17 hours of lectures. 8 hours of home-study.

"It is a lot of knowledge and skills crammed into a 6-month course. So you must stay committed!"

The lecturers at TAFE promised us. They didn't dress it up. No motivational poster nonsense.

Three weeks in now. I admit... I only cracked the books properly last afternoon, after lectures. At the library.

Group project, sure, we handled that.

Walked in, did the work, walked out with something we were proud of. That part's easy when there's a team around you, adrenaline, a shared deadline breathing down our necks.

It's the solo grind that sneaks up on you. The home study. The stuff nobody's watching you do. You skip a couple of days and suddenly you're behind...

So I've been sitting with the question: how do you balance everything?

Cert 3. Keeping fit and healthy. A little business idea my wife and I are keen to work on. And my girls, 4 and 2 and half - the only two people who can throw a stick of dynamite on my carefully planned day and still make me smile.

Priorities aren't a mystery.

I'm ten toes in with my Cert III.

But there's this itch. A couple of hours a day, unaccounted for, drifting. And drift is dangerous... not because an hour here or there ruins you, but because unattended hours have a way of quietly bankrupting the parts of your life you assumed were fine.

This happens when there are too many things to do yet you do nothing...

You've suddenly gained a couple kilos. The business idea ends up a Google Doc created 6 months ago!

I built a plan. Times blocked, stations assigned. For now, it holds. Well, it's been just two days... 😅

But no plan survives first contact.

Sure as hell not with a four-year-old who's decided 6:45 am is cuddle time. Or a 2-and-half-year-old who wants to be held. And those are times I don't wanna miss.

The next few weeks will tell me what this plan is actually worth. Not the plan on paper but the one that survives contact with life, assessments... and yes, those times when motivation is low.

Assessments are coming. The time's also ripe for that side project to be launched.

I'll find out soon enough if I'm on to something that holds... Speak soon.