Protect time for family by making caregiving non-negotiable

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 41:08

   yeah all right let me ask you one last question which is um i've always found it like as i got older i've always found it difficult to balance my career with actually spending my parents because you know like your parents aren't around forever forever and uh you know i think working at open eyes is a pretty demanding job right so how do you how do you think about this from your own point of view oh man yeah yes this is the age old question yeah um there's it's it's hard to do it all yeah um i think i really do think so there's all the like optimization hacks and trying to get the most out of every minute that you have and blah blah but at the end of the day we all have only 24 hours per day.

2. 41:47

   And so there's only so much you can max out. I think it really comes down to being really clear about what are your priorities and if something's going to drop what, realistically, what's the stack rank of things. And I think it's going to be different for everyone, but it seems like you share a value system that I have, which is that my family is the most important. And so for me, it's just a non-negotiable.

3. 42:08

   Like if my dad has a doctor's appointment, even at this job, even in my former job at Metta, I'm lucky I've worked at employers that are understanding and supportive of these things but like i also still have to set that boundary i'll just block the time yeah i just block the time and no and not once have i ever gotten pushback or criticism or questioning um everyone's so supportive but it there's something that has to flip in you because until my dad um got very sick you know when this was back in university i still like ran kind of this crazy sort of always on life even as a student um i always felt like there's no more time in the day there's no there's no there's no more possible thing I could do right now and then someone gets sick and you realize wait actually when I really prioritize this like

4. 42:51

   look at what I'm carving out like look what could drop and yeah you know it's always great obviously you'd like to do everything but I think I think sometimes when you prioritize you realize like how much you really can dedicate time to certain things if you just make the hard calls um and and And are you just limiting yourself? Like, are you deluding yourself that you're actually that busy? Maybe some of those meetings didn't actually have to happen or, you know, and speaking for myself.

5. 43:18

   Yeah. You know, like a lot of PM meetings don't have to happen, so I don't think, yeah. Or something doesn't need to happen right then, maybe something can, like, you know, not everything. Some things are time sensitive, but sometimes there's like self-imposed, you know, and some things actually benefit from an extra week of breathing for people to come to it. So I don't know. I think I had a similar feeling when I had kids, I have a one-year-old and three-year-old right now, where you just start to realize that you can make time for the things that are important if you really prioritize them.

6. 43:54

   It's really that simple. You have to kind of like not take your loved ones for granted, right, because you assume those will be around forever. Your kids will grow up and your parents will grow up. No, you have to prioritize. Yeah, you have to prioritize. And now, do you have any tips on it? Well, I think I kind of made the conscious choice to focus on my mom's care and make my little YouTube videos and stuff.

7. 44:16

   Great YouTube videos. No, I totally agree. I mean, you're actually reminding me. There was a period around the pandemic where both of my parents each got diagnosed with two cancers each within a week of each other. And I had just had a miscarriage and it was just a tremendous, like a really hard month. I actually took that. We had this program or my former employer, we had a program called Recharge, which was sort of like every five years you get to take a month.

8. 44:39

   And I used and I just took the month. I did a similar thing where I said, OK, this is going to dedicate this time. There's no shame in that. No, probably the best. One of the best is I don't regret that a single, but it was one of the best things I could have done in that moment to just both care for my parents but also you have to care for i guess that's the other piece of advice you have to care for yourself as a caregiver yeah we don't talk about that enough it's it's a big even with the with the with the help of ai it's still a really big cognitive load emotional load um just pure time load to be a caregiver um and you have to also make sure that you're budgeting time for your own your own mental health yeah yeah yeah i think i and talking to your community helps with that yeah i think so too and and i think it it can make