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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 o

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.
  - raleigh_user 8y ago
    Yep. She will be way more free in next 6 months. I have a little more flexibility although there are fires that cause me to miss things. Thanks for the feedback. Everyone else here who says "quit" or "work wouldn't make you make these choices" isn't understanding. We're definitely not perfect and work does take over our lives but we both love it. Just have to find a better way to manage the little time we have until her schedule is more free
- Spooky23 8y ago
  I’m not sure how much of that is commute, but I’ll echo other comments, try to reduce your hours. You’re going through a slog with your wife in school. Figure out a way to roll back your time away between now and when she is done with the schooling. I was in your boat a few years ago. Now I work 8:30-4:30 and will stay late two days a week only. It was tough to get there but we’ll worth it. End of the day, you’ll manage better with a time constraint. With kids especially, every minute counts. You have a few years and at some point they won’t want to be around you. Don’t lose that time. For friends, the best luck we’ve had has been setting standing times in advance. Trying to juggle five calendars over text is a recipie for drama. We have standing group happy hours / dinners that we do on a monthly cycle. It’s less spontaneous, but turned into an awesome tradition.
  - raleigh_user 8y ago
    Standing hours might be the best way to do this. To make matters even more complicated our couple friends are either er surgeons/er nurses and 2 other entrepreneurs. Makes for great splits for conversations over dinner. But incredible scheduling headaches. The 5 calendars over text is whats driving me insane.
- em-bee 8y ago
  what do you consider wasted time here? sharing chores with my wife is some of the best quality time we get. better than watching a movie together or going out for dinner. everyone is different here. for you it could be putting the kids to bed together, or something else. your schedule atually looks fairly regular. it seems more like you feel that the day is to short and you look for more off time. instead i'd try looking and improving the quality of the time you have together. get up a few minutes earlier and make breakfast together. take your wife to work for the night shift and pick her up in the morning. but most importantly, learn to improvise. figure out things that you can do on a whim, without planning. be clear to yourself on what is actually important for you when you are together so that you can value that time even if it wasn't well organized.
- 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.
- imhoguy 8y ago
  There is no time wasted really - sometimes we need to literally do nothing alone to recharge after busy day. Think about delegating some chores to housekeeper. Is your wife doing night shifts every weekend? Is there a way to reduce them or move some into the week. Generally I would reduce both hours or would take some extra time off even unpaid. I do part-time with my spouse to spend more precious time with our young kids. Once they will grow up into their later teen years then we will be back into full-time work probably.

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.
- raleigh_user 8y ago
  Yep. She will be way more free in next 6 months. I have a little more flexibility although there are fires that cause me to miss things. Thanks for the feedback. Everyone else here who says "quit" or "work wouldn't make you make these choices" isn't understanding. We're definitely not perfect and work does take over our lives but we both love it. Just have to find a better way to manage the little time we have until her schedule is more free
Spooky23 8y ago
I’m not sure how much of that is commute, but I’ll echo other comments, try to reduce your hours. You’re going through a slog with your wife in school. Figure out a way to roll back your time away between now and when she is done with the schooling. I was in your boat a few years ago. Now I work 8:30-4:30 and will stay late two days a week only. It was tough to get there but we’ll worth it. End of the day, you’ll manage better with a time constraint. With kids especially, every minute counts. You have a few years and at some point they won’t want to be around you. Don’t lose that time. For friends, the best luck we’ve had has been setting standing times in advance. Trying to juggle five calendars over text is a recipie for drama. We have standing group happy hours / dinners that we do on a monthly cycle. It’s less spontaneous, but turned into an awesome tradition.
- raleigh_user 8y ago
  Standing hours might be the best way to do this. To make matters even more complicated our couple friends are either er surgeons/er nurses and 2 other entrepreneurs. Makes for great splits for conversations over dinner. But incredible scheduling headaches. The 5 calendars over text is whats driving me insane.
em-bee 8y ago
what do you consider wasted time here? sharing chores with my wife is some of the best quality time we get. better than watching a movie together or going out for dinner. everyone is different here. for you it could be putting the kids to bed together, or something else. your schedule atually looks fairly regular. it seems more like you feel that the day is to short and you look for more off time. instead i'd try looking and improving the quality of the time you have together. get up a few minutes earlier and make breakfast together. take your wife to work for the night shift and pick her up in the morning. but most importantly, learn to improvise. figure out things that you can do on a whim, without planning. be clear to yourself on what is actually important for you when you are together so that you can value that time even if it wasn't well organized.
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.
imhoguy 8y ago
There is no time wasted really - sometimes we need to literally do nothing alone to recharge after busy day. Think about delegating some chores to housekeeper. Is your wife doing night shifts every weekend? Is there a way to reduce them or move some into the week. Generally I would reduce both hours or would take some extra time off even unpaid. I do part-time with my spouse to spend more precious time with our young kids. Once they will grow up into their later teen years then we will be back into full-time work probably.