The project isn’t due for a while. You can’t seem to motivate yourself. So you put it off. Sure, you could be putting in the work on it now, but nobody’s making you. The conversation is going to be tough. There’s a huge mess to sort through. So you tell yourself you’ll get to it later.

This is life. This is what we do—we procrastinate. And there are all the reasons that procrastination is lazy and inefficient and a failure of willpower. But you know what it also is? It’s a failure of parenting.

As we’ve said before, good parenting is about slack. Kids need lots of it. They are full of surprises. They have endless needs. There is always something coming up…and it’s usually last-minute.

If you have cut things too close in your work or personal life, you’re not going to have the space—emotionally or logistically—to be able to respond when they need you. You won’t be able to take those couple of days off to be with your kid, because you’re already behind. You won’t have the patience you need to help them because you’re under too much strain. You won’t have the freedom to say “yes” to that thing they want to do. The urgency of your kids’ needs will be in conflict with the urgency of the fires you have been ignoring elsewhere.

This is why you can’t procrastinate. This is why you need to be on top of your stuff. So you have the slack, the flexibility to be able to rush to grab them from school, or rush them to the hospital, or rush to that cool once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that came their way.

P.S. And if you want to keep learning how to be a better parent, you need more than good intentions. You need a practice. The Daily Dad Five Year Reflection Journal can help you build one.

Five minutes a day to reflect, reset, and show up better tomorrow. Begin today. Keep the practice, and let it keep you.

Get your Daily Dad Five Year Reflection Journal.