A friend of mine has two girls, three boys, two 100+ pound yellow labs, five goldfish, an amazing wife and he still finds time to read the paper, go to the gym, mow his own lawn, take his wife out and laugh with his kids. He rarely seems stressed and always has time to stop what he’s doing to talk to me or another neighbor. “How do you do it?” I asked. I can barely find the time to breathe and my life is way less complicated than his. His response was simply, “Prioritize from the bottom up.” My response was, “Huh?”

He explained that when he and his wife were first married, he realized he had to change some things in his schedule if he wanted to have a successful marriage. He also knew that they both wanted a big family and that meant he’d have to have a good income and yet he wouldn’t be able to spend his life at the office. So he learned to prioritize from the bottom up. Reverse prioritization showed him what would most likely vie for his time, but wouldn’t be worth missing the rest of his life over.

It starts as a To Do list: mow the lawn, fix the shower in the guest bathroom, board meeting, golf, oil change in both cars, soccer game, baseball game, dinner, dance recital, brief due to the boss… We so often need to just get things done that we fill our days and weeks with the stuff of life while the important things, like time with the kids, is lost. So he put the things that needed to be done, like the lawn and the oil change, at the bottom of the list and put himself and his family at the top. “That makes me include my kids in the simple things, like an oil change, instead of running off to accomplish a task. Now I take Jen with me and we have a date at Starbucks while the car’s in the shop. She looks forward to oil changes and brake jobs. I held Nick on my lap and we pretended to race dragsters every weekend while I mowed the lawn. It was a really big deal the first time he did it himself. I got him a checkered flag and waved it as he drove the mower into the garage. It’s still pinned on his wall.

“We worked hard to make family time something everyone wanted to do instead of letting it become a chore. We hike because the girls love it. I make up scavenger hunts for the boys and give my oldest science experiments to complete in the woods. They’re doing what they enjoy. I’m hiking. By the time we’re home, everyone’s interested in what the other’s been up to and my wife has documented everything on her camera – her hobby. Now the work is done, quality time is well spent and we’re closer, healthier, happier…it’s a beautiful thing. The real key is to know when your kid or your neighbor needs you more than the lawn does. Let the grass grow because the kids sure won’t stop.”

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