Right now I hardly do anything but when ds was little it was a whole different story. And breaking it down to tiny tasks is like the current taskification of medicine and undersells what is being done.
So, for example, there is childproofing the house - that’s just a few one off jobs like putting covers on the plugs, isn’t it? No it isn’t. I had an initial idea about child development based on a lifetime of wanting children and reading about them. Then you assess your own child’s development literally every day - what are they managing to do that is different, are they saying different sounds or words, suddenly they seem to be able to put a spoon in their mouth or they’re furniture walking more often, or when they’re older you notice them climbing up the monkey bars all of a sudden… Then based on previous rounds of issues you think, hmm I think I’ll put the satellite box on a high shelf before he starts grabbing it. The actual putting of the satellite box on a high shelf takes 5 mins (clearing the shelf, working out where to put the stuff on it, moving the electrics, putting the box up there) but it’s based on hours and days of constant loving observation of and intimate knowledge of your child, on a background of reading and thinking.
I was in the library reading about secondary schools for ds in my area when he was 6 weeks old. That was a bit mad… but I did have lots of conversations with various other parents about the primary schools, over months, and when I couldn’t find out much about the local school I volunteered on the governing body for a couple of years. That all allowed me to make school choices for ds with confidence. Completing the school choice form actually Dh did and that probably took 30 minutes or so.
Then there’s budgeting… that really was a properly shared load. We were stony broke for a few years so things like looking ahead to think what activities for ds were worth the financial pain and how to meet childcare costs and which bills to delay paying and writing extremely careful shopping lists - I would say a good couple of hours a week, each, minimum. Plus of course food shopping takes longer because you’re comparing prices all the time, going to the market for cheaper fruit etc.
Then there’s networking. That sounds like I was a media executive or something. But I am a social person plus ds is an only so we needed friends. I spent a LOT of time on this - obviously going to groups and volunteering and seeing people, but also doing things like keeping notes of people’s names and children’s names (I am terrible at remembering anyone’s name so used to write them down after events with anything they’d told me about themselves, like allergies and any current life issues they were dealing with so I’d remember to ask about them) and offering to have kids over or take them out, and then actually participating at whatever level was needed to make the afternoon successful. And, if I’m honest, keeping an eye on which kids I thought brought out the best in ds so that I’d actually want to promote the friendship and spend time with the parents.
Dh got more and more ill over the years and I got less and less able to offer to have other kids over. My friends helped out so much but I still tried to contribute, like I volunteered with others to set up a youth group and helped run it for 3 years.
Do you see how writing a list of tasks risks minimising what you’re actually doing? Think about how you do this.