🔧 The Three Pillars Supporting a Night Writer

When I was growing up, my mom would often mention to me the most asked question of other parents when it came to my brother and me:

“How do they find the time to do all the things they do?”

As children we were bouncing from piano lessons to violin lessons to Tae Kwon Do classes to Tai Chi lessons to symphony youth orchestra rehearsals seven days a week throughout the year.

Mostly, I just looked forward to getting in the car and grabbing the juice box, string cheese, and fruit snacks that awaited us as we travelled from one place to the next.

It’s funny…somewhere in my subconscious, I was internalizing EVERYTHING that happened to make it work.

When I left the nest to attend a residential school for a pre-professional artistic program at the age of 15, I took everything I experienced and applied it to my newfound freedom.

I honed those systems when I went to college, then graduate school, then as a newly-minted young professional.

Without those systems, my life would be a disaster now as a 9-5 career parent.

The truth is…most of the time it feels like I’m watching myself do things that have been abstracted away. I’m mostly thinking and reflecting, being present in the moment and documenting thoughts and ideas as they occur.

It took some adjusting, but you create the time by building systems and frameworks that reduce friction and protect your energy.

This part of the three-part series is all about the how of this crazy lifestyle.

So let’s jump in, shall we?

🕐 1. My Daily Operating System

I’m part engineer, part creative, all dad.

My days feel like how an engineer treats a laptop: efficient, predictable, and stress-tested (but slightly disheveled with dings and smudges).

• Morning (1.5 hours before work):

  • 10–15 mins: Boot up from sleep-state (get dressed, make beds, wake kids)

  • 15 mins: Check state of the house - dishes, feed pets, school stuff for kids

  • 30 mins: Walk to school (sprint if he takes a scooter) prep coffee

  • 30 mins: Commute to work

  • Rule: No phone until commute

• Workday (9 hours):

  • Focus on career

  • 30-min walk either morning or afternoon depending on the season (it gets hot and humid during the summer)

  • Capture ideas or inspirations that emerge organically throughout

  • I can’t share details beyond that, but I get sh*t done

• Evening (3.5 hours):

  • 30 mins: assessment of state of affairs and address disasters and messes

  • 90 mins: wife time, cooking, cleaning, garbage, poop check for pets

  • 30 mins: wipe down countertops and clean up after kids (yes, again)

  • 60 mins: bedtime routine (kid’s bath, PJs, shower, final checks)

• Night (post-family bedtime):

  • 45–60 mins: Content editing or long-form writing

  • 15 mins: Social media check and engagement

  • 45-60 mins: Coursework, editing, planning

  • Wrap up for the night (reading, relaxing)

💪 2. My Fitness & Energy System

Mileage varies throughout the day depending on what my kids are up to.

Any parent will tell you that energy management is an essential skill. The later you get a handle on this, the more chronically exhausted you will be. It doesn’t matter if you had kids out of college or waited until your mid 30’s. This skill is worth mastering sooner than later.

As a general rule, I avoid intensity at first. I focus on consistency in my systems as I fight the dad bod (at 42, I don’t want to look like the average person I’ve seen in my age bracket).

Here are a few things that I’m doing on a regular basis:

• Martial arts (Tai Chi) for physical and mental flexibility

• Calisthenics for strength, control, and looking halfway decent for my wife

• Running for endurance, self-discipline, and cardio

• Cooking for energy and managing what goes into my body

• Sleeping for regeneration (yes, this one is the hardest for me)

For me, fitness has never been a separate aspect of my life.

It’s integrated into it, especially as my kids have grown and are like adjustable weight vests. Picking them both up instantly gains me 100 pounds now.

Keeping up with kids is a combination of the first four of the above. The last is just so I can have a hope to do it more often than not.

Movement is my meditation.

🧰 3. My Content Creation System

I’m in my 7th year of content creation, but my 3rd year of writing. It’s taken me all this time to develop a repeatable process for turning ideas into content.

Here’s the skinny on how it’s looking right now:

1. Idea Capture like I’m chasing Pokémon:
   I keep Notion open as well as a Notes app available on my phone.

   It’s basically a commonplace space for inspirations from life, books, conversations, and any other content I consume across social media and the internet
   → Most of what I capture by topic: systems, writing, psychology/philosophy, critical thinking and digital creation

2. Mini Drafts for those moments during the workday:
   I have a Beehiiv template to flesh out notes.

   It’s a color-by-numbers approach based on learnings from writing courses to test ideas in public.

3. Expansion like a balloon animal:
   Based on feedback, I turn the ones that resonate into newsletter articles for Medium and Substack (future work will include videos, infographics, and podcasts)

4. Recycle & Remix for multiple angles and perspectives:
   I’ve got hundreds of articles and thousands of tweets from my Twitter era to draw from.

   There’s more than enough iterations of same idea for refinement.

The whole thing started out as a line.

Sometime in the past year, I realized I had come full circle to close the loop.

When you reach critical mass, one insight can power weeks of content across multiple formats.

I’m not quite there yet, but it’s snowballing fast.

📌 The Key Principle: We Default to Systems, Not Our Willpower

I’ve had some interesting conversation on Substack concerning discipline and motivation.

Despite what I’ve shared in the past, I’ve realized that I don’t rely on either.

I rely on my environments, my frameworks, and my energy management.

They’re far from perfect, but they provide me space to create in my intense, but fulfilling 9–5 career as a test engineer and my crazy family of my wife, two kids, and six animals under one roof.

If I can manage getting this far without perfectly optimized routines, then so can you.

In the final part of this series: Part 3 – Behold…My Stuff!
I’ll share the apps, frameworks, and crazy rituals that make all this sustainable.