Finding the time to work on my Jeep.

[Kane]

Who else has this problem? A little background. I am married with a 4 year old daughter. I do not want to take away any time that I could be spending with her to work on my Jeep. Also my wife and I have this inherant problem with creating house projects. These project get pretty big such as tearing a bathroom to the studs and starting over, ripping a deck out to build a patio, things like that. So in essence the Jeep time gets pushed off to the side. I am restomodding a basket case Scrambler from the ground up so as most of you know it take a good 1000 hours or more of work to complete.
In the last few months I have been getting up at 5:45am making a pot of coffee and heading outside at 6:00am to work on my Jeep until about 7:00am and then I come back in to get ready for work. I also have been washing my daughter and then when the wife reads hers stories for bed time I head out for an hour or so to get some work done. I do this about two to three times a week for each the morning and night so lately I have been getting about 6 hours of work done a week. I actually feel like progress is being made.

Anyone else run into this pesky family problem?

 

[PaRenegade]

Anyone else run into this pesky family problem?

Bigtime, and I can't seem to get rid of them!

No seriously, you have to make time for them or you'll have much bigger problems. You have to prioritize projects and have her agree to that, and also put a moratorium on new projects. I'm a year and 5 months into a total rebuild and I have a good ways to go. And my youngest kid is 20. I wrapped up my last major house project before I started and said there will be no more started till the Jeep is done.
I'm spending the majority of every weekend in the garage and when it's warmer out, some week nights too. But my wife works shift work so I try to spend the evenings with her when she's there. The old saying is true; A happy wife is a happy house! (even though I've had the Jeep longer than I've had her!)

 

[thiswontbetooexpensive]

No seriously, you have to make time for them or you'll have much bigger problems.

Truer words have never been spoken. I have taken the last four days off work. Got about 5hours into jeep work, the rest is time with the family. It's ok, that jeep has been around for a while waiting on someone to fix it; it can wait a while longer!


This won't be too expensive Dear! That's what I keep saying. Over and over again.

 

[Kilo19]

very true, the jeep doesn't make memories when its just sitting there, but your kids/family makes memories with or with out you.

i prefer to be with my family, but having the jeep done, and be able to make memories with everyone would be awesome, but don't take away precious time with your family that has been here for 30 yrs + and be wait a couple more. its not worth it, losing those once in a life time moments.

having a soon to be 1 year old, it's amazing what they can do and how much i want to be a part of it.

Love your jeeps, but love your family more.

 

[Kane]

Please do not mistake my first post. I am not complaining about time for my family. I am just discussing alternate ways to find time for my hobby. We all struggle with time management for our hobbies and i thought it would be interesting to here how others find time to work on their Jeeps.

 

[Kilo19]

oh, i didn't mean too. it is tough.

For us, we made a deal that during the week I'm at the mercy of the family and the weekends are daddy's time, but mostly i only get about 2-3 hrs on saturday or sunday, to work. but it's all good. i'm not in a rush.

 

[IOPort51]

Don't get overly ambitious with any projects that will interfere with the family. The Jeep just has to run, not be the greatest rock crawling muscle machine on the continent.

Believe me when I say there will be time for the jeep when your Daughter is away at college. Until then take the best care you can of it, knowing that time will come before you know it.

 

[thiswontbetooexpensive]

You just have schedule the time roger it done. My wife and I actually send each other calendar invites to stuff as bad as that sounds saying it out loud. With a five and seven year old, you kinda have to.

My job has no real set schedule. My wonderful wife works for the school as a diagnostician. She knows she has 185 days to work each year and when they are for the next two years and that it will be from 7:30-4pm sharp. It still kills her that I don't know what time I will be home when I leave in the morning. I get three weeks vacation and that is pretty much planned by January 1.

I took a few days off and made a long weekend with plans to work on the jeep. Got it all blasted and painted so it worked well. Just have to make time for stuff without being a bad parent/husband/employee.

Also, get it on the calendar or it doesn't happen!!!


This won't be too expensive Dear! That's what I keep saying. Over and over again.

 

[PaRenegade]

Remember I said about prioritizing? Well, you take your Jeep project stuff that's not physical hands on things like planning, researching, ordering parts, etc. ..........and do them during your regular job!! I mean, aren't most of us who post on the various message boards doing so during work hours?:dunno:

 

[TroyaCantrell]

It is hard to find time, I don't have kids but spend 40 to 60 minutes each way to work 9 or 10 hours there, have some time with the wife, dinner, the day is over.

You do have to plan for the time, really helped to get the wife interested in the project and do some of that together.