Late for Home

I read that men often have a work/life problem.  At work, when they dictate that something must be done, it's done.  There's a logic and an order to it.  Work starts every day at a certain time.  Lunch, meetings, things to do.  Structured.

But at home, things don't always go smoothly.  Even if he's the King of his Castle, his subjects don't always fall in line.  It's more fluid.  There are more things beyond his control.  There are fewer meetings, fewer chances to direct change.  More chores.  More beyond his control - finances, bills, more external forces... family members with their own events, etc.

And in my case, the time stacks up pretty close.  Work is 40-43 hours in the office (not counting lunch which I try to keep sacrosanct) plus email checking.  Home (or not work, not in transit to/from work) is probably about 47-50 waking hours.

But here's where it gets tricky... there's always more work at work to do than you can get done.  So you give more time to work than you should.  Don't cut out on time.  Check email constantly from home.

It may seem like it works both ways.  Checking home email at work, texting and checking Facebook.  Fighting with Comcast's customer service.   Dentist appointments.

But I'm not sure it does.  Lori had wanted to have dinner on the table nightly at 6 pm, but I'm often late.  It's a really bad habit.  I try to be better about it, I've got two alarms counting down to 5.  Sometimes I stop at 5 pm and do a little Facebook and Google Reader to make the transition from work to not work, but sometimes I can't stop working -- another email, an overheard (and troubling conversation), a phone call or IM -- and suddenly it's 5:40 and there's no way I'm going to make it to home on time.

I need to get better.