This is the third and final of three essays on my lessons, struggles, and successes in and around time management within the context of running a small construction business.
If someone stepped into my life fifteen years ago, or even ten years ago, and told me that I would soon start and run my own construction business, my younger self would have been very surprised. I never had a draw to business, never had a knack for making money, and my connection with construction was tied chiefly to the income it provided in times when I needed it most. In those days ten and fifteen years ago, I saw myself much more as a free spirit, a wanderer, and a surfer. I prided myself in keeping my costs and my needs low and my life flexible.
Yet the nomadic life was insufficient for me. It was lonely and while I loved the flexibility and freedom of the wandering surfer ideal, a part of me also felt as though this lifestyle was actually something of a luxury, and that if I wanted to experience real life, I needed to learn hard work and commitment. My time as a project manager was my first step into real responsibility, and launched a period of internal conflict, as the part of me desiring maturity and fulfilling work, wrestled with the part of me who longed to be free to step out of my sleeping bag in the back of my pickup truck at dawn and survey the morning surf options with the sun rising at my back.
A couple years into project managing, I met my future wife. There is nothing quite like family life to bring about maturity, whether one is ready for it or not. I listened to a lot of sports radio in those days, and one particular broadcaster, Colin Cowherd on ESPN Radio put my very struggle in words that I’ll never forget:
“When you’re young, it’s all well and good to say damn the man, and live your life how you want. But you know what? Eventually everyone ends up working for the man. And you know why? Because he pays well! Principles and ideals are very important, but when you have a mortgage and three kids, a good steady paycheck is almost as important.” (of course this transcript is from my memory alone so who knows exactly how accurate it is)
True to form, my respect for fulfilling, well-paying work stepped up several notches when a girl stepped into my life. It went up several more when we got married, and then skyrocketed with the birth of our first son. All of a sudden, it wasn’t just a fulfilling job I was looking for, but it was a career, maybe even a legacy. Here was a person that I would be legally responsible for for the next 18 years, and morally and relationally responsible to for the rest of my life. I was his dad. Was I a good role model? Would I be a good representation of male identity? Indeed, it was when my son was seven months old when I got my license and formed my business. I became a business owner and my surfboards got dustier while my tools got cleaner.
In my last essay, my typing fingers stumbled on a phrase that I like: “the great project of my middle years”. From the very first moment, Hawkes Construction has been the hardest, most fulfilling, most heartbreaking, and most rewarding job I have ever had. I have loved it and I have hated it, but it has always been interesting. Back in the days before marriage and kids and business ownership, I dreamed of a time when I might be able to earn ample income working part time, and thereby gain the income of full time employment, while enjoying the flexibility of part time employment, satisfying my desire for flexibility and freedom, my need for income, and my hunger for fulfilling work. If that model is indeed ever possible for me within Hawkes Construction, it will be some time long in the future, because in my experience thus far, the business always required more time, attention, and lifeblood that I am even able to give it. Yet I am not disappointed in the least. The project of my middle years is the vast, fulfilling, maturing, and life-giving work that I needed and wanted. It’s a challenge worthy of my attention and effort.
But what is it all for? While I’m reluctant to put concrete examples on paper, I feel that the normal stories of hard driven business owners are far too often stories of broken families and neglected children. If I cannot be present and active in my children’s lives and maintain my happy and healthy marriage to my beautiful wife, then I will be failing and my first and greatest job.
The truth is, I don’t always know how to best manage my time. I know my priorities are always first to my family, then to my business, but I will not be surprised if the details of how these great endeavors are walked out is the work of a lifetime.