Welcome to the Daily Dad podcast, where we provide one lesson every single day to help you with your most important job, being a parent.

I'm Ryan Holiday, and I draw these lessons from ancient philosophy, modern psychology, practical wisdom, and insights from parents just like you all over the world.

Thank you for listening, and we hope this helps.

All right, welcome to the Daily Dad podcast. I'm Ryan Holiday and I'm chatting with my friend and writing partner,

Niels Parker, today.

I was just making plans, Niels.

I don't want to say it's privilege,

but it's certainly a place that I could not have been earlier in my career or my life,

but I was just talking to my assistant

about what changes I want to make in 2023, and one of them I'm going to do, I think, is I'm going

to try to find a way to more or less take Fridays off. Like not fully off, but like I'm not going to schedule anything that requires

me to be in the office on Fridays so that I can wake up and wing it. I, you know, I could do

stuff from home or whatever. But the idea is I have found it's like as a writer, you sort of do

whatever you want, which is great.

But then as more and more administrative stuff has creeped into my life, I am finding a reason

why I have to be at work every single day, which I don't like.

That is the greatest downside of working for yourself I've found.

Like I have found that I can fill every hour slot in my calendar if given the opportunity because of the earning potential or because of all the narratives we have

about, you know, I'm supporting the family and, you know, creating opportunities. But then you're

trading that, the dollar value of that for the sort of invaluable time to spend with your family

and develop your own sanity or keep your own sanity. Well, yeah, it's like the upside of working for yourself should be flexibility.

And yet, like, routine is also essential and structure is essential.

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