Most of us have a promise we keep making to the people at home, and we mean it every time. Once this project's done, we'll be there.
Then the project ends, and another one starts.
So we try to make up for it with something bigger. A holiday, or a proper day out at the weekend.
I understand the instinct.
Here's another way of looking at it.
Some years ago, the researcher Ellen Galinsky asked more than a thousand American children, roughly eight to eighteen years old, to make one wish about the way their parents' work affected them.
She asked the parents to guess what the children would say.
More than half the parents guessed their children would wish for more time together.
Most of the children wished for something else. They wished their parents were less stressed and less tired.
One child put it like this: "If our parents were less tired and stressed, I think that the kids would be less tired and stressed."
Think about that for a moment.
We tend to measure what we owe our families in hours. The children in that study were measuring something different...
...which version of their mum or dad walked through the door.
I know this one from the inside. For years, what I brought home to my marriage was sometimes the leftovers. Whatever was left after I'd poured myself fully into the day. On the better days, these leftovers were enough. On others, I'm sure they weren't.
The trouble is, it's very hard to see that from where you're sitting.
You're there at the table, asking how everyone's day went...
...and half of you is still in this afternoon's meeting or that email you can't get out of your head.
Your family can usually tell.
Whenever I wasn't present, there would come a point at dinner where my wife would say 'What do you think, Matt?' in a pointed way. Suddenly I'd realise I didn't have a clue what she and my boys were talking about. Head in the clouds, definitely not in the conversation.
This is why I don't think the answer is a bigger gesture. A weekend away won't change much if you turn up to the weekend the same way you turn up on a Tuesday night.
In my experience, what helps is actually smaller, and a lot more ordinary.
This is the first of a new monthly series, the Small Experiment. Once a month I'll give you one small thing to try in real life, and then I'd love to hear what you notice.
This month's experiment is one ordinary evening.
Pick a weekday evening this week or next. Nothing planned and nothing special.
For two hours from the moment you get home, choose to be the rested version of you. Put your phone on Do Not Disturb and leave it in another room. Keep the laptop shut.
If you need twenty minutes to land first, say so when you walk in. 'Give me twenty minutes, and then I'm all yours.' Then make a decision to keep the promise.
After that, be in the room and listen to the answer to the question you asked. When you notice your mind drifting back to work, come back.
That's the whole experiment. Two hours of an ordinary evening, with all of you in it.
It might feel strangely uneventful. That's fine. It doesn't need to be memorable. You're finding out what happens when the people you love get you, rather than whatever's left of you.
Try this month's experiment and let me know what you noticed. Even 'nothing much' is useful to hear.
Matt
Sources: Ellen Galinsky, Ask the Children (1999) · The child's words via Live Science, 'Kids offer advice to stressed parents' (2007)