Family Time Is The Most Important Time

By: Andrew Marrotta

I was at a conference this past summer, and like many other conferences, there was an icebreaker activity. This one involved picking up different cards and talking to different people. 

One of the questions that was floating around to many people was: what are the five most important people or things in your life right now?
 
Everybody, including me, answered family! I heard it over and over again. 
 
A few days later I saw a great post/picture by Jimmy Casas. It really does put things in perspective to talk about the importance not only of family but prioritizing the time and attention we give to our family. I thank Jimmy for posting this, writing about it, and allowing me to share it as well.

As we look forward to 2024, how can we as leaders prioritize our family more? How can we make sure the important thing is the important thing? Here are a couple of tips that work for me and my family.
•    Schedule it, put it on the calendar to make it happen.
 
•    Do full group activities, as well as 1-on-1 dates, 1-on- 1 time with one child.   If you have multiple children, try to schedule individual time with each one of them.
 
•    Spread out the passions: who likes baseball, who likes board games, who likes outdoor activities? Try to mix up the activities of what you’re doing and where you’re doing them.
 
•    Take more pictures. A friend of mine told me this after going to a retirement party. Take more pictures of those loved ones and hang them in and around your life. Hang them in the kitchen, on the refrigerator, in frames on the wall, on your dashboard and more. We’re so electronic in today’s world that most of our pictures are just on our phones. With a quick easy drop in to Walmart or a local pharmacy, you can print those pictures so quickly and so easily and get them hung up. When we see them, it reminds us of our focus.
 
•    Time: in our family love is spelled TIME. Put the time in with your family. We all know it is precious.
If I can help you in any way, don’t hesitate to reach out at @andrewmarotta21 on Twitter. Keep rolling friends and keep surviving and thriving.