“From Out of the Mouth of Babes”…
A few weeks ago I was eating dinner with my family when I made a mistake.
It had been a stressful/long day at work; the kind where you feel a lot of sympathy for Bilbo Baggin’s comment about feeling “like butter stretched over too much bread”. I was adjusting to a new promotion and the new burdens of responsibility that came with it. All day it felt like I had done nothing but sit in back-to-back meetings and respond to an endless stream of emails, Slack messages, and texts asking for my input.
I’m the kind of person who likes to have an empty inbox at the end of the day (as it’s always been a signal to me that I can finally relax and know that there isn’t more for me to answer). I have a tendency to get a little antsy when I see the big red notification symbol that screams “you haven’t responded to everyone!”
That night was a night where it seemed like I couldn’t get the inbox cleared out. New messages just kept popping in and I found myself pulling my phone out every few minutes to check and quickly type out a response. These messages were nagging at the back of my mind without stop.
We were in the middle of eating a spaghetti dinner, when half-unconsciously I pulled out my phone right in the middle of my wife, Sarah, telling me something about her day. It took me half a second to realize that she had stopped talking and was looking at me with disappointment (and more than a little bit of hurt) in her eyes. That’s when my 7-year-old daughter vocalized what I’m sure everyone at the table was thinking:
“Dad, you are always on your phone.”
Those words stung. At first, I felt more than a little defensive. My family didn’t understand the pressure I was under and what it was like working at a company or having these responsibilities. Didn’t they see that I had had a hard day and was trying to do the thing that would help me relax by clearing out all of those pesky messages?
It only took me another second to feel shame for having those thoughts.
Kids are fantastic truth-tellers, often far better than adults. And my daughter rightfully pointed out in that moment that I had signaled to my entire family (and especially to my wife who had been hoping for me to be present with her) that whatever was going via email was more important than them at the moment. That night I never felt more like the Dad (Peter Pan) in the 1991 Film “Hook” who realizes that his son feels as though he’s never there for him.
Learning to Be Present…
Setting these kinds of work/life boundaries is one of those things they don’t explicitly teach you in business school. And I’m learning it can be extremely difficult to figure out at times. But making an effort in the small things (like making sure you never pull your phone out when you’re with your family) can set you apart as a spouse/parent in the same way it makes you stand out as an employee.
Perhaps my favorite quote on the topic of “putting our family first” comes from Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen:
“Even when you know what your true priorities are, you’ll have to fight to uphold them in your own mind every day. For example: like many of you, I suspect, I’m naturally drawn to interesting problems and challenges. I can lose myself in one for hours; solving it will give me a short-term “high.” It would be easy for me to stay late at work noodling on one of those challenges, or to be stopped in the hallway to have an interesting conversation with a colleague, or to answer the phone and finding myself agreeing to work on something completely new and be genuinely excited by the prospect.
But I know that spending my time in this way is not consistent with my priorities. I’ve had to force myself to stay aligned to what matters most to me by setting hard stops, barriers, and boundaries in my life – such as leaving the office at six every day so there is daylight time to play catch with my son, or to take my daughter to a ballet lesson – to keep myself true to what I most value. If I didn’t do this, I know I would be tempted to measure my success that day by having solved a problem, rather than getting the time I love with my family. I have to be clear with myself that the long-term payoff of investing my resources in this sphere of my life will be far more profound. Work can bring you a sense of fulfillment – but it pales in comparison to the enduring happiness you can find in the intimate relationships that you cultivate with your family and close friends.
– Clayton Christensen (“How Will You Measure Your Life?”)
I’m still learning how to do this 👆more perfectly, but I’m trying. For me it’s started with some simple things:
- Reminding myself to never pull out my phone and check work messages after 6pm. I’ve made a commitment that from 6pm to sleep is time for me to be “Dad” and “Husband”. It’s time to be focused on my kids and spouse. To eat dinner together without distraction. To do bathtime, read stories, play a few short games, and put the kids to bed. To spend time with my wife connecting 1:1. Not time to respond to the latest Slack Message. Those can wait until the morning.
- Have a “shut it down” routine and give yourself permission to stop thinking about work. We need to be able to mentally say “I’ve done enough today, and now I can move on to other things.” You don’t want to be physically present but mentally absent (aka still noodling over that big project at work).
- Setting my work email/slack/phone notifications to silent during “non-work hours”. You don’t want to constantly get pinged by co-workers when you’re putting your kids to bed. Besides, most of those “urgent requests” aren’t really that urgent.
- Blocking off time on my calendar to be with my family. Prevent simple things like meals, play-time with your kids, etc. from getting scheduled over with meetings.
Even with all of these practices, it’s hard to pull off, especially if your mind is elsewhere. American religious leader, David A. Bednar, once insightfully noted:
“Balance is a false notion. You can only do one thing at one time. If you are attending to your family, by definition you are neglecting church and work. If you are at work, by definition, you cannot attend to the immediate needs of your family or church. So when you’re home, be home. Not at work, not at church. Be home. When you’re at church, be at church. Not at home. Not at work. Be at church. When you’re at work, be at work. Not at home. Not at church. Be at work.”
No matter what your life situation is (married vs. single vs. kids vs. no-kids, etc.), we can all benefit from learning to “be home” when it’s time to “be home”.
For me, that motivation comes from simply never wanting my kids to look back on their childhoods and remember that “Dad was always on his phone”. They deserve better than that.
