Tim Ferriss recently posted a photo on Instagram showing a small hand-written note that he carried in his wallet as a reminder. It said: “Notice the best part.”
Today there was professional development day in my daughter’s school, so she had no classes. But my wife and I did have or lectures (luckily, not at the same time), so our daughter got to come to campus with us and spend some time “working” in our offices.
It would have been easy to view the ProD day as a pure inconvenience – another distraction in our already busy schedules. But in reality, I was catching myself thinking how great it was to be able to spend a day together with my daughter like this – a bit outside of our usual schoolday routine. That was the best part.
It turns out that my office is a pretty neat place to hang out for an artistically-minded six-years old. She told me, “You and mom are lucky because you have so many things for drawing and writing all to yourselves in your offices.” Clearly, I don’t notice the best part of my job often enough.
It reminded me how I used to come to work with my mom when I was about the same age as my daughter now. Those were certainly not the most exciting episodes of my childhood, but the memories are some of the most pleasant ones. I also thought that my mother was lucky to work at such a cool place (she was a schoolteacher). I could entertain myself for hours (at least that’s how I remember it) with the simplest office items. My favourite project was to fold a piece of paper several times, make holes in it randomly with a hole punch and see what kind of parents emerged after I would unfold the paper.
I wonder, what will my daughter remember of these visits to “dad’s work” when she grows up?
