🤔 What Matters Most...At Any Given Time

From the moment you wake up, the mental tug-of-war begins. Should you knock out those client emails or help get the kids ready for school? Draft that proposal or fold the laundry? Work on your business strategy or plan a date night with your spouse?  As I write this at 4:54a I realized my taxes aren’t done, I’ve made no reservations on our anniversary trip coming up this week, and I desperately need to buy an adjustable wrench for an outdoor project…

If you're building a career while trying to be present in your relationships, you're likely juggling dozens of competing priorities at any given moment. This constant balancing act between being a good professional, partner, and parent isn't just exhausting – it can leave you questioning whether you're making the right calls about where your time goes.

Read on, and know there’s a Part 2 coming…

If this resonated with you, chances are you know someone else juggling these same challenges. Consider sharing this with a friend who might benefit from a new perspective on their busy life.

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The "Consequence Calculation"

Your decision-making process might look familiar: which fire needs putting out first? What creates the most pain if ignored?

At 7:30 AM with 30 minutes before school drop-off, work emails generally wait. There's obviously more immediate pain if you don't help your partner get the kids out the door. At 10a it’s easy to choose doing some “urgent” analysis at work instead of cleaning up the the kitchen's morning disaster zone. It’s generally work time so you decide that comes first even if yours is the brain that cannot do good work knowing your hybrid workplace is unkept.

But here's the challenge with this approach: when you're constantly triaging based on immediate consequences, you can easily find yourself at 8 PM having missed dinner, still working, and wondering how the day got away from you – again.

The Question That Changes Everything

What shifted everything for me was developing a simple pop quiz in these daily moments of decision:

"What is the real consequence here, not the one between your ears?”

When you pause to ask this question, you might discover that the "critical" work deadline is self-imposed or more flexible than you initially thought. That client deliverable might not be as time-sensitive as it feels. Conversely, if you consistently - not constantly- spend quality time with your child, you can make a 7-figure client’s needs come first that one Wednesday evening.

Simply acknowledging this pattern – not just having a momentary concern about life balance before sliding back into autopilot – puts the issue in what I call "the space of consideration."

When you deliberately place something in this mental space, you naturally start paying more attention to it. This awareness alone begins changing behavior. It’s similar to recency bias…what car have you wanted to buy recently? What car do you notice more often now? Once you let something take up some mindshare, you won’t unsee it. 

Sometimes there genuinely are fires that need immediate attention – but this framing helps cut through the fog of perceived urgency that so often drives our decisions.

Planning to Plan

The most powerful system I've seen work for busy couples is what I call "planning to plan." It sounds meta, but it's transformative and you can do it yourself. If you’re a regular reader the record might sound a little broken - same with the powerful message of gospel, or that mindfulness practice you’re building eh?

Have you done it yet?

This approach has two powerful effects. First, it ensures that important life moments don't get squeezed out by work. Second, it removes the daily decision fatigue of constantly wondering if you should be working or not.

Related: when couples I know sit down for quarterly planning sessions, the clarity is immediate. You can see where work is already "overcooked" (12 hours of meetings in a day, anyone?). Now you can make deliberate choices about where to push back or reallocate time.

I’ll tell you personally that this fact hides like a chameleon until you shine “plan to plan” light on it. I can tell myself the lie “I feel like I didn’t get much time to work this week”, but when I actually evaluate the calendar I’m like “wow I really executed a TON…and it took a lot of my calendar!”. Now, working a lot and feeling like you didn’t get much done is a post for another day.

Finding Your Own Equilibrium

There's no magic formula here. The right balance of work, family, and personal time looks different for everyone. What matters is developing the awareness to question your autopilot decisions, and the systems to ensure you're not consistently shortchanging what matters most.

You aren't struggling with balance because you don't care – you and the world designed an environment that wants to fragment your attention. By asking yourself that simple pop quiz question and planning with intention, you're already taking significant steps toward reclaiming control over where your precious time goes. 

Now, here’s the segue to part 2: sometimes the answer actually is deep, focused work and cancelling on your spouse. Sometimes that vision you're building, that project you're leading, or that career milestone you're pursuing does deserve your undivided attention in certain moments. The key is discernment…maybe that’s part 3.

Until then, you've got this. We all got this. One intentional choice at a time.

🍻 

Hat