Managing Time to Talk

March 5th, 2007 · 2 Comments

45% of high-earning managers come home from work too tired to converse with spouses. (Harvard Business Review 12/2006) Whether you are a high-earning manager, a small business owner, or one of many in a department, how do you approach your family at the end of a day? One of the pitfalls of our need to fit so much into a day is that those close to us often bear the brunt. Take a self-assessment productivity quiz to see if work stresses are intruding on your personal life:

Does your spouse complain about lack of conversation?
Does your spouse say you never want to go out or do anything fun?
Have you been involved in any activity with each of your children this week?
For yourself, do you manage to fit in exercise and hobby times?

If the most you usually manage is to find your way to the television, you may be adding to your own tiredness. Exercise is actually a great time management technique. It can provide energy, improve attitude, reduce stress, enhance sleep, and overall, increase productivity. For more on this topic, read our article, Exercise for Better Time Management.

Tags: Stress Management · Time Management Strategies · Work Life Balance

2 responses so far ↓

1 Donna // Apr 22, 2007 at 8:44 pm

With such a busy professional schedule, how do you find time to spend with your spouse? Does he mind that he has to wait for you to organize your life and his to get him into your schedule? Do you have the time to be married?
2 Denise // Apr 23, 2007 at 5:15 pm

Hi, Donna–

I appreciate your taking time to comment on my blog posting. I wasn’t sure if you were asking me personally how I managed this or if you were voicing general frustration.

For my own part, I have a great husband who tries hard not to intrude into my work time. However I do think that we manage to have plenty of time to talk. When I’m in town, dinner together is an important time to share the day’s events, even if I do go back to the computer for awhile later. I also take the last hour of the evening to sit together, even if it’s watching a movie or TV show. When out of town, we wrap up the evening by talking over the day’s events.

As far as going out, I do more of that than he would be inclined to on his own. He has a stressful job too, doesn’t have much evening time at home, and looks for downtime.

I try to limit office work on weekends that I’m in town so we can do things together. Even mundane chores and errands done together can become quality time.