So, I just took Tuesday through Monday off.

That’s the longest stretch of “off time” I’ve taken in quite some time.

In full transparency, during this stretch I did still do a few little things here and there, like respond to messages or look over something real quick…

But I’d say total I worked less than 60 minutes each day, and it was mostly in the morning before my family was awake.

Taking the time off was great in general…

But, what’s really interesting (at least to me) …

Is how this off time made me reevaluate my approach to spending time with my daughter.

In Las Vegas we have a nanny. Which is a big convenience, but it also has drawbacks.

What I’ve found is when you’ve got a nanny who is always available – you take advantage of that. You work longer hours, or go out more often, etc. Which is fine, but then you end up sacrificing family time.

Generally, when I’m in Las Vegas, here’s what my schedule looks like during weekdays:

I leave for my office before my daughter is awake (usually around 6:30 am) and I come home between 4:30 and 5:30 pm.

My daughter goes to bed around 7:30 pm, so that does still give me a few solid hours with her…

And on weekends, my wife and I will generally spend most of the day with our daughter – but we’ll also often go out Saturday in the later afternoon or evening and have the nanny come and put her to bed.

In contrast to this…

The last week there was no nanny. We were in Palm Springs and then we were in San Diego. And it was fantastic.

Every morning, my wife and I would wake up our daughter together…

Each afternoon, we’d put her down for her nap together….

And each night, we’d put her down for bed together.

Meanwhile, throughout the day, we’d be taking her to different places, spending time outside, playing with her, and getting a ton of hugs.

What’s really fascinating, is that when I’m in Vegas…

I often find myself feeling exhausted when I’m spending time in the evenings with my daughter (during weekdays)…

And during the weekends when we spend all day with her – those days can feel really long too, and kind of wear me down.

Conversely, though…

In this last week, even though I was spending all day with my daughter, I didn’t feel run down even once.

We had a great time, the days flew by, it was really fantastic.

I’m trying to figure out why…

And my best guess as of now is that when I’m in my normal routine, I’m more distracted. I’m thinking about work and my different ventures. There are emails or messages I feel like I should be responding to. So even though I’m with my daughter, I’m not entirely “with her” some of the time.

And I want to change that.

Just being in my office today, I miss her. I can’t wait to see her again. And I don’t want that feeling to go away.

So, one of the things I’m going to be working on in the coming months is figuring out how to reconfigure my life to be even more present with my little girl.

I’m already pretty good at not being hyper-responsive to messages, or being knocked off course by a random late-night email, etc. But it seems like I could be even better…

But beyond that, I’m also thinking about how I could probably be working less hours too. This doesn’t have to mean I won’t get as much done either.

Instead I’m thinking that a lot of weekdays, I could probably start working at 6 am, and be done by 2:30 pm (which is when she gets up from her afternoon nap).

I could also probably take more weekdays off without it affecting my businesses in any major way…

So, these are things I’m going to be working on.

P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me, you can apply to join my list using this link.