Field-Tested Advice for Time-Crunched Dads

A reader recently wrote in with a question I’ve gotten some version of dozens of times over the years. He’s a year into fatherhood, his wife is about to go back to work, and he’s struggling to fit in exercise, friends, hobbies, and reading while still being a decent husband and dad. What he wanted to know was basically: how do you balance all this stuff?

It’s a perennially tough question for dads. I remember when our kids were babies and toddlers and feeling harried and sleep-deprived changing diapers and doing early morning feedings and playing with them and tending to them when they got sick (little kids get sick a lot, which means you get sick a lot), all while continuing to work and trying to keep up an exercise routine and a glimmer of a social life. Once the kids were potty trained, I thought time and bandwidth would free up.

The pressure on you becomes less relentless and immediate. But older kids take up your time in new and different ways. When they hit elementary and middle school, they’ve got places to be like basketball practice and church groups and what have you, and you’re the one driving them there and coordinating schedules with your wife.

It’s great to watch your kids develop their talents and interests, but it takes a lot of time and mental energy. Below is the advice I’d give any dad with kids in the house, regardless of what phase of fatherhood he’s in. It’s mostly what I’ve figured out through trial and error since our first kid, Gus, came along sixteen years ago.

When fatherhood hits, it’s the time to reexamine and rearrange your priorities. Do an audit of your life. Are there any commitments — whether social, professional, civic, or religious — that used to make sense in your life and no longer do?

Once I had kids, I stopped doing speaking engagements. Especially with those that required travel, they threw off my schedule too much and got me behind on work, and the time away from home simply wasn’t worth the tradeoff in missing out on time with my kids. The good news about fatherhood is that if you become more effective about managing your time and schedule, you should be able to keep all the things that are important to you and all the interests you had before kids.