How Becoming a Father Made Me A Better Corporate Employee

The hidden gains of children

Martial Tipsey
5 min readAug 26, 2021
istockphoto.com/Ridofranz

There was a time when the idea of working and having kids seemed unreal to me, “They’ll just be a distraction.” I would say to myself. Even after having been with my partner for nearly a decade, I kept holding off. Kept feeling not ready. Then we finally had kids and something funny happened. I became more organized, more productive, and more efficient at work.

Better Prioritizer

The first thing I noticed that changed, was my time prioritization. When it came to working on something for a period of time and only in that time, I was terrible. If I said I would leave work at 5, my wife knew that really meant 7. Something I said I would only do for an hour, I did for a day. That was my life. That life doesn’t work with kids, not if you plan to actually be there for them.

We spend so many years saying we “don’t have time,” but it’s not a matter of not having enough, it’s a matter of deciding what we want to use the time for and setting that time aside.

Doctor’s appointment? Not only is the appointment time blocked off, but time to drive there and back. Excercise, lunch, even bedtime. You often hear the phrase, “You make time for the things that matter.” This becomes real on a whole other…

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Martial Tipsey
Martial Tipsey

Written by Martial Tipsey

Snr. Product Manager — Helping others succeed.

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