Out of the hundreds — maybe even thousands — of scary things you hear about having and raising children, there is one thing the “experts” (your friends and family who are already parents) fail to tell you.

They tell you about the sleepless nights, the really gross poopy diapers, the projectile vomiting. The temper tantrums, meltdowns, and endless eating.

Kids are all about eat, sleep, poop.

At least for the first six months. For my wife and I, it was all exacerbated by the fact that our second boy was born while our first boy was still a baby — Liam was 22 months old when Rowan was born.

I tell you, the first 6 months were hell. Liam was in daycare, my wife stayed home all day to care for the newborn, and I worked my ass off in a corporate job. You know, the kind with little reward and little risk, and even less personal satisfaction. But I wanted to move up (why?) so I worked really hard.

But I digress.

I remember being astonished at how well I performed during those first 6 months, being up many times during the night to relieve my wife of 24×7 childcare, sleeping many nights with my oldest because the change threw him for a loop, and all the other stuff that parenting brings along with it.

I guess I did so well because I was prepared for it. I at least knew what was coming, had an idea of what to expect, and had subconsciously prepared battle plans.

Fast forward almost 3 years and I have come to a conclusion about the “horrors” of parenting little ones. It's really not so bad. I am glad and fortunate that my “advisors” had prepared me so well.

But they left something out. A little thing that really can discombobulate you and make your days very unproductive.

Silence.

Or rather, lack of it — NOISE.

I came to this realization today (I am slow). While driving home from a visit at my mom's house, it dawned on me that the one thing that totally disappeared from my life was silence. The kids only stop talking when they sleep (and sometimes they talk then too), and even then, when they're sleeping, we have the constant hum of the baby monitor in the background to remind us that we are not alone.

Remember those old Sprint commercials? The one where they boasted that their call quality was so awesome that “you could hear a pin drop?”

I will never, ever hear another pin drop in my life. And honestly, I don't want to.

However, when it comes to personal and professional productivity, noise can be detrimental. I'm talking literal and figurative noise.

As internet marketers, we sometimes don't have the structure of a “real job” to give us the framework to carve out time where we can actually be super-productive. Back at my corporate job, I could literally screw off 4 out of 5 days, getting the bare minimum done, and pour every bit of energy I had into completing a major project on day 5.

That is my personal working style: Short bursts of frenetic work followed by a lot of “thinking” in silence.

One thing that really throws me for the proverbial loop, though, is that — especially in this industry — there are so many distractions.

So much NOISE.

Exactly the same in effect to having screaming kids running around the house (I work out of my house) is the constant bombardment of emails, “irresistible” product offerings, and “new ideas” (which always seem to be rehashed “old ideas”).

We have to learn how to manage our time and focus. Be productive. Get a few critical things done. All the rest is just NOISE.

My friend Jason Fladlien is a master at productivity and time management. The guy can literally blast out a $97 product in a day and that includes the product, sales letter, and website. Don't forget mailing the offer to his list and writing articles that promote the product.

He has recently put out two invaluable reports — Double Your Productivity for Life and Time Management System. I suggest you get them if you want to succeed in internet marketing or any aspect of your life. You can get both for less than $75.

You will get 2 immediate benefits:

1. Your personal productivity will soar and you will find yourself putting out more content and creating more profitable products
2. You will no longer be buying the next “flavor of the day” because you will be too busy being productive

I'm not kidding about this.