In a few short months I am about to become a dad myself, our first child. I am currently trying to get a startup off of the ground and it is refreshing to read other people have, can and currently are doing it. Based on what I read, it seems Tad has his head screwed on.

Missing the wanky networking events, hackathons and realising that it is a fallacy the more hours you put in, the more work you get out. This has been proven time and time again, we are all human and we all have that point where our brains switch off and stop absorbing information. Putting in excessive hours does not give you any kind of advantage, when people are happy and refreshed, they are productive. How many times have you stayed back working on a complex problem, only to go home late without solving the problem, to come in the following morning and fix the issue in 15 minutes? It has happened to me more times over the years than I could count.

I have had numerous chats with my wife about how it will all work. She does not work in tech and will be a stay at home mother, but we have already laid the groundwork for how things will work. I want to be there for my child, a child is forever, a startup has such a small chance of succeeding long-term. Setting boundaries and being there for dinners and night time tuck-ins are essential to a happy family.

For me, the weekdays will be for work and startup life with a set boundary of a couple of hours for dinner and after for spending time with my child. The weekends will be mostly off limits to spend time going out and doing fun family stuff, picnics, going to the pool, arts/crafts, watching movies and spending quality time with my family. Make your time count, do not let your children grow up remembering you as always being on the computer, especially if your startup ambitions pass you by, all you have left is your family. Weekdays should be for work, not weekends.

The challenges my wife and I will face drastically differ from those that Tad and his wife experience on a daily basis, but I think the core principles of being there for your children regardless of your arrangement are universally important for any would-be entrepreneur, small business owner or startup founder to remember. We live in a technology enabled world so much so, even when you step away from a computer screen, your smartphone is just within arms reach and it can be all too easy to open up your email and get just as absorbed in work as you can on a computer. It can be incredibly hard to turn off work mode and relish the time you have for the more important and rewarding things in life.

I think incubators like Y Combinator should honestly do more to encourage healthy family life in the land of startups. Instead of pushing founders to drive themselves and their teams into the ground to get a paltry $50k or whatever, the culture needs to be changed at the root of the source. This fallacy that you need to invest 19+ hours a day into a startup early on to succeed is unhealthy. I do not know where it originated from, but I know that it has not always been like this. When entrepreneurs in the 40's and 50's were starting businesses, I know for a fact most people were not investing 19 hours a day into their ideas, technology seems to have removed not only barriers, but also boundaries and morals as well.

There is not one single definitive way to run and operate a startup. We are all different, but because of an accepted culture of overtime perpetuated in the late 80's and 90's especially, everyone in the tech industry has mostly come to accept that overtime is a way of life and to succeed you need to put in excessive and unrealistic hours. It is time to change the tide.

I think the one takeaway from this article everyone should take, even if you are not trying to run a startup or business, is to make time for the ones that need you the most. When all is said and done, family is the only constant you will have in your life. Jobs come and go, startups fail and succeed and friends come and go, family are always there. This means instead of going to after work drinks or accepting a culture of overtime in your current workplace, knowing when to draw the line and put what matters first, first: family. Not only family, but ensuring that you see friends, go and do activities like visit a theme park, go to the zoo or even a short hike through your local park. Remind yourself when time and priorities permit that there is more to life than work.

Great article.