[ak39]

SCHEDULE.

1. Schedule most times spent with spouse. For everything. I really mean everything. Dinner date? Schedule it in advance. Going house-hunting? Schedule the visits. Movies? Schedule the evening way in advance. Visiting folks? Agree on a set date.

2. Stick to the schedules like a mofo. Integrity integrity integrity. Promises broken because schedules could not be kept are more likely the reason for an unhappy spouse (or kids!) rather than the amount of time spent with them. No one likes getting their hopes up only to be let down last minute.

3. Never accept an impromptu activity with spouse without agreeing to set off existing agreed upon schedules. This reinforces your commitment to the discipline of schedules. They know you are serious about your time and doing so shows that you acknowledge and respect theirs.

4. Try to keep one day of the week as a wild card where you don't work and simply say yes to anything they (spouse/kids) ask. Schedule this day secretly without telling them. This is the day you can "disrupt" them by saying "Let's go for ice cream" while they are busy. See what happens.

5. When complaints are raised against you for not spending enough time with them, open your schedules - demonstrate the obvious.

6. Never work on a Sunday. This should be your wild card day.

[Silhouette]

That's a very "engineery" response, so let me propose an alternative view.

If you are having to strictly schedule time for your personal life to anything like the degree that the parent post suggests, particularly time with your closest family and friends, there are exactly two possibilities: either you have dysfunctional personal relationships that need attention, or you are working for way too much of your time. Assuming that in fact your family and friends are not all neurotic control freaks, only one conclusion remains.

I get that some people are driven. I get that it's a competitive world, and there's always pressure to get results and keep up with the pack. But working most of your waking hours is simply not a viable strategy to get and sustain good results in the long term, no matter who you are or what you do. Humans need downtime, and humans need relationships, and humans who have enough investment in both are almost invariably more effective at anything they do than workaholics anyway.

By all means schedule if it helps you to keep organised, but schedule the work time you need to reserve. The default should be that your time is yours, not your job's.

[DustinCalim]

I strongly disagree with this advice.

There is no faster way to suck the emotion out of a relationship than to put a schedule at the center of it, and hiding behind the excuse of the schedule is just deferring responsibility.

[ak39]

Scheduling time with spouse (and for kids) is the only honest and practical way of dealing with the question/challenge of "balancing" work life and family life. It's about setting boundaries. And respectful boundaries are always healthy for all in the relationship.

And by "balance" I don't mean equal - I mean having both.

[DanBC]

Your post made me angry. I just deleted the post I had written. Here's the replacement.

Not seeing your children unless you have scheduled time to do so is bizarre. Some people would suggest it's borderline mildly abusive.

Children must come before work. It's really fucking simple. This principle is enshrined in the internationally agreed (although I know the US never ratifies these things) human rights for the child. http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx

Not seeing your children without scheduling time for them has nothing to do with "healthy" (it soumds pathological) nor "respectful boundaries".

The default must be "all my time is spent with my family. Here's the time I set aside for work, but if anything happens to my children I can shift that work to a different time".

[simoncion]

> Children must come before work. It's really fucking simple. This principle is enshrined in the internationally agreed...

I read through that Convention, but didn't see any language that backs up your claim. Perhaps I missed it. Can you tell me which part and which article establishes the principle that you claim it does?

[DanBC]

In the pre-amble

"Recognizing that the child, for the full and harmonious development of his or her personality, should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding,"

And Article 3, section 1:

"1. In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration."

[simoncion]

Article 3, section 1 has no bearing on the actions of the individual. Notice that the language that targets institutions and governments.

The preamble speaks only of the environment that a child should be placed in. If it is necessary that both parents work 120 hours per week to provide such an environment for their children, then that is behavior that is supported by that Convention.

[judk]

I don't think parent post was saying that you should skip visiting your kids in the ER.

Spending all your time with kids a very... American leisure class perspective.

And I found nothing in that UN doc to support your claims either.

[DanBC]

Article 3. Here's the child friendly language version which is more direct: http://www.unicef.org/rightsite/files/uncrcchilldfriendlylan...

Here's the UNICEF summary: http://www.unicef.org.uk/Documents/Publication-pdfs/UNCRC_su...

Op says, more than once, that time with children must be scheduled and that you should avoid seeing them unless it is scheduled. I agree they're not going to avoid ER. What about if the child spontaneously asks for time? Op has said that time should be withheld - as part of "healthy" adjustment and "respectful boundaries".

(I'm not American. I don't understand that comment.)

[ak39]

I don't understand your anger.

The OP was asking what to do when these are a given:

1. You work hard and long hours and you enjoy it. 2. You also NEED to spend time with family who already perceive that you are not spending enough time with them.

What do you do?

My response was to this scenario and this scenario alone. How to "balance" that. Your response on the other hand assumes that that you can impose (or have the right to suggest) fundamental compromises on an individual's life-style.

[DanBC]

Where does OP say they enjoy the work?

[mynameishere]

Weird. I actually remember being a kid and distinctly remember not wanting to be around my parents very often.

[judk]

#5 is wrong wrong wrong. You never win an emotional dispute by throwing facts at someone.

[georgemcbay]

Yeah I actually snickered out loud at #5. It is such a facepalm-y bit of advice for most people.

Perhaps I've dated people with very different personalities than those ak39 has but there isn't a single one of them in my history for which #5 would be a useful response if they still felt slighted while the schedule was being followed. Quite the opposite, the suggestion to show them the schedule would be like tossing a live hand-grenade into whatever was already causing the disagreement.

In any case, IMO if you are drawing up schedules to fit your friends/family/SO into your life you've already implicitly prioritized work over them no matter how you balance the schedule. Which is fine if that's how you want to live your life, but be honest about it both to your loved ones and yourself.

[ak39]

Showing evidence (or hard facts) is the best way to counter the "always" and "never" accusations. One may never "win" these types of emotional battles, but throwing in a Black Swan by means of evidence to an emotional argument is the quickest way to begin talking sensibly.

It works both ways too. If you broke a promised family engagement, it's there in black and white. Also, if you're seen as not devoting sufficient time for the family, the communication can move towards exactly how much (extent).

[tonyarkles]

I'm not sure what kind of relationships you've been in, but in my life experience (N~=10), evidence is typically not appreciated in this kind of argument. Introducing evidence into a disagreement was my standard approach and it did help occasionally, but the vast majority of the time it made it worse.

My new approach is to listen very carefully to what my partner is saying, especially to the emotions that she's feeling. Evidence isn't going to make her emotions change. There's usually something relatively simple that I can change about my behaviour that will result in her not having that negative emotion. We've been together for 5 years and we both agree that things are the best that we've ever had in a long term relationship.

[ak39]

I haven't been in many relationships, admittedly. Just one. This Dec it will be 19 years. Those years have produced three healthy and inquisitive boys. The four in total, in my life, are the most important and precious human beings.

But time with them, I have learnt for the sake of peace and fairness, in my life, needs to be scheduled! :-)

Wife and I have spent too much time arguing and disagreeing about too many things. As the years went by we realised gradually that some shit doesn't matter. Some shit does. Disagreements don't last when hard facts surface.

But of course, my advice to the OP remains anecdotal.