Study time vs. Family time

I'd like to know how those of you with a wife and kid(s) schedule the time to read/lab without neglecting your family.

I started this year strong, working my way through a stack of books, spending hours in my lab every day, and passing nearly every test I took. Then our daughter was born in September. Having a baby in the house has totally rocked my studying world. I've recently taken a demanding supervisory role at work, so studying during the day is out. I get home around 5:30pm and my wife is obviously ready for some help at that point. I usually take care of the kiddo (3 months old now) while she cooks supper, takes a shower, etc. Then we only have a couple of hours to spend together before I need to be in bed.

I really need to get back in the swing of things, but I'm not sure how to do it without leaving my wife feeling overloaded/neglected with the new baby. Do you guys have a set study time every evening? How much time are you able to devote to it?

Right now my schedule looks like this:

5:00am - Out of bed
6:15am - On the road
7:00am - Arrive at work
4:30pm - Leave work
5:30pm - Arrive home and take over baby duty
6:30pm - Eat supper with the wife
7:00pm - Give the wife an hour or so break time
8:00pm - 2 hours of time with the wife and kid doing whatever (watching TV many times)
10:00pm - Bed

Right now, the best plan I can come up with is taking that 8:00-10:00 time slot for studying. The weekends are a little more flexible at least, so hopefully I can make some time there.

What are you guys doing?

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Comments

Turgon

xenodamus wrote: »

I'd like to know how those of you with a wife and kid(s) schedule the time to read/lab without neglecting your family.

I started this year strong, working my way through a stack of books, spending hours in my lab every day, and passing nearly every test I took. Then our daughter was born in September. Having a baby in the house has totally rocked my studying world. I've recently taken a demanding supervisory role at work, so studying during the day is out. I get home around 5:30pm and my wife is obviously ready for some help at that point. I usually take care of the kiddo (3 months old now) while she cooks supper, takes a shower, etc. Then we only have a couple of hours to spend together before I need to be in bed.

I really need to get back in the swing of things, but I'm not sure how to do it without leaving my wife feeling overloaded/neglected with the new baby. Do you guys have a set study time every evening? How much time are you able to devote to it?

Right now my schedule looks like this:

5:00am - Out of bed
6:15am - On the road
7:00am - Arrive at work
4:30pm - Leave work
5:30pm - Arrive home and take over baby duty
6:30pm - Eat supper with the wife
7:00pm - Give the wife an hour or so break time
8:00pm - 2 hours of time with the wife and kid doing whatever (watching TV many times)
10:00pm - Bed

Right now, the best plan I can come up with is taking that 8:00-10:00 time slot for studying. The weekends are a little more flexible at least, so hopefully I can make some time there.

What are you guys doing?

Its very difficult. As my career has escalated I have practically zero study time at work and often work matters encroach on personal time evenings and weekends. We have had two children the last 4 years, the youngest is nearly one now during the most demanding year of my career. In the evening Im spending time helping with meals, bathtime and bedtime with the kids. Once that is done after 8pm my wife and I are usually shattered so studying is out of the question.

Weekends open up stress relief from work but not much studytime. Having the kids on her hands all week my wife needs a break at the weekend so my time goes there, also on all the shopping and chores she cant get around to on her own during the week. So 4-8 hour lab sessions rarely happen, too much to do indoors. I often find weekends as busy as any workday to be honest and if there is any downtime I like to take it to rest and refuel in prep for the next busy week rather than kill myself with lab prep.

The Christmas vacation will open some studytime up for me, and next year I should have some window to study at least a little on workstime occasionally. Until then, its sneak a half hour or hour in when I can.

advanex1

I think talking to your wife is the smart idea. Ask her about taking an hour or two a day or every other day to do some studying for your classes/certifications. Just communicate effectively. Let her know that it's okay to tell you that she's feeling neglected and she would like a little bit more time with you or a little bit more of a break with your daughter. Communication is key and this has ALWAYS worked with my wife. She appreciates the fact that I ask and am willing to cut back if it needs to happen. It's on you then to actually cut back when she informs you of it.

Download some pod casts as well, put some videos on your IPOD and play them on your 45 minute drive to work, take all extra time that's given to you to study. Take some time on the weekends with working it into your schedule to.

I know that kids are a handful, I have 3 of them. My wife takes care of them, it's a job, I know that.. but I work long hours too. You both deserve time off and time to do what you want to do. It's up to you two to work it out.

N2IT

advanex1 wrote: »

I think talking to your wife is the smart idea. Ask her about taking an hour or two a day or every other day to do some studying for your classes/certifications. Just communicate effectively. Let her know that it's okay to tell you that she's feeling neglected and she would like a little bit more time with you or a little bit more of a break with your daughter. Communication is key and this has ALWAYS worked with my wife. She appreciates the fact that I ask and am willing to cut back if it needs to happen. It's on you then to actually cut back when she informs you of it.

Download some pod casts as well, put some videos on your IPOD and play them on your 45 minute drive to work, take all extra time that's given to you to study. Take some time on the weekends with working it into your schedule to.

I know that kids are a handful, I have 3 of them. My wife takes care of them, it's a job, I know that.. but I work long hours too. You both deserve time off and time to do what you want to do. It's up to you two to work it out.

I really like the part where you mention every other day. I found that to be extremely important. What happens is you get caught in a routine and the sad part is your kids are not apart of that routine. Breaking it up is so important.

What I do is leave reading material in the loo, by my desktop, and in my back pack. Whenever I get a chance I will read for a while. Once a week I will stay up to 2-3 in the am studying for 4-5 hours. That usually gets me caught up.

Good luck!

xenodamus

So, my situation is definitely not unique.

If only I didn't have to sleep! I try to remember that in the end we're all given the same number of hours per day. I just have to study the folks out there who are killing it with the same variables as me.

@Turgon...I can't imagine trying to study for something like the CCIE with your schedule. I'd just like to pass the 70-680 and finish my MCSA! I've gotten used to cooking in the microwave and now I've got to learn to use the crockpot. I guess slow and steady always wins the race, though.

@advanex1...I also like the idea of breaking up the study schedule every other day. I can tell it's definitely going to take lots of communication with the wife for me to acheive my study goals from now on. It's alot easier to find "me time" when it's just the 2 of you wandering around an empty house, lol.

@N2IT...I feel you, and that's just what I'm trying to prevent. I have to find a way to keep progressing in my career without sacraficing the quality of my family life. How did your whole career upheaval turn out, by the way? When I made this jump to supervisor I went through alot of your old posts since I faced many of the same problems moving to management. Weren't you facing a move or long distance work schedule most recently?

rwmidl

First things first. Don't neglect the wife, kids and your "own" time. If you blink the kids will be in college and you will wonder where all the time went (que "Cats in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin). Neglect time with your wife and well, as the saying goes "if momma ain't happy then no one is happy". Neglect time for yourself, and you will burn out.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, talk to your wife. When I did my CISSP prep, my wife knew I would need time to study and she let me have it. I would spend about an hour at night reading. That was after dinner, spending some time with the kids/helping with bath time. Weekends I maybe spent a little more time studying. I'm lucky that my wife is very understanding and she also has her Master's degree so she knows and understands the need to study time.

If you can, also try to see if you can squeeze some study time in at work. Maybe on your lunch break eat a sandwich and read?

xenodamus

@rwmidl...I believe it. The days/weeks seem to pass even faster since the baby came. I'm just glad I finished my CISSP before her delivery. If I had failed the first attempt, I would have been studying for the retake with a newborn in the house. That was a big motivating factor for me to pass the first go round.

If I can fit a little here and there into my work day, like you mentioned, it would help alot. I'm new to this job, and management in general, so the more efficient I become the more time I have to spare each day. I plan on that continuing to improve, so that eventually I'll be fitting in some there as well.

N2IT

xenodamus wrote: »

@N2IT...I feel you, and that's just what I'm trying to prevent. I have to find a way to keep progressing in my career without sacraficing the quality of my family life. How did your whole career upheaval turn out, by the way? When I made this jump to supervisor I went through alot of your old posts since I faced many of the same problems moving to management. Weren't you facing a move or long distance work schedule most recently?

Yes I moved to Rochester Minnesota. I no longer directly management people at the moment I am working on project documentation under an engagement manager/program manager. However the jump went well I felt. The wife took a job as a nurse that pays very well for a first time nurse so we decided to make a "family decision". I am currently working only ~10 hours a week at the moment not as much as I anticipated. I am currently looking for another job until/if these potential projects come through. One looks extremely promising the other two do as well, but the timeline in which they will kickoff is a huge ?, so I can't count on that. Intiation has begun and planning too, but that is in the infancy stage. We really can't move further along until we get official signoff.

As far as management went I loved it quite frankly. Planning, training, rewards, leading, managing are all things I like to do. And most of them I do well so it makes for a nice career marriage.

I hope things are going well for your management move. I was lucky to have a 30+ year business strategist become my program manager. He is very high level so it took sometime to learn his thought process, once we began to understand each other I really started to grow. It's amazing what a mentor can do for you.

Good luck!

cisco_trooper

Balancing family life with study time outside of working hours is extremely difficult. I haven't been able to consistently study since we had our third child a little over two years ago. With the children starting to get out of diapers and starting to be able to feed themselves it is starting to get a little bit easier and I actually managed to put in two good months of studying and pass the Cisco QoS Exam. Be patient and don't lose sight of the fact that you won't get this time with your children back. I certainly have some regrets about the choices I made in the early years of parenthood and there is nothing I can do about it other than avoid making the same mistakes again. Besides, you end up with more permanent retention of the things you study if they are done over long periods of time. What is the point of studying a subject "balls to the wall" if you aren't going to know anything about it a year later? Take your time and make sure you make your family a priority. If you don't, you may not regret it soon, but you WILL eventually regret it.

Hope that helps.

blargoe

I have a wife and three little ones myself. I had to accept that never again would I be self-studying and passing exams with the speed and effectiveness I had enjoyed previously. I'm doing well to pass one exam a year these days. And, that is OK. I've been going in bursts and taking long breaks, because that is all my home situation will allow at this point.

I like the suggestion about asking for an hour every other night. You could also sacrifice an hour of sleep a couple nights per week, perhaps.

demonfurbie

ive got 2 little ones as well

what i do is listen to videos on the drive to work/home and read at lunch

universalfrost

to the OP.... my schedule is almost identical to yours with the exception of me adding in 2-3 hours every other day at teh end of the day to study/lab, so i usually hit the sack around 1 AM M,W,F... lately my wife has been hogging the weekends so I have not been able to study at all. This weekend I told the wife i am waking up, eating breakfast and locking my self in the computer room.

Psoasman

I've got 2, as well. I work long swings, so we do our family stuff before I go to work. I sat down with my wife and we planned out times I could study. I found that giving her equal time off to go shopping, go out for coffee, etc was a good deal for both of us.

I would definitely make use of your commute for using audio tools. You could also take 30 minutes each night to do some studying.
Before we had kids, I would take an extra day off every 3 weeks or so and use some of that time for studying.

Plantwiz

xenodamus wrote: »

Right now my schedule looks like this:

5:00am - Out of bed
6:15am - On the road
7:00am - Arrive at work
4:30pm - Leave work
5:30pm - Arrive home and take over baby duty
6:30pm - Eat supper with the wife
7:00pm - Give the wife an hour or so break time
8:00pm - 2 hours of time with the wife and kid doing whatever (watching TV many times)
10:00pm - Bed

Right now, the best plan I can come up with is taking that 8:00-10:00 time slot for studying. The weekends are a little more flexible at least, so hopefully I can make some time there.

What are you guys doing?

Lots of good comments already.

I have Couple things to add though:
First, it is important to have an early bedtime for small children. I dare say most children under 10, but if you can at least keep this schedule until they are 6y.o. you are ahead of most. Young children should be in bed 6-7pm. 7-8pm for 6-8 and even 6-10 year olds. I've done it with mine as have several friends. Those friends who didn't complain most frequently of being stressed, no time, kids are crappy, etc... Yep, you may not see the children as often, but than when you do see them, they are not crabby, stressed and bratty.

Possibly add an extra 1/2 hour on your wake time to read. Nothing huge, but get a jump on a topic. Keep this reading time very specific and in a few weeks, you'll have covered a great deal of material.

Since it appears you have 45 minutes in the vehicle, try some audio books. It depends on your topic of study (obviously) but it is a nice time to review. The other alternative would be to read aloud your texts, and replay them to yourself in the car. Sounds lame, but if you cannot find what you need in audio, create your own.

As far as 'baby duty', all I can recommend here is that you and your spouse need to evaluate what this means. IF she is not working outside the home, welcome to being a 'mom'. It is a crapload of work! Early bedtimes gives everyone a break. Your child won't be severly scared because you put them to bed to develop their little brains while you and your spouse have time with each other. Babies and toddlers. 7pm at the latest. Toddlers-school age between 7-8pm. Early elementary 7-8 mabye 8:30 if they are reading in bed.

So, I don't think finding time to study between 8-10pm is outrageous. Create a study plan. Be specific and stick with it. 1 hour of study in the evening will likely be adequate especially if it is well planned and focused.

There is plenty of time on the weekends if you are not working to spend unlimited time with the little ones, going to parks, playing in leaves, playing games etc... kids are pretty easy going as long as the time they have is good time.

Looking at you schedule with some experience in this area, you have several places to open up some time for yourself and still include your spouse and child without guilt. Many of us have done it. I had to with a spouse who worked 6 days a week 7 every 3 weeks.