The Parents Guide To Superhuman Productivity

Let's Dive In

Before I had kids, I felt like I never had enough time.

Then I had four children.

Now I look back at my pre-kids self and think: "You had virtually unlimited time... you just didn't know it."

There's nothing like raising children to force you to become ruthlessly efficient with your time and energy. It's the ultimate productivity bootcamp – one that's taught me systems to get more done in a week than most people do in a month.

The difference? High agency habits – those intentional practices that separate the person who makes things happen from the person who wonders how things happen.

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A Perspective Shift

When my fourth child arrived, I had a realization: my productivity wasn’t primarily about time—it was about aligning energy with focus.

The person who gets extraordinary things done isn't operating with more hours—they're operating with a different system altogether.

Think about that friend everyone describes as a "machine." That person isn't blessed with a 30-hour day. They've mastered high agency habits.

And the good news? These habits are entirely learnable.

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Energy-First Productivity: A Master Framework

Let's start with the game-changer: Energy-First Productivity.

Most productivity systems make a fundamental error: they treat time as the limiting factor. But anyone with young children knows that having the time doesn't matter if you don't have the mental capacity to use it well.

The Energy-First approach flips traditional productivity on its head:

Instead of asking "When do I have time for this task?" ask "When will I have the right energy for this task?"

Here's the framework in action:

1. Track your energy patterns: Notice when you're naturally most alert, creative, and focused. For me, it's 5:00-8:00 AM and 8:00-10:00 PM.

2. Categorize tasks by energy requirements:

• High-energy tasks: Strategic thinking, creative work, important decisions
• Medium-energy tasks: Meetings, standard work execution, planning
• Low-energy tasks: Admin work, simple follow-ups

3. Match tasks to energy levels:

• Reserve peak energy periods for your most important, needle-moving work
• Schedule admin and routine tasks during low-energy periods
• Protect your high-energy windows religiously

This simple shift doubled my output on important projects. I get more done in the “right” two hours, than what used to take me multiple days, simply by aligning focused time with my natural energy peaks.

An hour at your peak can be worth three or four hours during an energy slump.

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3 More High Agency Habits

1. Thinking in Longer Time-Horizons

Don't just plan for tomorrow— think through multiple time horizons simultaneously:

• Daily focus: What specifically must I accomplish today?
• Weekly planning: What are this week's priorities and how do they fit into my energy map?
• Monthly direction: What big rocks am I moving this month
• Quarterly strategy: Where do I want to be in 3 months?

The magic happens when you connect these horizons. Each morning, you're not just deciding what to do today—you're executing on a plan that can put you in an entirely difference position three months from now.

Action Step: Take 90 minutes this Sunday to map your priorities across all four horizons. You may feel an immediate clarity about what matters and what doesn't.

2. Decision Batching

The average adult makes thousands of decisions per day. Each one drains a bit of your mental energy.

Make sure you understand this cognitive load and implement decision batching—the practice of grouping similar decisions together to reduce decision fatigue.

Examples from my routine:

• Meal planning: I subscribe to a service called Factor. Amazing, high protein meals for the entire week. I eat healthy food, that gives me energy, and never have to think about “what to eat”.
• Meeting days: Scheduling most all meetings on Tuesdays and Thursdays
• Email processing: Checking email only twice per day

Decision batching alone freed up approximately 5-8 hours of mental bandwidth in my week—time I now spend in deep work on my most important projects.

3. The "Touch It Once" Rule

This simple rule has saved me countless hours: When you encounter a task, email, or decision, touch it exactly once.

This means:

• If an email requires less than 5 minutes to handle, do it immediately
• If a household item is out of place, put it away now, not later
• If a request comes in, either schedule it, delegate it, or decline it on the spot

No more opening the same email four times. No more moving the same pile of papers from one surface to another.

The "touch it once" rule eliminates the energy drain of revisiting the same item multiple times and prevents the accumulation of half-completed tasks that clutter your mind.

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The Five Core Beliefs That Drive High Agency

While systems and habits are essential, they're powered by something deeper: core beliefs. These beliefs determine whether you approach life as a passive participant or an active creator.

Here are the five core beliefs I've observed in highly effective individuals (and work to develop in myself):

1. "I am the primary actor in my life" High agency individuals see themselves as the protagonists in their life story, not supporting characters. They believe their actions matter more than circumstances.

2. "There's always a way through" When facing obstacles, they don't ask "Can this be solved?" but rather "How can this be solved?" They assume solutions exist and it's their job to find them.

3. "My growth compounds over time" They understand that small, consistent improvements lead to exponential results. They're willing to do unglamorous work now for extraordinary outcomes later.

4. "Discomfort is the price of growth" Rather than avoiding discomfort, they recognize it as the necessary cost of progress. They don't expect achievement to feel good in the moment.

5. "I can learn anything I need to" They maintain learning agility, believing that most any skills or knowledge are acquirable with the right approach and effort.

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The ARISE Framework: How to Develope High Agency in Any Area

The good news? These beliefs aren't fixed traits—they're learnable skills. Here's the practical system I use to develop high agency thinking in any area:

A - Audit your current beliefs

• Where are you using low agency language? ("I can't," "That's impossible," "I don't have time")
• In which areas do you feel powerless or like a victim of circumstance?
• Where do you believe the solution lies outside of your control?

R - Reframe through high agency questions

• Transform "I don't have time" into "How can I make this a priority?"
• Shift "That's impossible" to "What would make this possible?"
• Change "I need someone to help me" to "How can I solve this myself?"

I - Implement immediate action

• Take one small action immediately to demonstrate your agency
• The action should be so small it's impossible to avoid
• Document what you did to reinforce your new identity

S - Seek evidence of impact

• Collect examples of how your actions created positive outcomes
• Build an "agency evidence bank" you can review when facing challenges
• Celebrate small wins that resulted from your initiative

E - Expand your circle of influence

• Gradually take on slightly larger challenges
• Apply your high agency thinking to adjacent areas of your life
• Teach these principles to others (teaching reinforces learning)

I spend 10 minutes every morning working through this system. After six months, my sense of possibility has expanded dramatically.

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Key Takeaways

• Time management is a myth; energy management is reality. Match your most important tasks to your peak energy periods.
• Operate across multiple time horizons simultaneously. Connect daily actions to weekly, monthly, and quarterly priorities.
• Batch decisions to combat decision fatigue. Group similar choices together to preserve mental energy for what matters.
• Touch each task only once. Eliminate the drain of revisiting the same items repeatedly.
• Develop the five core beliefs of high agency. Your mindset determines what you perceive as possible.

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Your Action Steps This Week

1. Track your energy patterns for the next 7 days. When are you naturally at your best?

2. Identify your one "needle-moving" project that deserves your peak energy.

3. Block off your top two energy periods tomorrow for uninterrupted work on that project.

4. Create a "later" list for anything that tries to invade those peak periods.