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It’s kind of hard. I usually get home around 6.30 pm, but I’m not fully available for baby routines until about 15 minutes later. Making a quick dinner is fine, especially since mom’s been taking care of the baby for 10 hours plus a few night wake-ups. Dinner, maybe a shower, and soon it’s 9.30 pm — the day is gone.

This is not a complaint, just reality. Being a dad is great, but progressing in your career while doing it feels like a mission impossible. What I’m currently trying is setting up a schedule that works for my wife and me, which looks something like this:

For context, besides my 9-to-5, I do a bit of advisory work for an agency with freelancers spread across 2–3 very different time zones, making sure everything runs smoothly and starting projects to lay a solid foundation. I also have ongoing freelance clients and try to keep some public repos active. Basically, I’m good at keeping busy.

• Tuesday, Thursday: work from 8 to 10 pm
• Saturdays: two hours in the morning, anytime but finishing before noon

That gives me 6 hours. You can imagine it used to be much more, but I committed to slowing down for a while, and I don’t regret it — I don’t know how it could be otherwise.

I’m not sure this is the perfect way; honestly, it still feels like I’m putting in too many hours. Of course, context: we’re still adjusting.

But I’ll keep going like this. I’m not doing too badly. In a month I’ll reassess. Are things on track? Is anything missing? Should time be reallocated? Am I comfortable? Are we all comfortable? It’s a constant conversation.

Above all, what really changes everything is paying attention to time. I do it gladly, but it’s undoubtedly an emergent responsibility.