A Very Productive Day

This is a copy of the original posting which was wiped out when blogger went down earlier this week. Sorry for the inconvenience...here it goes again.

One of the advantages of being self-employed is that I have much more control of my time and get to spend a lot more time with the family. Since I work from my home office, this also means I get quite a bit of interruptions. Now, interruptions were not uncommon at all when I had a nice office in a big company, only they didn't include invitations to jump on the trampoline or to play cars or trains, as Joshua (4) is prone to do.

My little Joshua Dahlin

Over the last couple of days, because of Kelly's schedule, Josh stayed with me quite a bit of the day. He was very patient but every now and then he'd peak into my office and say "can we jump now daddy?" He'd wait until I was done with a client call (he knows not to interrupt me when I'm on the phone) and ask again. I was working on a client presentation and after he figured I had made enough progress, he'd come in and ask again "can we now daddy?" Needless to say, he finally broke me down and I did spend some time with him jumping on the tramp. It was fun too!

Well, this went on for two days and tonight I commented to Kelly that I hadn't been as productive. I hadn't finished nearly all I had planned for those two days. But as I thought about my own comment, I reflected that indeed I had had a very productive day. When Josh went to bed and I got close to kiss him good night, he said, "that was fun!"

It reminded me of the story told by Elder Richard G. Scott in the most recent General Conference (April 2011). One busy afternoon, and after the stern suggestion of his dear wife, he played with his children. Very early the following morning one of his children came to his bed at 4:00 and said "Dad, I love you. You are my best friend."

So, I have to start extra early over the next couple of days to catch up on some of the work. But I hope and trust that having spent the time with my boy will yield greater benefits than if I had checked everything on my to do list over the last couple of days. Indeed, I had a very productive day!