This is an old post I wrote many years ago, when my second child was still a baby. I don't know why I never posted it, but probably due to the stress-levels were through the roof. Having babies and running your own business is hard. Having babies and a regular stable conflict-free job is hard enough. Make sure to take the time to saviour those precious moments, this is what life is about. Anyway, here is the original post:

Programming takes a lot of your brain-activity. You build up these virtual worlds and let them run inside your mind. This is quite natural to all humans, think of a story - Hansel and Gretel, now you have just done that.

The tricky part is to read that story out load while at the same time doing other tasks. E.g. reading this post while telling that story. Seemingly easy at first glance, but actually almost impossible. None of those tasks are particularly hard - they are just hard to do at the same time. You will end up pausing one task to do the other, and then switching back and forth as quickly as you can - stuttering and humming as if you have a difficult time remembering the story.

This is the best I can explain it, trying to debug code while putting a child to sleep. None of the tasks will be enjoyable nor done properly and the stress levels just rises. So do one thing first, then the other. Don’t fret about work, even if those children depend upon it. Being healthy and alive is worth more to them.