In the last post I went over ten life hacks to make baby care easier. Today’s post is a series of ten life hacks for your own self care.

It is really important to take care of yourself while raising a tiny infant.

If you take care of yourself, child care gets way easier.

So, here are 10 self care tips to make your life easier with a newborn baby!

1. Get some exercise.

Taking care of a baby is a physically demanding task. It’s important to keep physically fit before and after your baby arrives.

Find time to get some exercise. If going to the gym becomes too difficult, try a home work out video. I used to get fit with P90X and Insanity videos. They worked great, and with very little equipment required.

You can even get some exercise with your baby. Do bicep curls with your baby in the car carrier. Do squats while carrying your kid in your arms. Might as well get some exercise while baby-sitting. And babies love the rocking motion!

2. Quit watching TV.

You will gain a huge amount of time that you can allocate to baby care, time with the wife, or time working on your own interests. Check the full post to see why this is a must for a new dad.

3. Quit social media sites.

Same reason as above: you will save huge amounts of time.

Even if you cannot quit all together (you probably want to post some of your baby pics after all!) severely curtail your time on social media. It is a time suck that really does not help you.

4. Batch tasks together.

Cook food in large batches that can be stored. Batch all of your errands in one car trip. Batch your chores all at once. There are tons of things that you can batch together.

Batching works for the same reason that buying in bulk works: it uses the rule of economy of scale.

But batching all of your tasks together does not necessarily save you money—it saves you time and energy, which are arguably much more valuable than money when you are a new dad!

5. Make sure you have a positive mindset.

If you consider everything that you do for your baby as “sacrifice”, then you’ve identified yourself as a martyr and you’ve already lost. No one can be happy with that mindset!

If you consider your role as a father as a high calling, then it is incredibly motivating. You will want to do a great job.

If you consider being a dad as fun, then it will be.

Mindset is everything. Check this post for more on how to develop a positive mindset.

6. Accept the fact of your human biology and plan your day around it.

Everybody has times of the day when they are sharp and when they are not. I found that the best productivity hack that I use is to take advantage of this fact.

I am mentally sharpest right after I wake up. In the morning, I work on stuff that requires lots of mental acuity and creativity. I also try to get my workouts done in the morning because after I work out my body and brain are ready to tackle the day ahead.

Later in the morning around 10-11 A.M. I get a little tired so I switch to more menial tasks like email.

In the afternoon I sometimes get a second wind so I crank out more mentally difficult tasks until I get tired. Then I switch again to less demanding tasks.

Once I get home I relax with my wife and daughter for some family time. I do mindless chores at the end of the day because my brain has stopped working by that time so I can just put my body on auto-pilot to get stuff like laundry and dishes done.

I figured out that this is how my brain and body operates, and it works for me. If you listen to how your physical self works, you can hack your biology and get the most out of a day.

7. Quit coffee.

This goes along with the previous tip on why accounting for your human biology is so important. Coffee is a powerful stimulant that can easily be abused. Relying upon the jacked-up effect of coffee does not do a body good.

Less caffeine in your system leads to much better sleep, better skin, more energy, and fewer energy crashes throughout the day.

Quit coffee and switch to tea, and click here to see why this might be the right move for you.

8. Optimize, optimize, optimize.

Optimize your life!

Start by taking out everything that does not contribute to the well-being of you, your family, and the things that you truly care about.

Then figure out what truly matters to you. Things like the health and well-being of you and your family, your relationships, your work, and exercising your creativity matter.

Then think about all of the ways that you can accomplish the things that matter in the most optimal way possible.

Think about how you can make your day job or business run more efficiently so that you can spend more time with your family and less time at work. Think about how to get the household stuff done faster. Think about how your family can increase in health and happiness.

Every now and then, I sit down with a pen and piece of paper and think about how I can optimize my life, work, and family. Some ideas are great. Some ideas are nuts. But I always get something valuable from the exercise.

9. Happy wife, happy life.

It holds true. If your partner is happy, then the whole enterprise of raising a family becomes way easier and your marriage just gets stronger and better.

There are a thousand-and-one ways to make your wife happy. Here are five of them:

Make her feel attractive. Flirt with her. Don’t let the fire burn out.
Support her physically and emotionally. Giving birth is pretty insane. After the baby arrives, make sure that you attend to her physical and emotional needs.
Help out with the baby. Chances are that your wife will handle the bulk of the baby care. So roll up your sleeves and pitch in as much as you can.
Be psychic. Read her mind and do what needs to get done to make her happy.
Take care of the baby while she gets a chance to go out with her friends.