We talk about making the rest of your life work well when the work part of your life is busy as we interview Nigel and Heather Hickey. This is another live interview from SpiceWorld 2015 in Austin, TX. Heather’s current job takes her on the road, and Nigel’s IT job does not, so he takes holds down the fort taking care of the house, 4 kids, and 2 dogs. Now they’re about to switch it up. How do they make it all work?
It’s a lot of open communication, divide and conquer, and a lot of work For instance, Nigel is good at optimizing the grocery shopping, while Heather is the financial planner.
Since they’re not usually in the same place at the same time, it takes a lot of household official business meetings (with a bottle of wine!) to keep the wheels turning and things in sync. They are rockstar-level planners.
They have developed a number of tools that help them communicate, including “The FU Card”, which means that the person dropping the FU is super busy right now and will re-engage at a later time.
They’ve gotten buy-in and understanding from their respective employers.
They’ve established traditions and “them-time” to make keep the marriage on track. People at the show loved the story of The Big Purple Book, where they’ve shared personal notes to each other over the span of their relationship.
Nigel and Heather are getting ready to swap roles, as Heather travels less and Nigel goes on the road more.
Nigel and Heather spoke at SpiceWorld this year. Here’s their session, Quitting is too Easy: Balancing IT Careers and the Rest of Life.
- Nigel is @vCenterNerd
- Heather is @AlwaysMovingMom
Photo credit: SpiceWorks
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