7 ms·

Ask HN: How do you manage long hours vs. spending time with loved ones?

29 points by raleigh_user 8y ago

I've been experiencing a problem over the last few years and am asking for help on how to solve. I work a lot of variable hours/travel (startup) and my spouse works as a nurse so her schedule is all over the place as well. We can't seem to find a way to manage our schedules very well. What ends up happening is we go extended amounts of time without an overlap in free time and then miss out on dates, time with friends, etc. We both love our work so quitting isn't exactly helpful. Some things we've tried: Shared Google Calendar: This works well but we never actually update. Its tedious too. And we don't like sharing exactly what we're doing with our friends to coordinate schedules with. I'd prefer the calendar just said busy 9-9 not 9-11am doctors appointment, 12-3pm taking son to therapy,etc, etc. This is just a simple example Paper/Pen - This is what we've used most often but things always come up and we always end up losing the paper. Slash leaving it in our cars, it being outdated because of a change. Text - We text each other schedule updates and text other friends with similar work/life schedules a lot. This works the best in a 1:1 scenario but I always feel annoying texting 3 friends about making plans and having to do it 5 times because those 3 also are at work/out of town/unavailable. I've heard some use calendly accounts. We haven't tried that but I don't generally see my less tech family/friends using that. This isn't some existential crisis but we've really struggled to continually find time (and plan things out in advance when we have overlapping time) and others have to deal with this as well. So any help would be appreciated. I can provide more context if needed. Thanks in advance.

ryancodes 8y ago
If your friends are close to you, they shouldn't be annoyed that you're texting them. Wanting to spend time with your friends is a good thing, and if they're legitimately annoyed, make certain you're communicating that you value the time that you get to spend with them (this is especially key if your time is sparse.)
- raleigh_user 8y ago
  They are close. And annoyed isn't the right word. More it feels annoying to me to text 5 friends to find out all 5 are traveling until Sunday or are x, y or z with other commitments. Maybe that makes more sense. All of us are busy and finding time is hard so for each try (2-3x a week) we usually can get together twice a month
  - em-bee 8y ago
    i know that feeling, it's like you are chasing after your friends, and need to put in energy to figure out when they are free because you don't already know their schedule. i have a gut feeling though that if you don't already know the schedule of your friends, and (as you mentioned) you aren't comfortable to share your detailed schedule with them, then maybe they are not that close and you won't miss them if you don't see them every week. if you do miss them, then pick one or two that you feel close enough to actually share your detailed schedule and let them help with coordinating with the others.
sephoric 8y ago
> We both love our work so quitting isn't exactly helpful. This sticks out to me, as it seems to be a false dilemma. Maybe you can work it out without either quitting, but having one of you quit is a real solution that you shouldn't throw out the window. After all, I'm sure you both love each other more than your work. Big life changes can be hard. (We got rid of our home internet, despite the fact that my whole employment relies on the internet.) But they're doable and shouldn't be dismissed so quickly.
- raleigh_user 8y ago
  This could potentially be solved down the road but at this time we're not thinking about it. Thanks for the comment though. How you go without home internet I have no idea!
  - sephoric 8y ago
    It seemed scary at first but our whole family is actually much happier and closer than ever before and none of us regrets it at all.
awaywopassd 8y ago
Group sms works great. But you or someone should take charge and summarize the conversation/plan as last a text. My friends use group texts a lot but sometimes conversation gets out of hand and I have to read through 100 messages to find out if there were any concrete plans.
- raleigh_user 8y ago
  Yeah that is another annoyance with them. Seems to get complicated fast. We do use group texts with friends. But it is a little annoying to have 100 texts go by and then either not be able to make the plans or not be interested.
CodeWriter23 8y ago
Obviously you need an electronic calendar. And you need to make maintaining it more of a priority than work. We use iCloud calendar and Siri streamlines input of events. Friends either we or they make an appointment via text, voice or email. We enter it into our own calendar then share the event with attendees via whatever medium the conversation started. We share events not entire calendars. But it seems to me you’re looking at the symptoms and not the root problem. I’m not harshing on you. It’s just a tough truth. If family time is more important to you, you have to MAKE it more important. I call this feeling-labor inversion. We all want the feeling and some of us avoid the necessary labor that creates the feeling (e.g., maintaining the calendar). Until labor takes priority over the feeling, the problem will continue.
- raleigh_user 8y ago
  Here is a real life schedule. Not to harsh on you but making family time more important is a tad more difficult than you're making it seem Me: leave home 7:30am. Generally get back around 6:30pm. Make dinner, work out. Do any chores/else needs to get done. Go to sleep. Her: class during day. leave at 7:30am. Generally back home for lunch and then gone again til 4:30ish. Few hours of homework. work out. chores/else needs to get done. Weekends - she works night shifts at the hospital so she needs to sleep ASAP friday afternoon. I get up sat morning and read/watch tv.etc. She needs to sleep til about 2-3pm to do her night shift 7pm-7am. Then rinse and repeat. Factor in any tests or family commitments and you can see when this headache starts to get worse. We certainly have some time together, but as I mentioned, if we do not plan it out exactly it is such little time that it can often be wasted entirely.
  - CodeWriter23 8y ago
    It sounds like there's some hope in that she will free up in a half year. I'm sure it's going to be hard but at the end it will seem like it was a short time. So, how to make the best of that journey is the objective... It seems like you might have a little more flexibility in your schedule than she...Can you get in front of her schedule and then make some "NO" blocks in your time where you simply say you're not available? (That means NO to anything else, even meeting with a potential investor) Even a 2-3 hour block per week will give you some time to connect. If you're not organically finding opportunities to couple up, I suggest prioritizing some of this "appointment" time for sex. Connecting physically will help you two make it through tough times like you are facing now. I'm speaking from experience on that. I'd also suggest perhaps if possible to find a set time every day to have a 10 or 15 minute conversation. Just a "how's your day" supportive intimate connection. Set a timer for the call, and you both get back to the order of the day when it expires. You both will have to be disciplined in keeping it on the highlights and not diving into problems that can wait.
cimmanom 8y ago
It is possible to share a google calendar and reveal only free/busy on a per-user basis, fwiw. It’s somewhere in the sharing settings.
- raleigh_user 8y ago
  oh ok that might be helpful. I will try to find. typical google. Have one of best features buried so deep you can't find it
jason_slack 8y ago
I feel for you. My wife and I are sort of in the exact same place. She is in nursing school and has a full-time job. I am taking a few classes, work full-time too. We also have 2 brand new kids since October. I manage our digital calendar and actually we both still use a paper planner. We take time to sync each Sunday. We sync deep though. We know what each other has, kid obligations, what is for breakfast, lunch, dinner each day, what is the grocery list, etc, etc. This lets each one of us operate with a full understanding of the week. If one of us gets extra bandwidth or a gap opens up we first see if there is the possibility of free/family time before filing it with something else. Even if it is 10 mins meeting for coffee. This may sound weird but we are both obligated to making this work. If my wife gets done class early then I jet over to grab coffee at Starbucks near here. If I am out and a meeting changes time she jets over to me, etc.
- raleigh_user 8y ago
  Thanks for being helpful. Nursing school with a full time job is our exact situation as well. Well, she's doing an advanced nursing school so instead of 2 years its 15 months (and she's still working about 25-30 hours a week). We do the same with the gaps. Sometimes we have them and it works out. Sometimes it doesn't. I agree with you on the making it work thing. Some of the comments below about "quitting" are not quite in focus. We have another 6 months before my schedule will be predictable and hers as well. What do you use for a digital calendar? I find google calendar so annoying to input lots of info in. We are trying to get better about syncing up on weekends but she usually is doing a 7pm (sat night) - 7am (sun morning) shift and needs to sleep while I am awake.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - jason_slack 8y ago
    We use Google calendars. But I use Fantastical (on phone or ipad) to interface with it. Lets me type things in plain English instead of checking boxes. https://flexibits.com/fantastical https://flexibits.com/fantastical
drugme 8y ago
We both love our work so quitting isn't exactly helpful. But your work doesn't love you, apparently. Otherwise it wouldn't be forcing you to make a draconian choice like this.
- raleigh_user 8y ago
  shes working full time and full time in school. Im ceo of a venture funded startup. so for the next few years this is our life. We did it to ourselves. But just trying to figure out how to manage best with the time we have.
  - drugme 8y ago
    My comment was a bit presumptuous then. Sincere apologies.
    - em-bee 8y ago
      there is some truth to it though, because even as a CEO, actually, especially as a CEO you need to make sure you have time for your family. or more importantly, you need to make sure you don't burn out. OPs question suggests that he is getting exhausted with his current schedule. that is the road that leads to burn out, and if i were an investor or an employee in his company i would tell him to slow down, because the company needs him in the long run.
honkycat 8y ago
Work less hours. You are probably wasting them at work anyway. Most research points to about 3-4 hours of good "deep work" a day. If you need to work more hours because your start-up is lazy about tracking productivity and "time in seat" == "more productivity" then try and build and document an empirical way to measure your productivity. There are a ton of good books out there on this subject. I recommend "Accelerate." Go ask your grandfather if he wishes he had worked more or spent more time with family. Relationships NEED nurturing. Not making time to be together can and will kill your relationship. Check out "Deep Work - Cal Newport" and "It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work - by Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson". You do read and do research on how to run your company and track your productivity, don't you? Or do you just fart your way through life and are consistently amazed at how the harder you work the further away the goal-post is?
- raleigh_user 8y ago
  Consistently farting 24/7. Its actually a problem
  - xfitm3 8y ago
    I’m not sure if you are receptive to advice that isn’t aligned with your questions narrative - but I’ll give it a shot. Can you delegate, hire, etc to reduce your workload?
    - raleigh_user 8y ago
      Goal is to get there in next few months. Laying groundwork to do so now. Definitely receptive
toomuchtodo 8y ago
When you're older or near death, will you miss the time you missed out on with each other because you loved your work? As others have mentioned, it's just work; it's not going to love you back. Time is finite, and you have to prioritize what is important to you.
- honkycat 8y ago
  > As others have mentioned, it's just work; it's not going to love you back. I love this. I am stealing this.
jdlyga 8y ago
I set up Google Calendar invites. It's the same way I handle getting time with a busy manager at work. Wife is super busy in the next few weeks? Set up an event on the calendar so they can plan around it.
mbrodersen 8y ago
if you truly love your wife then quit your job and find something better. Seriously. You only live once and your jobs should not be your life.
muzani 8y ago
If you're doing a startup, you probably have more flexible hours. What I actually do is start work around 4 or 5 AM and finish at about 3 PM. My family is not awake so I don't miss any time with them. Less time on commuting, finding parking, etc, and plenty of time to work. And I have huge gaps of time to play with my kids. But if possible, I'd recommend finding a way to work less hours. I find that lots of scheduled time kills a lot of opportunities.
thiago_fm 8y ago
Do you love your wife or your work? Why does your son goes to therapy? I would take a step back before trying to "manage" long hours vs. spending time with loved ones, and look at the root of the problem.
a-saleh 8y ago
I have a shared calendar with just my wife that has reasonably detailed schedule. With rest of my friends we just send each other a doodle [1] once every 3 weeks or so, so that we go for a beer or something. Using doodle solved the "texting everybody every update until we agree on time" problem :-) Going for lunches with my friends turned out fairly well, because most people need to lunch during the day somewhere, so we might as well lunch together :) This of course requires you to work reasonably close together. [1] https://doodle.com/ https://doodle.com/
itamarst 8y ago
Work fewer hours (not possible for a nurse, but definitely for a programmer). It'll make you _more_ productive: https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/08/10/always-more-work-to-do/ https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/08/10/always-more-work-to-...
jakobegger 8y ago
There aren't enough hours in the week for all that. - one partner has a startup - the other has a full time job - and goes to school - apparently you also have a kid - and you want to go on dates - and you want to do stuff with a group of friends on the weekend I seriously doubt that the choice of calendar software is going to make a difference here. At some point you are going to have to set priorities. I'm not saying you should work less, because you seem to love it. But maybe just accept the fact that you're going to meet your group of friends only once or twice a year, or that date night is going to happen less often. I meet some of my best friends only once or twice a year now. It's not what I imagined, but when everyone has a job and family and doesn't live in the same place anymore.... I don't think changing to a different calendar app could fix that.

godot 8y ago

I feel like this is the key comment. The other 3 replies to this (Spooky23, CodeWriter23, em-bee) all made good points. TBH, it seems like you actually have a lot of opportunity for together-time during weekdays. It looks like everything from dinner, work out, chores, until sleep time are all together-time. Make dinner, have dinner together; don't do it alone. Work out together (if possible; unless you're each interested in drastically different kinds of exercises). A lot of chores can be done together. I fold laundry with my wife together all the time. Spooky23 said when you have kids, every minute counts -- in the sense that you want to spend time with them -- but I say, also in the sense that every minute of your time counts because there's just so much to do when you have to take care of a baby. Sometimes folding laundry together is the only time of the day when we can have some real conversations. For weekends since she has night shifts, you will just have to accept that most weekends aren't going to be a lot of free time together -- but like others said, make her breakfast for her 2pm wake time, take her to work at 7pm, pick her up from work at 7am, etc. It's all opportunities for conversations. It doesn't always have to be dinner dates and movies. It sounds like you work in a tech startup. Is that your own company? Are you an employee? I know quitting isn't a solution, how about switching jobs (to a remote job)? How about reducing hours? How about reducing commute at the current job (work from home more days a week)? Unless you're a founder of your company, switching jobs is more viable than you think. A lot of times it seems like you're really invested into your job (whether emotionally or financially in the form of stocks), but a lot of times you don't even realize how much nicer things could be until you made a jump. I moved from a job where I worked with a lot of friends and have a lot of good times together but a hellish bay area commute (~3 hours a day minimum) to a remote job and life couldn't be better. I don't just get back 3 hours a day, I get back my sanity in the form of pretty much eliminating stresses (which mostly come from nightmare commutes) and energy to spend with wife and baby.