by BabyCenter Guest Blogger posted in Parenting

By Bree Najera
Since having my daughter three years ago, my husband and I  have often felt stretched thin, over scheduled and just plain tired. During this time, I came across the book called Essentialism: the Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg Mckeown. This book sparked a fire in me---to live a life of purpose, rather than letting it run over me. Since then, our family has been on a journey of gradually changing our mindsets about our commitments and our family time.
We?ve started asking more questions before making commitments, such as: Do we want to do this activity or do we feel obligated" Will this steal from our precious family time, and if so, is it worth the sacrifice" Do we have the time and energy to meet the needs of this commitment"
The results of asking these questions and making decisive cuts in our schedule have been both gradual and massive.

Here?s what I?ve noticed:
We've started valuing family time as a valid time commitment.
One thing we noticed was that "family time" had become whatever time we have leftover between activities. The busier we got, the more family time shrunk. As my husband and I have simplified our schedules, we?ve had to make a mindset change. We now consider family time as an actual activity-- the same as dinner plans or a church commitment. We?ve learned that even if there is nothing on the calendar, per se, we can still tell people we are busy because famil...