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What Will You Do For More Family Time?

 

Many people will say that they want to spend more time with their family but how many of those people are willing to take action to make that a reality?

The other day I had posted on my personal site about whether you are willing to sacrifice to reach your goals. The same holds true with regard to making more time for your family as it will require sacrifice on your part.

According to a recent CareerBuilder.com survey, dads want more family time.

The results of the survey indicated that 37 percent of working dads say they’d leave their jobs if their spouse or partner made enough money to support the family while 38 percent would take a pay cut to spend more time with their kids. In addition, 24 percent of working dads believed that their work was negatively impacting their relationship with their kids while 48 percent have missed a significant event in their child’s life due to work in the last year.

So I ask you the question, what will you do for more family time?

It is rather easy to answer a survey that you would take a pay cut to spend more time with your family but it is another thing entirely to actually do it. In my current situation, I am not happy about the amount of time that I have been spending on my commute to and from work. Due to construction on the highways, my commute has been averaging about two hours each way and this is having an impact on the time that I am able to spend with my family.

So what am I going to do?

For starters I have a meeting scheduled with my boss to discuss a more permanent arrangement to work from home. Currently I have the flexibility that I am able to work from home as needed but there is the expectation that I would still be in the office on a regular basis.

If my meeting doesn’t go well with regard to working from home, am I willing to change jobs in order to reduce my commute and spend more time with my family? To be honest with you, I am not sure that I am and will have to cross that bridge if it comes. In the past, I have been reluctant to change and tend to be a creature of habit that enjoys the comfort of the known.

If you are not comfortable making a drastic change to have more family time, consider the following tips from the survey to help gain a better balance between your life and your career:

  • Give your undivided attention. I’ll admit that this one is hard for me as it is so easy to check email or make a quick phone call. Unfortunately, as many of you likely know, checking email has a funny way of consuming more time than you planned.
  • Keep one calendar. I’ve commented about this in the past but scheduling your personal life on your work calendar is a great way to ensure you don’t miss those special moments in your child’s life. One thing I also do is schedule a vacation day on their birthday as I want to be there with them and let them know their day is truly special to me.
  • Make time. It is important to schedule time with your family, including time for just you and your wife. In our family we have been doing our best to schedule a nightly walk to get a little exercise together and share some time away from everything.

These might sound like easy things to do or you might be scratching your head saying that there is no way that you can do this with your current work schedule. As you struggle to find more time with your family, you are bound to make mistakes and that is to be expected. However, many dads make the mistakes on the life side of work-life balance but we cannot lose sight of the fact that mistakes on the life side can be just as damaging, if not more so, as mistakes regarding work.

So I’ll ask you again, what will you do for more family time?

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    Comments

    1.
    On October 2nd, 2007 at 6:31 am, ToddlerDaddy said:

    The point of this article is well made and very relevant in today’s society.
    I can speak from some experience in that I routinely work 60+ hour weeks, and that is just the time at work, it doesn’t include the time spent on work matters at home etc. The sad thing is this is actually a vast improvement.
    Up until just before the birth of our second daughter I was routinely spending 80 hours a week at the office and about 10 nights a month in various cities in hotel rooms.
    In the end I just got sick of getting to the weekends and discovering that our toddler had learned some wonderful new skill that I didn’t even know about.
    I had missed the first time she rolled, spoke, smiled, laughed, ate solids - pretty much every first I had managed to miss. And it wasn’t only the first time but things like she had been doing some of these things for ages before I was actually there to see it for myself.
    In the end I went to the boss and asked to change jobs within the organisation. Sure the new job is less glamorous, and less pay and not as high a profile. But I thought I would rather know my kids than anything else, besides I may like my job, but I LOVE my family and in the end that is what is most important

    2.
    On October 2nd, 2007 at 8:18 am, Derek Semmler said:

    That is great to hear that you made the decision to adjust your work schedule to give yourself more time with your family. Your kids are very lucky and I am sure they enjoy having you around more often now.

    Making a decision like that can be very difficult. Your comment about liking your job while loving your family is a great perspective.

    Thanks for sharing!

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