What Reilley Was Doing Right
For all Reilley worried that he was shortchanging his kids, he was doing a lot of fun things with them, such as going to the beach, playing in the rain, walking the dog together, and snuggling in the mornings. He was managing to do these things even though, by his calculations, he worked just over 40 hours during the week in question.
The Time-Makeover Suggestions
This admirable amount of balancing, though, raised the question: Why was he feeling so stressed out about his time? After talking with Reilley for a while, I learned that he felt like his work projects were taking forever. His kids were constantly interrupting him (hence entries like “Misc Work/Kids/TV News”
and “UWW/Kids”). He’d lose his patience, and then they’d be unhappy with him—and inclined to interrupt even more. Since he was being pulled in multiple directions at once, he didn’t think he was doing a good job on anything. The stress led to him watching TV late at night to unwind, which led to him sleeping less each night (6-7 hours) than was really ideal for someone caring for three active little boys.
Like many parents—particularly those who can work at home—Reilley was deluding himself about how much he could get done at one time. What he needed was concentrated blocks of time to work, and concentrated blocks of time with his kids. If he carved out time in his schedule for each, I wagered that not only would he need to work closer to 30 hours than 40, his kids would be happier too.
This would be easier when school started up (all three children would be in full-day school starting in the fall). He could work from 9:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. 3 days per week, and 9:00 to 4:00 or so 2 days per week by enrolling the children in an after-school program. He wanted the boys to be more involved in extracurricular activities anyway, so this schedule would give them more active time with their peers, while buying him 30 concentrated hours. If he needed to add a few more hours during a particularly crunched week, he could work a shift after the boys went to bed, or even while letting the boys watch a movie 2 nights per week.
I also suggested that he consider blocking off 2 of the hours that his children were in school for solo exercising. While Reilley was fitting a lot of activity into his life with the dog walking, pool trips, and playing outside, this “me time” would give him a chance to center himself and would probably help him sleep better. He could make up the work time at night by consciously choosing to turn off the TV and work on those two nights. I also suggested he skip TV on a few other nonworking nights and read instead. TV isn’t nearly as relaxing as people think it is.
All this would give him more focused time to work, but what about spending time with the kids? As it was, big chunks of Reilley’s time with his boys weren’t the kinds of high-quality interactions he was hoping to have. He’d wave the kids off when they came in to ask a question while he was checking e- mail, or quickly fix them a snack or turn on the TV or Wii before rushing back to work on a client project.
I suggested that he choose to completely shut down his computer (and other e-mail devices) from 2:30 until the kids’ bedtime, or 4:00 until bedtime, depending on the day. If he was using his work time effectively, it was unlikely any crises would come up. He should make a point of using this time to do more activities with his kids like going to the pool, playing in the park, and so on. He should think these through ahead of time, and look for fun things in his community that the boys would enjoy. Evenings could be used for family dinners, homework, and reading.
This, of course, left the question of what to do with the rest of the summer. Since school was only a few weeks away, I suggested he simply try to do the best he could, creating concentrated blocks of time with his kids in the morning, and explaining to them that he would need to have quiet work time in the afternoons while they played in the backyard or in their rooms. Since he did use babysitters on occasion when he had meetings, I suggested Reilley enlist their help for a few hours to give him some adult recreation time. Parents are people, too, and when we take time for ourselves, we’re better able to focus on our loved ones the rest of the time.
What Reilley Thought of the Makeover
Reilley agreed to try to reduce the multitasking and set aside specific times for work and for his kids. By the time we touched base a few weeks later, right before school started, he’d established a rhythm of spending about 3 hours a day running around on the beach with his boys. They’d come home ready for quiet time—which Dad would use to work. “The undivided attention they get greatly reduced the work interruptions,” he said. “Best of all, my kids are much happier.” Indeed, he was getting so much done and having so much fun that he was almost sad to see the school year begin.