportunities and then it's a little more interesting for everybody because 1:03:16 - 1:03:38 the kids don't know whose turn it's gonna be. They don't know what we're doing tonight and they're excited about it, you know. So, same thing with hard rotations on kids. I think it's, it's much better to say, hey, I'm gonna build something with this kid. And so any moment I have available that where 1:03:38 - 1:03:58 I have the energy and, and time to contribute to this, I'm gonna nab this kid and we're gonna go work on it until it's done and I'm not gonna spend time with the other kids while I'm doing that and that's just the way it's gonna be. Now, obviously, there still needs to be a balance but adopt larger time 1:03:57 - 1:04:20 scales to balance those things out. It doesn't need to be every week. You don't need to reconcile your kid time every week, right? Um Yeah, so, so you change it up and you rotate things and then you don't need to dread it and you don't need to uh get bored and they don't need to get bored either. But 1:04:20 - 1:04:47 also obviously one thing II I changed from all that is they don't get to pick. Um So that way I'm making sure that it's a good use of time for everybody. That's the final point here is, don't do things that you don't feel are interesting and important. Now, you might say, well, what about the kids? Part 1:04:46 - 1:05:05 of this is teaching them that you have a better idea of what's interesting and important than they do. Now. The important part is probably easier to teach than the interesting part. But if you don't choose lame things, it's not that hard to teach them about the interesting part. So, for instance, this 1:05:05 - 1:05:30 is one reason why we got our kids into piano is that it's a hard thing to learn. It's got a lot of cascading benefits. Um, and one of those cascading benefits is the knowledge that something that seems completely impossible can turn out to be totally possible if you just practice it consistently. Um 1:05:29 - 1:05:48 , another cascading benefit to, to the point here is that things that seem like the least interesting thing in the world when you start them can turn out to be really cool when you finish them because, uh, every one of the kids and this is something easier when you, you know, you start with an older 1:05:48 - 1:06:05 child when they're young. The other ones just kind of see get with the program because the ruts are in the road. But also they see right before their eyes, what the fruits of it are. And they say, well, if I do this for three years, like my older brother did, I can play music that I want to play just 1:06:05 - 1:06:25 like he can. And it's really cool. So you can teach them about the interesting and important and this is an aspect of learning to trust them, which is again a hardcore gospel principle because that's what we're trying to learn from God is, is to trust that He knows better than we do. What is interesting 1:06:24 - 1:06:50 and important. This is the final slide I'll share with you um the current projects for three kids uh other than the design one. Um But yeah, and then there's some, some general things here and, and then we'll end with that. So one child has a slight interest in carpentry. He sort of mentioned some things 1:06:50 - 1:07:10 about building and construction. And so we used so this is the, this, this is a great example because you get an idea of long term. And again, this does not have to be carved in stone. It doesn't have to be something you take a second mortgage out on. It's not, you know, it can be just tiny little inputs 1:07:10 - 1:07:33 over a long time, but the intention has to be there. You have to have a thought about this in a plan. So we decided that we were gonna use Christmas and birthday to build a tool set for him. So we did that and then he also bought into that and used some of his own money to get some stuff. And so what 1:07:32 - 1:07:51 we're planning um over the winter when things slow down and become a little bit more discretionary as far as our time for projects goes, we're not so frantic about stuff outside before it snows. We're gonna build some animal enclosures um for some animals that we're getting And so this will be a project 1:07:51 - 1:08:13 where I focus on this child instead of the others for, for a time, of course, I could rotate the kids through. But one of the benefits and we've done that on things. But uh one of the benefits of this is I want this child to go through the start to finish. And so I want him to plan the buildings. I want 1:08:13 - 1:08:32 , I want to critique his designs and talk through that. I want him to, to lay out everything to find the materials, make use of what we have uh do the budget for what we don't. Again, you can get as involved with this as you want. But I need these animal enclosures anyway because we're going to get the 1:08:32 - 1:08:51 animals that go in them in the spring. And so I'm going to take a lot more time than I would otherwise do to do it myself. But the benefits are gonna cascade because he's gonna get a chance to do all this. We could spend time together doing something meaningful and so on and so forth. OK. Second and 1:08:50 - 0:00:00 , and in the future, I will be able to tell him, hey, I need a building for this animal. Go do it. And all I have to do is check in and then when he's an adult, if he needs an animal building, he's just gonna make one because he already knows how. And if he ever does anything it's kind of like that. 0:00:00 - 1:09:32 It's not going to be an unknown, even if the only similarity is the difficulty level or the degree of not knowing upfront all the details. He's just gonna be able to jump right in the barrier is forever gone with another kid. Um He's, he's young, he, he doesn't have a whole ton of interests. Um He's 1:09:32 - 0:00:00 kind of generically interested in things, but one thing he likes doing is playing chess and he likes spending time. And so, uh because he's not super interested in other things, it's a struggle to find things we can do together. So, um, he asked me a long time ago, it seems like a long time ago. Um, 0:00:00 - 1:10:14 if I could build him a chess set. Now, I know from past mistakes when Children ask you to build things for them, that's a whole heck of a lot of your time and often money and then they're only interested in it for a few minutes and then they set it aside and I don't do that anymore. So, um, I told him 1:10:13 - 1:10:34 no, I won't build you a chess set. But what I will do is I will lead you through building your own and I will be right there with you and I'll pay for it, but you're going to solve the woodd, you're gonna glue it together, you're gonna do everything. Um, and then it will be yours and then if he sets 1:10:33 - 1:10:58 it aside we still get to keep all that time we had together. And then instead of just making something for him to use for fun, every time he sees that he's gonna remember that time we spent. So and then of course, he retains all the skills. So you see the stacking um and then of course, we can play chess 1:10:58 - 1:11:19 with it too, right? So this is, this is something that the, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Now, I've got another kid who during school he got exposed to some of these myths. He happens to have a very interesting memory. I, I don't even know how to describe the way this kid's brain works 1:11:18 - 1:11:42 anyway. So he really, he really uh keyed in on this and he started talking about it and it just so happened that I had caught on to a whole bunch of gospel analogs in myths and I had the thought it just was living in a notes file of, um, maybe doing a larger analysis of this. And I wondered if it would 1:11:42 - 1:12:03 be helpful to anyone. It was certainly helpful to me. And um, it's, it's a, it, well, I won't get into why. So I thought, well, he's of age where he can actually contribute writing and he would do well to learn how to write better. That's always true of everyone. But we could have opportunities for one 1:12:03 - 1:12:21 on one feedback here where there'd be nice independent chunks so that I could take advantage of asynchronous time of, uh you know, I jump in and I do edits to the file and we could track the changes and I could email it to him and we could just pass it back and forth and then talk face to face about 1:12:21 - 1:12:40 it when we need it. And this would be a great way to get this project move forward. That is interesting to me, it wouldn't be the highest priority, but it's very interesting to him. And so it also is a way of teaching a whole bunch about the gospel because there's a lot of these connections are things 1:12:39 - 1:13:03 he doesn't know yet and the world doesn't know uh not to entice you too much with that. So, um anyway, and then, and then he would get to learn this, this uh how to use a word processor and become more familiar with that. Um become a better typer and so on. So, um that's something that we're doing. So 1:13:03 - 1:13:22 , here's some ideas. This is a, a bit of my current slate and this is the sort of thing you can do and, and as you can tell some of these, all of these things will come to an end and then you get to pick something else. So I thought I'd share that in hopes that it might help you flesh out something uh 0:00:00 - 0:00:20 Do they have topics here? Uh We're gonna talk about some, some very practical ways of spending time with Children more effectively for higher impact. Uh I'm, I'm quite excited about this because it's a nice um, brief chunk of ideas that, that costs very little to implement once you understand it and 0:00:19 - 0:00:43 um yields a tremendous, huge impact that's lifelong. It touches on um everything we care about as parents. It's, it's the easiest thing in the world to convince someone of or it ought to be because it doesn't matter if we're talking about doing things that, that have a uh uh lead to greater benefit for 0:00:43 - 0:01:05 our Children or for ourselves. You know, when, when we talk about being parents, sometimes people put on a mask of altruism and pretend that there's some disembodied spirit of benevolence, um or that they have to be in order to be a good parent and, you know, maybe that's the ideal, I don't know. But 0:01:05 - 0:01:27 along the way, we have to, we have to uh contend with things like the need for sleep and, you know, we don't have infinite energy or infinite good mood or infinite excitement about the things that excite our Children and that's ok. If we're not realistic about that, we're not gonna get very far. If the 0:01:27 - 0:01:47 things we're talking about can only be implemented by perfect people. We're in big trouble, but this is not like that at all. It's a very practical thing and no matter what lens you look at it in, uh, whether it's, it's more pure benevolence towards Children or practical. What do I do? Because I don't 0:01:46 - 0:02:07 have any extra energy or time. Well, guess what these ideas will get you more of all good things. It's gonna get you more time. Uh, more energy. Uh you, you'll be able to do more with what you have this, uh if you apply these things, you're not gonna end up with less, you'll end up with more and better 0:02:07 - 0:02:26 . And so it's the easiest thing from a logical perspective in the world to convince someone of because there, there is no cost. You will only get more out of this than you put in if you do it right. And this is um very easy to talk through. It's, this is a short presentation as far as things go because 0:02:26 - 0:02:45 there just isn't that much to it. So what seems like a cloud of darkness right now? A scary thing. Who knows what's in there? It's gonna create extra demands on. No, we're just gonna turn the light switch on. It'll be super clear and then you just go and do it and it's infinitely flexible as you'll see 0:02:44 - 0:03:03 , just from a generic point of view. Um, the, the bottom line up front is you can't do this incorrectly. There, there are, of course, better ways of doing it and worse ways of doing it. But anything you do, this is like a magic machine. You throw anything into it, you will get more out of it. So, what 0:03:03 - 0:03:20 are some generic benefits of spending, um, more high quality time with your kids? Well, they're gonna feel loved. That's, that's pretty easy to realize. Uh, maybe something that's not so obvious that every minute you spend with them is a minute they can't spend doing something worse. And depending on 0:03:20 - 0:03:38 your Children, I've got one in mind, you know, kids have a way of, of drifting towards things that they probably shouldn't be doing and certainly things that wouldn't be the best possible way a human of their capacity could spend that time. Right. And this is one of the great benefits of spending time 0:03:38 - 0:04:00 with them is that, um, by, by joining together your presence with theirs, you can help guide them into greater uses of their time. And what you'll see is this is a win, win, big time for you if you do it right. And, and you'll see that, uh, hopefully, hopefully it opens your mind to ways of doing this 0:04:00 - 0:04:19 , that you hadn't thought of before. But, but once you're shown, it's gonna become, it's just gonna be so straightforward. Uh There's this idea of osmosis, th this could be a really deep thing to talk through and let's just keep it shallow, but suffice it to say that when you spend time with someone 0:04:18 - 0:04:43 and if someone, um it's someone that's, that's not as far ahead in some respect as you are, the benefit you render to them will exist even if you say and do nothing. That's the, that's the extremity of it. Just being in the presence of a person better than you changes you. There's something about that 0:04:43 - 0:05:01 and it's deep and we could go there. But we, we're not going to, this is just very practical explanation of, of some ideas, but you need to know that. And what that does is it establishes a baseline that, that cements this idea that you just, you can't do this wrong just being there makes a difference 0:05:00 - 0:05:21 . And um you know, there, there may come a time in life and, and I think as a parent, I think we all share this hope that our Children surpass us as people. But we've got this enormous head start and so just being around them is imparting value and that's great because anything we add on top of that 0:05:21 - 0:05:42 , it's just icing on the cake and this, this whole presentation is about the icing. But you, if you, if you just take a step, you've already won. That's, that's my point here. So you can do as much or as little as you'd like. And it's all good. And then, um, as you, as you, as you become, and hopefully 0:05:41 - 0:05:59 you've made a lot of progress in this already in your life as you become a better person. Um, spending time with your child, you don't realize that every minute is increasing their trust for you. They're seeing more and more of you and what it's doing is building up this catalog of evidence for why they 0:05:59 - 0:06:14 should believe that you have any idea of what you're talking about when you say something. And as some of, you know, this is sort of a ticking time bomb or, or maybe better think of it as san through an hourglass because once you get to the teenage years and they start building evidence that they are 0:06:13 - 0:06:37 capable of developing an independent view of the world, which is good. That's, that's definitely a necessary thing for them to learn. They will start challenging yours, which is also good. But the hope is that they pick their battles uh wisely, namely on the things where they do have something extra 0:06:37 - 0:07:07 to con contribute. Um As, as uh one of my mentors once told me uh morphing it into general terms, do what I do better than you as well as I do it. And then you can come up with a better way and, and that's sort of the mentality that we will implicitly teach or at least develop evidence to support. You're 0:07:06 - 0:07:30 , you're basically stockpiling um weapons for a future battle there or hopefully avoiding the battle altogether in, in every, every way that's possible. Anyway, don't want to dwell too long on that. But the point is um you will convey tremendous effects just by being there and uh everything on top of 0:07:30 - 0:07:56 that is just extra. So let's talk about the extras. Um The another, another takeaway of this is that this is not overwhelming, it shouldn't be overwhelming. This in no way, should be seen as tedious or some labor that you have to do. Um Whether it's your heart, meaning how much you care about this. Um 0:07:55 - 0:00:00 your your strength, your mind, your time, it doesn't matter this, this approach, this idea spending quality time with your kids for high impact, it can scale to anything you can give it meaning no matter how much you put in, you will get more out and it will accept as much as you're willing to give. 0:00:00 - 0:08:35 But also scales down the tiniest little bit. If all you do is to resolve this presentation is spend five minutes of your life differently toward the benefit of your kids. You will get something out of it and it will be greater than the five minutes. There's, there's no limit on how much this scales down 0:08:35 - 0:09:00 . So you can't be overwhelmed. You just do what you can and that's going to yield huge impact. OK? So how is it that, that this is always going to sort of spring back at you more than you give it. Well, we're here for, uh, to have an abundant life and that's for ourselves and for everyone we, um, can 0:08:59 - 0:09:24 interact with in some way. Well, when it comes to our kids, this is, this is how it works, the more effectively you spend your time with your kids in the more of that effective time you spend, it's going to yield more time and more capability in yourself and in them. Now, that might seem like a mystery 0:09:24 - 0:09:49 . We're gonna go through it. But basically, as they become better people, they're going to help you with the things that you feel need to be done. Ok? So there's that, but um, you will also get much more meaning out of your life. And so you're trading a little bit of time in exchange for getting a heck 0:09:49 - 0:10:08 of a lot more meaning not just out of that time but out of everything just to get super detailed for a second. It's easy to sort of wash down the river of, you know, my whole life is, is flying before me and I'm getting old. And what do I have to show for it? All I do is go to work every day or all I 0:10:08 - 0:10:31 do is, you know, uh, make dinner and change diapers or whatever, every day, do laundry every day. I know some people just feel like they do laundry and that's their full time job. So, um the question is why, what are you exchanging this for? And this is the amazing thing, their little pockets of time 0:10:30 - 0:10:55 through each day and little moments in life that are the point. But if we don't live those moments, those tiny little pockets, if we don't live them, just right, if we don't take advantage of how they could be lived because it's like a, a dimmer switch. If we don't crank that sucker up, see, see that 0:10:55 - 0:11:22 , how that switch is set in those brief moments. That's how it makes everything else feel. So maybe as a pie chart, if you add all those up, maybe it's just this tiny little chunk of time, but it turns out that flavors the rest of the pie. And so if you want more meaning in the, in the uh majority time 0:11:21 - 0:11:42 of how you're spending the majority of your time, you need to really think about how you're spending those little moments. Now, if you don't even recognize those moments, that's step number one, but using them well, is really important and the amazing thing is, is, is if you just tweak those moments 0:11:42 - 0:12:03 a little bit, just a little, you're gonna find tremendous changes in the rest and all of a sudden you, you're gonna be able to say why you're doing the other things and actually care a lot more about it and get more meaning out of it and it all comes back to doing more and doing better. That's, you're 0:12:02 - 0:12:25 gonna do more and you're gonna do better. But your kids will too. And all of that mixes together to yield greater and greater resources for you because you can't, um you can't create extra time. We're set to 24 hours in a day, but you can make it feel like extra time if you can get more done in the same 0:12:24 - 0:12:46 amount. And if you have help in the things that are important to you, it's as if you're adding hours to the clock every day and you cannot fully appreciate how much this can make a difference until you do it. It's insane because it's, it's, it's a, it's like a magic trick because what you put out of 0:12:46 - 0:13:10 it is so much less than what you get out of it. So all of this combines to more joy and how is that how that chemical reaction work? Well, um the value that you see in something and whether or not you have it, that's where the joy comes from. Joy comes from value. And so you need to obtain the things 0:13:09 - 0:13:28 that have higher value and you need to see the higher value that they have and really feel it. And that's what this yields. Ok. All right. Well, a lot more could be said about that, but obviously, we're just kind of trying to keep it brief here. All Right. So now we get into the practical instruction 0:13:28 - 0:13:50 of this and we, we only have a few slides here. So, um but they're concentrated. So the first question is, what is your overarching purpose? Now, I talk about this elsewhere, but you really need to think about this. The good news is um I think people, I think people get stressed out because they feel 0:13:50 - 0:14:06 like this is something that has to be given to them. You hear folks saying like, well, I need to find what my calling in life is. What's my destiny. You know, all these things that you hear folks say or they're thinking, even if they don't say it, we have movies and stories about all of this. But at 0:14:06 - 0:14:25 the end of the day, it's really just a choice. It's what you choose and you ought to choose what you see, the greatest value in. But whatever you choose, the point is that you think about this and you decide it always remembering that you can come back and change it anytime you're free to do that because 0:14:24 - 0:14:48 it's just your choice. Ok? And it's fully up to you. But once you've set that and whether you re refresh that and, and modify it or not, whatever. But in the moment it's gonna be set uh as long as you're not changing it at, at that very second, it's gonna be set and one secret to spending time more effectively 0:14:48 - 0:15:13 with your Children. Is spending that time in ways that line up with and contribute to your transcendent purpose. Now, we call it, I call it a transcendent purpose because if you do it right, it's going to be bigger than you, it transcends all the things in your life, but it also transcends you. So, however 0:15:12 - 0:15:41 , to whatever extent you actually get there uh to that ideal of having it be a transpersonal purpose. Um hopefully it's sufficiently close to that, that it doesn't seem like some grand mystery as to how your the time of your Children could contribute to that. So, uh if your purpose isn't obviously sable 0:15:40 - 0:16:01 through the contribution of others, maybe you should spend more time at that. Like if you're trans, uh if your transcendent purpose is to become a mediocre golfer, you probably need to start working on that a little bit more not being a golfer. But um coming up with a better purpose because, but even 0:16:01 - 0:16:22 that, even that, that yields ways that you could spend time with your kids to that purpose, doesn't it? You guys could go golfing, you go to the driving range. So it, it turns out that it's not that hard to get there. So you, we really don't have any excuses. Um Or I should rephrase that there are no 0:16:22 - 0:16:44 barriers impeding this. You just press a button and you're there. So it, it's almost that all this takes is thinking about it a little and you're on your way. Um, so one snag that people get hit with, with all of this is they think of this as something extra. Oh, great. Here's yet another thing I need 0:16:44 - 0:17:07 to do that's not at all what this is, this is like going to the store. And, um, I don't know, suppose, suppose you're using cash and, you know, you've got a $20 bill. So you're walking around saying what's the best stuff I can get for 20 bucks. And, um, and you just need more than can fit on that $20 0:17:06 - 0:17:30 bill. And then all of a sudden you find another 20 bucks in your pocket. That's what this is like, this isn't an extra thing that you have to do. It's an extra resource that you didn't know you had to get what you already want. That's what this is ok. So if you do it right, that's what it becomes. But 0:17:30 - 0:17:52 what people would do, uh, naturally in most cases is they will think of this as an external bolt on yet. Another thing I need to do. And sure enough, if you look at how parents spend their resources for their Children, it, they are, uh, doing external things that don't really help the kid and that the 0:17:52 - 0:18:12 parent doesn't care at all about or if they do care they shouldn't like, uh, like if you're one of these sports parents and you're just downright obsessed about your kids performance in sports and that's not connected into something greater. There are a lot of those. Ok. Why are you spending all this 0:18:12 - 0:18:36 time and money? You're, you're absolutely devoted to something that just peters out. It doesn't plug into anything greater. And if we're living our lives correctly or to the fullest extent, everything will plug into something greater. It's a chain that never ends. Ok. So, um, if you, if you, if you arrange 0:18:36 - 0:18:58 this wisely and you choose activities that, that contribute to your transcendent purpose, you'll find that you have tremendous motivation to achieve them. You won't drag your feet so much when it's time to do it because it is hard to do more than you would otherwise do and it is hard to do differently 0:18:57 - 0:19:18 than you would otherwise do. But um that's just relative to the strength of your purpose and your desire. And if your purpose is great enough, your desire for it is great enough and your belief that what you're doing contributes to it uh is strong enough, you're gonna do it and it doesn't matter if you're 0:19:18 - 0:19:50 , you're, you've got nothing left to give, you'll give whatever little drop you have gladly. So, um one principle of this is um this is, this is sort of lateral, but I think it it fits. So I'm gonna mention it. Um We, we tend to act in the present uh based on how we feel in the present. And I, I just 0:19:50 - 0:20:07 sort of alluded to one of these examples, say it's the end of the day you're tired but you, you have a block of 15 minutes that you could use for something. So, what do you do? Do you just pull out your phone and scroll? Um, do you turn on the TV or do you, do you go eat something even though you're 0:20:07 - 0:20:30 not hungry or? Um, do you think about what would have value? Hopefully you don't have to think about it because you've got a ready made list of things you could be using your time for, in such situations in habits of doing so, or do you look to the future? I'm sorry, this is part of the same. Do you 0:20:30 - 0:20:52 look to the future and think about future value and trade that for your present trade, your present feeling for future value? In other words, uh, do you try to maximize your long term feelings based on your short term actions rather than the other way around or do you say? Well, I don't feel very energetic 0:20:51 - 0:21:15 right now. I don't feel very hopeful. I'm really tired and, um, I just wanna not do anything right now. And so that's what I'm gonna do because, um, the best way to live is so that your past choices are a vehicle for your present feeling and, and you're stacking the deck in every moment for the next 0:21:14 - 0:21:33 , for, for tomorrow, for how you're gonna feel tomorrow or how you're gonna feel three hours from now when you just completed a really worthwhile thing, even though you didn't wanna do it, even though you didn't feel like doing it. It's a total reversal of, of motivation. But anyway, that this is an 0:21:33 - 0:21:54 example of this thinking about your long term transcendent purpose. And then thinking about how your, your present use of time can contribute to that. Instead of thinking, well, if I just do what feels good right now, I guess long term, I'll end up in an OK place because that never happens. OK? And now 0:21:54 - 0:22:18 we also have to talk about uh not just your uh transcendent purpose, but hopefully, somewhere on there is maximizing the, the abundant life of your Children, the abundance in the lives of your Children. So, um this isn't about what do my kids want to do and what would yield the greatest amount of fun 0:22:18 - 0:22:41 for them in this moment. It's not about, let's take him to the trampoline park, let's put him into softball. OK? And, and just we have money and time. Let's burn it for their current pleasure. It's long term. What kind of person do I want my kid to be knowing the worth of, of things in life that I do 0:22:41 - 0:23:02 . How do I want them to feel when they're my age and what decisions do I want them to have made at that point in their life by that point in their life? And Now, what can I do to help them do that? And that's gonna be there, there will be some things you can extract that are across all of your kids that 0:23:02 - 0:23:33 are shared and there will be things that are specific to the, to the specific qualities of each kid. But you have to have an aim. If you have not thought about this and chosen a direction, then you can't do any of this. It's not meant to be passive. The next tip here is that if you can find ways to use 0:23:33 - 0:23:58 your resources more efficiently, you will get more out of the same exact time and effort. This is an incredible thing. If it, if you're not catching on here, this is, this is a magic trick. There is no extra input, maybe a little bit of thought. But compared to what you're already spending, it is nothing 0:23:58 - 0:24:23 . It's like if someone, I don't know, someone came by and they, and they said, you know, if you take your pinky off the steering wheel while you drive, you'll get an extra 50 MPG. It's a ridiculously simple thing you could do for, for an absurd gain. So it's definitely worth it to find more efficient 0:24:23 - 0:24:42 ways of spending your time and resources, not necessarily giving more, just spending it in ways that yield more. It's, it's a, you know, it's like water down a river, it's gonna flow either way, but it makes a huge difference when you put a hydroelectric generator in that thing, the water is going through 0:24:42 - 0:25:09 just the same. But um now you're getting tons out of it that was just wasted flowing down the stream before. OK. So the keys of getting more out of the same time and effort with your kids are to prioritize activities that are stacked and synergistic. I'm gonna explain what I mean by this. So, and in 0:25:09 - 0:25:30 fact, this, this, um this is exactly what God does with us. He, he almost never has one reason for doing anything. I mean, he has one overarching reason for doing all things, which is for the greatest benefit. But when it comes to specifics, he's, he's got a million threads on the tapestry and each thread 0:25:30 - 0:25:55 is a composite of a million more that it's just a lot going all the time. So what, what do I mean by stacked activities? I mean, things that yield more than one benefit at the same time. So same thing, but many benefits, if you want to see these more clearly, which is important if you're ranking them 0:25:54 - 0:26:18 because you have to choose which ones you're going to do, pay attention to downstream benefits. So for example, if your kids in gymnastics, a positive downstream benefit would be fitness long term, maybe they develop a habit of, um, of continuing that, which actually is, is unlikely because you've trained 0:26:17 - 0:00:00 them to think that fitness comes through an external program and, uh, adults don't have time for that. So, something they could do at home would be, would be more likely to yield that one. But they, they develop a muscle base which is good and maybe a downstream, uh, effect of that is if they, well, 0:00:00 - 0:27:01 um, maybe it'll help them attract a high quality husband or wife or if they're a lady, um, maybe that muscle foundation will help have a less, uh, troubled pregnancy or something, right? Um But there are also a lot of negative downstream benefits and you need to think about those because you need to 0:27:01 - 0:27:24 discount them from the expected benefit of the activity. So I've, I've said bad things about cheerleading before. That's, um, that's what that is. Um, what about synergistic? This is one of those, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts scenarios. So there are a lot of things where coupled together 0:27:24 - 0:27:47 they will yield much greater benefit than either than any of them would singularly. So, um there's this, this mutual boosting of the outputs and again, this the, these ideas, they're cases of getting more out of the same sort of cost. The only difference is you just have to think about it a little bit 0:27:47 - 0:28:08 more or look around a little bit more and see what's out there and, and how, how it's going for other people who've chosen those sorts of things. So I wanna give you a practical example of this a spec a specific example so that it's not just some ephemeral thing. Um When you're thinking about stacked 0:28:07 - 0:28:28 and synergistic objectives, one way of breaking this down is in terms of uh different topics, different approaches, timing, meaning when you do it and for how long the people involved, the tools you're using and so on, that's not an exhaustive list, but that's the kind of thing you wanna think about 0:28:28 - 0:28:45 . And again, don't take this too far and think that this needs to be a master's thesis worth of work that you can think about this for five minutes on the toilet and it'll change your life. You know, we're just, we're just throwing out the framework here. You take it as far as you'd like. Uh I, I recommend 0:28:44 - 0:29:05 just making it kind of a background process running in your mind that you think about explicitly from time to time for a couple of minutes with a notepad and a pen. Anyway, here's a specific example. Um this is not made up, this is one of my kids. OK. So I have a kid who I thought would benefit from 0:29:04 - 0:00:00 getting into design. And so uh knowing nothing about this, I reached out to some people who did and had some conversations and by that, I mean, I spent five minutes writing an email, you know, at that sort of level of, of sacrifice. OK. So what, what are the stacked and synergistic uh elements here? 0:00:00 - 0:29:56 Well, through my very brief research, I found um resources that were online in the form of extremely well done and inexpensive recorded coursework. And um so getting, getting my, my kid into this, what, what the child is learning is, it's not just limited to design, which by the way has downstream cascading 0:29:55 - 0:30:20 benefits. Um This might lead to work that's, that's directed. It's, it's, it's um very uh specific to design, like like being a web designer or something or it might be lateral where these skills that, that the child learns, it impacts the things that they do uh in some job that you wouldn't think was 0:30:20 - 0:30:39 necessary necessarily directly related. Um But you could, you could come up with examples of that like, I don't know, being a carpenter or something and you don't realize just how much of it has to do with that. And then they have an advantage there that they wouldn't have otherwise had or in other facets 0:30:39 - 0:31:06 of life, like knowing how to decorate their house. So um there's that, but there are these, these uh synergies here, sorry, those, those um 00 my gosh, I'm sorry, getting uh losing my train of thought here because I'm trying to not think about something. It just popping into my mind. Ok. There are other 0:31:06 - 0:31:33 skills that the child is picking up though. So this kid is young. Um Let's do an age range of 9 to 12 to keep it anonymous and this is their first exposure in watching a, an adult oriented professional class. And so the, the speed of the class is a lot higher than what they're used to and they can't 0:31:33 - 0:32:02 interrupt, to ask questions. And so there's a skill set being developed here around independent learning and processing speech uh faster than you otherwise could including note taking. And so I'm, I'm stacking into this, um a sort of a gradual easing into this where we can pause the videos and eventually 0:32:02 - 0:32:25 the pauses are further apart and eventually they go away, right? And then following up by looking at notes. And that's another thing I'm stacking into this, introducing to software showing how to make an outline all these skills. And this is the thing I don't care who you are. If you're an end, if you 0:32:24 - 0:32:51 are an adult, you have an enormous catalog of skills that you take for granted and ideas about the value, the cost, the benefit of things that you take for granted. And when you do things like this, it gives you a canvas to paint on, it gives you uh an interface to communicate and share these things 0:32:50 - 0:33:11 that you would never think of if you're sitting around the dinner table talking about whatever. And now you have a way to give these things of value to your kids that you absolutely would not otherwise have. It's, it's a tremendous blessing. You're, you're conveying way more than you would realize, and 0:33:11 - 0:33:34 if all you're doing with that time is, um, entertainment, you're missing out big time and almost everything we do with our kids on a normal basis. It, it, it does devolve down to entertainment and we might say, well, they're getting exercise or it's this or it's that it's, it's quality time as a family 0:33:33 - 0:33:57 . Ok. But it's really just entertainment compared to what you could be doing, which would be just as fun, but uh not just devoid of other value. Um So this child's learning to type faster to think in certain ways that are new. Um There, there will be downstream impacts to this that you might not expect 0:33:57 - 0:34:19 like um getting more out of the time this kid spends in scripture. Why? Because they can take notes faster and navigate word processing programs faster, they can think faster. Um So if, if they can process spoken speech, they can process text faster as well. Um And then there's little crazy things like 0:34:19 - 0:34:38 eventually. So the kid asked me if I could slow down the, the speed of the video to like three quarter time, which is an option in this player. And I said, no, I said, we gotta go the other way and I said this thing goes up to two X and that's the goal we're gonna get you up to two X. Uh So I, I watch 0:34:38 - 0:35:00 almost everything at two X and the reason I watch it at two X is because there's no option for three X. Um, and I'll tell you where I got this crazy idea from. I consulted for a guy, uh, as, as a programmer, I consulted for a guy who got this idea from somewhere else and he had taken it to such an extreme 0:35:00 - 0:35:22 that he could, he, he claimed, I don't know how much I believe this, but he claimed he could, he could listen to four different things at the same time, like nonfiction, instructional kind of videos or talks or whatever and process all of them. At the same time. I don't know if I believe that, but I 0:35:22 - 0:35:40 have mastered two X. There are very, very few things that I can't listen to at two X and some of, you know, that I know how to speed read. That's another, I met a guy who could speed read it, blew my mind and he proved it. He, he wasn't just, uh, making it up and I thought if that can be done, I absolutely 0:35:40 - 0:36:03 need to try to do it because this is just gonna blow wide open what I could accomplish. And, uh, in the same amount of time, there are things that I can't speed read. Um, but they're few and far between, most people communicate. It's at a density that I can process very much faster than they can, they 0:36:02 - 0:36:29 can, uh, speak or, you know, if they're writing, I can, I can, I could process that very quickly. So anyway, so helping impart that is a really big deal because that's gonna pay dividends her whole entire life. Oh, I revealed it to her. Whoops. Anyway. Um OK. Next tip, an approachable approach. Ok. This 0:36:28 - 0:36:49 does not need to be hard. Basically, the only extra thing you need to do is spend a couple minutes thinking about a couple of minutes. I mean, it really doesn't take more than 15 to think through this. And then you get a start, you can change it later. It's totally flexible. In fact, I think the more 0:36:48 - 0:37:11 changes you make, the happier your kids will be because they tend to get bored. So the first step is make a plan brainstorm. And again, you know, this is one hang up. People get people hit with homeschooling. They're like, how can I homeschool I'm not a teacher, bro. You've spent your whole entire life 0:37:11 - 0:37:28 teaching. You have no idea. You spent your whole entire life learning and you probably agree with that faster. You've spent your whole entire life teaching you, you, you don't need to go get a four year degree to learn how to do something you've been doing your whole life. Could you get better at it 0:37:28 - 0:37:50 with intention and, and study? Sure and practice. Sure. But you don't realize how low the bar is that you're competing against and it's like that, um, when you, when, when we talk about brainstorming here, don't, you're not inventing Cold fusion folks. This is, you're, you're just trying to come up with 0:37:50 - 0:38:14 a better way for your kid to spend time when you feel like it. That's, it's such a low bar. You're not competing against them, you know, getting this, this uh world class talk by the top person in the world on astrophysics. You're competing with them, sitting in a corner and picking their nose, you know 0:38:13 - 0:38:35 , or, or just watching cartoons or something or talking with some idiot friend of theirs. It's, it's, or scrolling through Instagram, which if please do not let your kids do that. Um The bar is very low, it's very low. You could show them how to sharpen a knife and it's life changing for them compared 0:38:35 - 0:38:54 to what they'd be spending their time on, right? How to make a bed. Like if this is not, when we say brainstorm, it's more like, hey, here's a challenge. Think of the best thing you can. The, the challenge is not think of a thing that, that's better than what they'd be doing. Otherwise you could do that 0:38:54 - 0:39:14 in a quarter of a second and then just spend as much time as you'd like getting as good as you can very easy. Now write down all the ideas you have, you don't have to use them. But in brainstorming, you don't wanna filter things, you just go ahead and put it down on paper or digitally is, is even better 0:39:13 - 0:39:30 once you're through with as much time as you want to spend on that, then you start analyzing these things and again, just because we're using fancy words, doesn't mean it's a fancy thing. It's a piece of cake. You're just, it's like shopping, you're just looking at what you've got and thinking about 0:39:30 - 0:39:57 the value. And so you wanna remember not to just think about in the moment like, oh, I want my kid to learn how to juggle, ok? But, but that's great for right here and now it's something to do. What's the downstream benefit? Well, they could be in a circus one day, ok? Um It's a nice party trick, ok 0:39:56 - 0:40:20 ? And think about the cost and benefit of each option and then you compare the options. And so if it's juggling on the one hand and then learning how to farm on the other, probably the farming is a better idea. So um you've got to look at that cost benefit, what are the options? Pick the best option 0:40:19 - 0:40:48 ? Highest impact? And in case you don't know, you say what's the benefit? What's the cost subtract the cost from the benefit and whatever you get left over, that's the net benefit. If you want the expected benefit, then you, you multiply the net benefit by the probability of it happening and that, that 0:40:47 - 0:41:07 one might throw you. But you have to realize that benefits are probabilistic meaning um not meaning that they're based on chance, but meaning that a lot of things could turn out differently than you think. And maybe the best benefit of juggling is that they become the first world star of juggling and 0:41:07 - 0:41:32 the richest person in the world based on their juggling skills. The astronomically low probability of that occurring is going to have to reduce the value of taking that option. So not to get into the weeds on that, you don't have to go that far in parsing through this. It's very simple. It can be. Um 0:41:31 - 0:41:51 And then you execute. So now you've got a plan which by the way, you can revisit any time for any reason, you're free to change this any time. So when you, when you pivot to execution, this is the long term mode that you'll stay in until you have reason to go back to planning if you ever do. And this 0:41:51 - 0:42:20 is very simple. You think about, well, what can I do about this over six months? What can I do about this? Over one month? What can I do about this over the next week? What can I do today? And you do the thing that you can do today? And that's it very simple, right? So to give you some extra tools here 0:42:19 - 0:42:42 , I wanna emphasize a few ideas. One uh take advantage of asynchronous time. What do I mean by that? Um If you get an idea and you write an email and you send it to someone that's an asynchronous communication. You're writing it and sending it right now, but they might not read it for, for another hour 0:42:41 - 0:43:03 or day or week and that's ok. Whatever action you're asking them to take in that email, it's not emergent. It doesn't have to, it's not urgent, it doesn't have to happen right this second. Ok. If it was, you'd find a way of getting a hold of them right now. It turns out that we live our lives as if all 0:43:02 - 0:43:25 interactions with our kids need to be in the moment or, or that they need the tasks need to be completed in the moment or that the benefits need to be reaped in the moment, but you need to take advantage of asynchronous timescales. Ok? So let me give you some practical tools with that. You may have noticed 0:43:25 - 0:43:48 that Children have a ton of time. You do not, they also have a ton of energy. You ever noticed that after they eat dinner, they're crazy and you are ready to go to bed. Um So until they invent a way of transferring that energy to balance things out, which would be nice. Um It turns out that they, they 0:43:48 - 0:44:13 just have this power plant of time and energy. If you only think of, of things that you can do where your time and energy matches theirs, you're going to be vastly under performing here, there will be things that are tremendous benefit that you're not uh engaging. You need to think of ways that they 0:44:12 - 0:44:40 can do things with their time and their energy when you have neither or only one. So you prioritize your interactions with them so that you can make the greatest use of their time and energy outside of yours. Does this make sense? This isn't some grand idea. You already do it. You just don't think about 0:44:39 - 0:45:04 it and you're leaving a lot of opportunities for doing it more than you are to, to, to uh skirt by one example. Have you taught your child how to read? This is a tremendous example of this where uh and I'm getting ahead of myself here, but you're using your time on something and it's intensive to teach 0:45:04 - 0:45:23 a kid how to read. It takes time and persistence more than anything else. Consistency, which is hard because your schedule is not consistent and you're gonna have things where, where sometimes that takes a sacrifice to sit down with them for 10 minutes a day or whatever it takes till they're there. But 0:45:23 - 0:45:44 what happens once they're there? So I call this the training wheels principle. It's a pain in the butt to teach a kid how to ride a bike. But guess what happens after they learn, they're able to ride a bike anytime and you don't need to be there. Not only that, but they can also teach someone else how 0:45:43 - 0:46:04 to ride a bike. So if you do it right you should only ever have to teach one of your kids how to ride a bike and they'll take care of the rest. And that's a cascading benefit. So, what are the long term benefits of teaching one kid how to ride a bike? Well, they're infinite. It's this infinite eternal 0:46:03 - 0:46:23 chain of bike riding, right? So, and this maybe is an appropriate time to talk about something that might not be obvious. But when we talk about these kinds of principles, I, I think there are folks out there who have a tendency to say, well, this is self help. Who cares about that? What does this have 0:46:23 - 0:46:40 to do with the gospel? It's funny because a lot of secular people will say the opposite about the gospel. Well, this is religious. Who cares about that? Tell me how I can change my life. Folks, they're not different, they're not different. And until you integrate both sides of that coin, you're missing 0:46:40 - 0:47:10 out on the, on more than half till you integrate both sides of that coin, you're missing out on more than half. So it turns out that using your time wisely with your Children is fully, fully in line with the concept of eternal exaltation. That's about as religious as you can get? Ok. Um So, so focus 0:47:09 - 0:47:35 prior pri prioritize the training wheels principles, kinds of things, prioritize the the the expenditures of time that yield cascading benefits and give you more time over time. So let's say example. So say you homeschool or even if you don't, OK, if your kid is a whiz bang reader and because you've 0:47:35 - 0:47:59 invested some time in that early on and they're ahead of the game cause you did what you could do before you had to do it. Now, are you spending more time or less time helping them read over time? Way, way less time they come home with homework. You're never ever gonna have to help them with the reading 0:47:59 - 0:48:16 part because they, they're way ahead of the curve. But more than that, if they're being annoying, you tell them to go read a book. Right? And then you get these really interesting conversations where they know way more than they should about something because they've been reading things. I mean, good 0:48:15 - 0:48:36 things and they're independently learning. Well, if you consider it your job to, um, to be responsible for them learning things. Well, isn't this wonderful? You've just given them a tool where they can use their time and energy independent of yours to help further your goal, which is to help them learn 0:48:36 - 0:48:55 , you see how it works. So the point is you're already doing this, you're just not taking that lesson and applying it to all these other ways you could do it. Um, a lot of times we were working out in the yard, I try to help my wife focus on because she's like the crew, you know, she'll go out and do 0:48:55 - 0:49:17 crew work with the kids and I'm off doing something dangerous, hanging off a roof or, or something. And, um, I, I try to tell her the most important thing you could be doing with these kids is not whatever you're doing, it's helping them learn how to do it and do it themselves. So, so if you have to 0:49:17 - 0:49:37 pick up rocks or pull weeds or whatever that the project is, um, that's fine. But do it in your downtime when you're, when there's not some way you could be helping the kids do those things more effectively because everything you teach them is going to cascade forever. And so once they become master 0:49:37 - 0:49:57 rock pickers or weed pullers or garden uh planters or whatever, that's actually I do that one, the most important thing you could be doing is advancing your kids' capability at doing things because that's what's going to cascade. Whereas if it's just you doing something, it's just you doing something 0:49:56 - 0:50:19 that's a limit of one person. Again, that's an eternal principle. The best thing you could do is help other people do things because it keeps going whereas it stops with you. So back to this asynchronous idea, we have to cover some very important things that are different from how you probably do it 0:50:19 - 0:50:47 . Now, I just told you about delegating, inspecting and reviewing, but let's be explicit about it. Um You take time to fully explain the task, you explain what needs to be done, why we're doing it. You explain what the standard of completion is. You set up limits of this is acceptable. This is not. And 0:50:46 - 0:51:08 , um, and, and what I mean is, uh, in the means to the end. So if you say like, ok, we're gonna do this thing, we're gonna make some money but don't go rob a bank because that's not what we're doing right here. Um, or we're pulling weeds but don't destroy the entire area. Uh, just be kind of neat with 0:51:08 - 0:51:27 it. I don't wanna see dirt all over the place kind of thing. And then, um, usually you want them to repeat back the instructions. Ok, maybe get them to write it down. It's a really good idea. Get them to write it down. Don't write it down for them, get them to write it down and then read back what it 0:51:27 - 0:51:52 says or, or tell you, uh, back. Oh, my gosh. Repeat to you the instructions that you gave them. Then step two is inspect, don't tell them when, but let them know that you're going to be coming by to see how it's going and then do that. Um, the best inspections are the ones that are unannounced and you 0:51:52 - 0:52:10 should tell them that they will be unannounced because then they'll be thinking about that the whole time whether you're there or not. And then the final step is to review at the conclusion of every delegated activity. You need to sit down and talk about the strengths and weaknesses of what was performed 0:52:10 - 0:52:34 . That is the most valuable part of all of this. It's not in what gets done. It's in the feedback that they get because there are lessons that go beyond the task that are conveyed in that moment. Also, people need credit for good things that they do. It's very important. They also need to be tweaked 0:52:34 - 0:52:54 when they're off base. Ok? Another thing that, so that's probably way more structured than what you do right now. And it doesn't have to be formal. But those elements really, really, really need to be there. If you leave any of them out, the benefits just will not be anything close to what they could 0:52:54 - 0:53:16 be. But the good news is you really get used to this and then it's second nature. You don't have to even think about it. You just do it. Um If you don't inspect, you're gonna, it's gonna be um lord of the flies, kids, kids. It doesn't even just a, a lord of the flies situation with one kid. It's some 0:53:16 - 0:53:41 crazy thing. They will go off the rails. So you gotta inspect, um, all right. One thing that's also not naturally occurring is that you have to teach your kids to yield to you that that's gonna ruffle feathers. There are gonna be people who don't like that. I don't care if you're not living your life 0:53:40 - 0:53:58 where that would be a good thing for them to do. Then you're really, really messing up. You're an adult. You have had your whole life to get ahead of them. If, if, if it's not the case that you have that much to impart to them, that whatever they're doing should stop when you have something for them 0:53:57 - 0:54:14 . Then, um, you really messed up. Now, obviously that wanes as they get older and better, but in the beginning when they're young, it should absolutely be obvious. Now, it won't be obvious because that's not the world, the, the way the world goes, that's not the way parents raise their kids. It's not 0:54:14 - 0:54:39 what they're taught in school, but it is something you ought to teach them when you have something for them that you raise because you understand it to be way more important, they need to drop whatever they're doing and go with that. This is also a gospel principle. Um w when you adopt asynchronous approaches 0:54:39 - 0:55:05 , what it, what it does is it transforms tiny, unexpected or unpredictable gaps in your time into extraordinarily powerful contributions to their life, the life of your kids. But like I said, it takes a framework to be able to make use of those. So let me give you an example. Um Let's say that my kid 0:55:04 - 0:55:35 is uh playing LEGO and all of a sudden um I'm in the midst of some project outside and there emerges an opportunity for that child to contribute to it. So if I'm not going to interrupt that kid or that kid's gonna get really mad at me. If I do, then this isn't going to work, right? Or let's say something 0:55:35 - 0:55:53 comes up and I'm like, all right, this is a, a delegate task. I was doing this thing and now it's in a state where I can hand it off to someone else, you have to interrupt the kid. If they're doing something that's less important, sometimes they won't be, sometimes they will. But given just how much 0:55:53 - 0:56:12 time kids spend on things that aren't ideal odds are, it's pretty high that they're available and they could help, but they need to understand the way that that rolls and that, you know, if they're playing a video game or something. But, you know, your, your, your situation will be whatever it is. But 0:56:11 - 0:56:35 if it's something like that or they're even, they're reading a book, it's like, OK, well, you're doing a leisure activity right now. It's time to do something with a higher impact. Let's roll to that end. It's really important. Um So just to emphasize here, you know, kids aren't slaves. Your, your setup 0:56:34 - 0:56:55 is such that you're pointing towards their higher purpose. OK, which hopefully is aligned with your higher purpose. But whatever it might be, you're taking them from something lower in that hierarchy or maybe off that hierarchy because kids do waste a lot of time and you're putting them higher up on 0:56:55 - 0:57:25 it, so you're helping them do what they, what helps them, you're helping them do what helps them? Ok, so the final idea here is really be careful about scheduling out your kid's full calendar. This happens way, way, way too often where you've got recurring things of questionable value filling the schedule 0:57:24 - 0:57:47 . Why is this bad? Because you'll be way less likely or you just won't interrupt any of those things for things of higher importance, even if you wanted to, you know, if you have to drive them to an event three times a week at a place that chops all of those blocks out of a higher purpose. Should one 0:57:47 - 0:58:12 emerge an opportunity come out of that? And so maybe you look at that and you say, well, yeah, but I got them into this thing because it contributed to their higher purpose. All right, if it's really high up on that triangle because these things are pyramids. If it's really high up in the high in the 0:58:12 - 0:58:34 priority scheme, then great. But odds are, it's not, odds are, it's not, even if you look at public school, it's a great example of this. Ok, because most people would say, yeah, well, it's important for kids to get an education. Ok, fine. But what are you really trying to accomplish with that? And if 0:58:34 - 0:58:56 you break it down into detail, you will probably find that there are better ways of doing this and that they probably aren't so scheduled. I'm not a fan of free range kids. It's not what I'm saying here at all. I'm just saying if you make the purpose explicit and the means explicit, it breaks down blocks 0:58:55 - 0:59:20 of time into smaller things, shorter things. And that one I think is the most justifiable, big chunk of time. Uh, daily school for a kid. I think that's the most justifiable recurring block of time. But it should probably even that one should probably be way shorter. So if you homeschool a kid, you can 0:59:20 - 0:59:40 teach them way more than they're gonna learn in a day of public school in about 2.5 hours. That's even if you have other kids there. So even if it stretches to four, now you're saving two hours plus a day that could be used for more productive things. Plus all the homework, which really, really, really 0:59:40 - 1:00:01 isn't necessary. Ok. Anyway, so those are some, some tips for taking advantage of chunks of time and making sure the priorities are as high as they can be. And again, don't get bogged down in all these details. If something sticks, that's great. But the most important thing is just to march down this 1:00:01 - 1:00:24 path at all and you can tweak it as you go, you find what works for you, another tip is to change it up. So if you lift weights, then you know that if you do the same routine for long enough, you don't get any more gains out of it. And, um, sometimes people become bored even when you're hardcore and 1:00:24 - 1:00:47 you love lifting weights and you're not bored, you still aren't getting gains. And so you need to change it up. I'll tell you, um, 11 thing that I learned in doing this because I've been doing this for years, one mistake I made early on or one opportunity I had for improvement early on is that I scheduled 1:00:45 - 1:01:10 time and I scheduled which kid I was gonna spend it with. And so we were doing things we called them nights. That's what the kids would call them. Is it my night tonight? And so five kids, five week nights and then the weekends were mine. Um, and we'd rotate a kid each day and so each kid got 30 minutes 1:01:09 - 1:01:32 , one on, one with dad right after dinner. And, uh, at first we would do whatever the kid wanted and we were doing the dumbest things. Now, you might say, well, that's not fair if it's important to the child. Yeah. But here's the thing and this is my point. Kids don't make good decisions. Kids don't 1:01:32 - 1:01:54 make good decisions. They don't choose things of high value, but they also don't choose things that align with what they want. Those are two separate problems and by the way, adults have that problem too. Um, but kids are really bad at it. And so they would choose things that they would get bored of 1:01:54 - 1:02:16 , they would choose things that they didn't really care about. And um furthermore, it's also the case that they would choose things that were of very low value in my eyes for them. So this started with a lot of momentum and a lot of excitement. And then over months, I think we did this for more than 1:02:16 - 1:02:39 six months. Um So I get an award for that consistency, but oh, it was brutal and we were all dreading it. We all hated it in the end. And I turned to my wife and I said, you know, I just can't, I want to spend more time with the kids. This just can't be the way. And um I'm exhausted. I dread this every 1:02:39 - 1:02:58 day. It's like going to the dentist and this isn't the way I want to spend time with my kids. So, one of the secrets I learned is do not schedule this time. You could have slots earmarked for like potential times. You might do this just like you have projects that you're like, you know, a Saturday would 1:02:58 - 1:03:16 be a good time to do this. But that's different from saying every single Saturday, I'm going to do this for three hours from this time to this time. You've got enough in your life. That's like that learn to take advantage of, of opportunities and then it's a little more interesting for everybody because 1:03:16 - 1:03:38 the kids don't know whose turn it's gonna be. They don't know what we're doing tonight and they're excited about it, you know. So, same thing with hard rotations on kids. I think it's, it's much better to say, hey, I'm gonna build something with this kid. And so any moment I have available that where 1:03:38 - 1:03:58 I have the energy and, and time to contribute to this, I'm gonna nab this kid and we're gonna go work on it until it's done and I'm not gonna spend time with the other kids while I'm doing that and that's just the way it's gonna be. Now, obviously, there still needs to be a balance but adopt larger time 1:03:57 - 1:04:20 scales to balance those things out. It doesn't need to be every week. You don't need to reconcile your kid time every week, right? Um Yeah, so, so you change it up and you rotate things and then you don't need to dread it and you don't need to uh get bored and they don't need to get bored either. But 1:04:20 - 1:04:47 also obviously one thing II I changed from all that is they don't get to pick. Um So that way I'm making sure that it's a good use of time for everybody. That's the final point here is, don't do things that you don't feel are interesting and important. Now, you might say, well, what about the kids? Part 1:04:46 - 1:05:05 of this is teaching them that you have a better idea of what's interesting and important than they do. Now. The important part is probably easier to teach than the interesting part. But if you don't choose lame things, it's not that hard to teach them about the interesting part. So, for instance, this 1:05:05 - 1:05:30 is one reason why we got our kids into piano is that it's a hard thing to learn. It's got a lot of cascading benefits. Um, and one of those cascading benefits is the knowledge that something that seems completely impossible can turn out to be totally possible if you just practice it consistently. Um 1:05:29 - 1:05:48 , another cascading benefit to, to the point here is that things that seem like the least interesting thing in the world when you start them can turn out to be really cool when you finish them because, uh, every one of the kids and this is something easier when you, you know, you start with an older 1:05:48 - 1:06:05 child when they're young. The other ones just kind of see get with the program because the ruts are in the road. But also they see right before their eyes, what the fruits of it are. And they say, well, if I do this for three years, like my older brother did, I can play music that I want to play just 1:06:05 - 1:06:25 like he can. And it's really cool. So you can teach them about the interesting and important and this is an aspect of learning to trust them, which is again a hardcore gospel principle because that's what we're trying to learn from God is, is to trust that He knows better than we do. What is interesting 1:06:24 - 1:06:50 and important. This is the final slide I'll share with you um the current projects for three kids uh other than the design one. Um But yeah, and then there's some, some general things here and, and then we'll end with that. So one child has a slight interest in carpentry. He sort of mentioned some things 1:06:50 - 1:07:10 about building and construction. And so we used so this is the, this, this is a great example because you get an idea of long term. And again, this does not have to be carved in stone. It doesn't have to be something you take a second mortgage out on. It's not, you know, it can be just tiny little inputs 1:07:10 - 1:07:33 over a long time, but the intention has to be there. You have to have a thought about this in a plan. So we decided that we were gonna use Christmas and birthday to build a tool set for him. So we did that and then he also bought into that and used some of his own money to get some stuff. And so what 1:07:32 - 1:07:51 we're planning um over the winter when things slow down and become a little bit more discretionary as far as our time for projects goes, we're not so frantic about stuff outside before it snows. We're gonna build some animal enclosures um for some animals that we're getting And so this will be a project 1:07:51 - 1:08:13 where I focus on this child instead of the others for, for a time, of course, I could rotate the kids through. But one of the benefits and we've done that on things. But uh one of the benefits of this is I want this child to go through the start to finish. And so I want him to plan the buildings. I want 1:08:13 - 1:08:32 , I want to critique his designs and talk through that. I want him to, to lay out everything to find the materials, make use of what we have uh do the budget for what we don't. Again, you can get as involved with this as you want. But I need these animal enclosures anyway because we're going to get the 1:08:32 - 1:08:51 animals that go in them in the spring. And so I'm going to take a lot more time than I would otherwise do to do it myself. But the benefits are gonna cascade because he's gonna get a chance to do all this. We could spend time together doing something meaningful and so on and so forth. OK. Second and 1:08:50 - 0:00:00 , and in the future, I will be able to tell him, hey, I need a building for this animal. Go do it. And all I have to do is check in and then when he's an adult, if he needs an animal building, he's just gonna make one because he already knows how. And if he ever does anything it's kind of like that. 0:00:00 - 1:09:32 It's not going to be an unknown, even if the only similarity is the difficulty level or the degree of not knowing upfront all the details. He's just gonna be able to jump right in the barrier is forever gone with another kid. Um He's, he's young, he, he doesn't have a whole ton of interests. Um He's 1:09:32 - 0:00:00 kind of generically interested in things, but one thing he likes doing is playing chess and he likes spending time. And so, uh because he's not super interested in other things, it's a struggle to find things we can do together. So, um, he asked me a long time ago, it seems like a long time ago. Um, 0:00:00 - 1:10:14 if I could build him a chess set. Now, I know from past mistakes when Children ask you to build things for them, that's a whole heck of a lot of your time and often money and then they're only interested in it for a few minutes and then they set it aside and I don't do that anymore. So, um, I told him 1:10:13 - 1:10:34 no, I won't build you a chess set. But what I will do is I will lead you through building your own and I will be right there with you and I'll pay for it, but you're going to solve the woodd, you're gonna glue it together, you're gonna do everything. Um, and then it will be yours and then if he sets 1:10:33 - 1:10:58 it aside we still get to keep all that time we had together. And then instead of just making something for him to use for fun, every time he sees that he's gonna remember that time we spent. So and then of course, he retains all the skills. So you see the stacking um and then of course, we can play chess 1:10:58 - 1:11:19 with it too, right? So this is, this is something that the, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Now, I've got another kid who during school he got exposed to some of these myths. He happens to have a very interesting memory. I, I don't even know how to describe the way this kid's brain works 1:11:18 - 1:11:42 anyway. So he really, he really uh keyed in on this and he started talking about it and it just so happened that I had caught on to a whole bunch of gospel analogs in myths and I had the thought it just was living in a notes file of, um, maybe doing a larger analysis of this. And I wondered if it would 1:11:42 - 1:12:03 be helpful to anyone. It was certainly helpful to me. And um, it's, it's a, it, well, I won't get into why. So I thought, well, he's of age where he can actually contribute writing and he would do well to learn how to write better. That's always true of everyone. But we could have opportunities for one 1:12:03 - 1:12:21 on one feedback here where there'd be nice independent chunks so that I could take advantage of asynchronous time of, uh you know, I jump in and I do edits to the file and we could track the changes and I could email it to him and we could just pass it back and forth and then talk face to face about 1:12:21 - 1:12:40 it when we need it. And this would be a great way to get this project move forward. That is interesting to me, it wouldn't be the highest priority, but it's very interesting to him. And so it also is a way of teaching a whole bunch about the gospel because there's a lot of these connections are things 1:12:39 - 1:13:03 he doesn't know yet and the world doesn't know uh not to entice you too much with that. So, um anyway, and then, and then he would get to learn this, this uh how to use a word processor and become more familiar with that. Um become a better typer and so on. So, um that's something that we're doing. So 1:13:03 - 1:13:22 , here's some ideas. This is a, a bit of my current slate and this is the sort of thing you can do and, and as you can tell some of these, all of these things will come to an end and then you get to pick something else. So I thought I'd share that in hopes that it might help you flesh out something uh 1:13:21 - 1:13:32 or tweak something that you're doing. So I hope you find that helpful and that you find ways of having a higher impact in how you spend your time with your kids.