I read a few weeks ago that by age 12, you will have spent 75% of ALL the time you will ever spend with your parents. 

Not surprisingly this prompted some conversations between Aki and I. 

In response, he shared with me a snippet from the Rich Roll Podcast with Jesse Itzler where they discuss how often we see our parents into adulthood. 

And the limited number of visits we have left with them. 

This all hit me like a ton of bricks. 

I mean it's heavy right?!

Keep in mind that we are only responsible for ourselves and we model our behaviors to our children, we decided to celebrate C’s 7th birthday together as a family this weekend. 

So we headed out of town to visit one of our favorite places. 

We explored. 

We swam and snuggled. 

We ate her favorite foods. 

We tried to avoid worrying about the work week ahead. 

We did our best to stay centered in the moment. 

We are looking ahead at the calendar to see how we can schedule mandatory family time.
A half day here.
An hour there.
A trip to visit family.

Using mandatory in the best sense.
Purposefully setting aside time, away from the hustle, away from work to direct our time and attention towards what we value most.

This is a lot more quantity of that quality time, right?

A weekend like this is quite obviously not the day to day usual.

The great news is that science shows that quality trumps quantity.

So let’s consider our family’s typical hustle and bustle…
Alarm clocks. Coffee. Meds. Breakfast. Socks. Shoes. Coats. Shoes! Backpacks. Car.
Are your shoes on yet?
Seriously girls, how many times do I need to ask about the shoes?
A busy day in the office, meetings, emails, phone calls.
Pick up. Backpacks. Shoes off. Dinner.

You get the idea.


But we can integrate elements of these quantity experiences into the everyday by focusing instead on the quality.

By making small steps towards quality time with each of the kids every day.

Breaking it down to finding the prompts in our behaviors (parts of our current routines) and then taking a small enough step that it is nearly impossible to miss.

Focusing on the quality>> quantity.
Not beating ourselves up for having work that is personally and professionally fulfilling.
Knowing that we can make huge impacts in HOW we show up.

5 minutes in the morning.
5 minutes at bedtime.
No phones. No multitasking. Full attention.

Where can these fit in to our current routines?
Listening to Charlotte share about a rough day at school without trying to “fix” the situation while dinner reheats.
Filling Josie’s cup with more snuggles- her ultimate love language at bedtime.
Reading a chapter of The Wild Robot together before bedtime.

I am still workshopping how to best incorporate these moments in the morning routine…

I suspect I will need to link it to the coffee/med routine since it is the most rock-solid…

How can you incorporate a little sprinkle of quality time with your loved ones into your life?

P.S. If you are looking to make strides to discover how to best live a life aligned with your values, this is the work I do with my coaching clients! 

To book a discovery call visit HERE.

If you are curious about my group coaching experiences with Jen, you can hop on the waitlist HERE.