Everyone in my household is on different schedules. We wake up tired, even after a full night’s sleep. How can we stop this crazy pace?

DARCY KIMMEL: Well, that hurried lifestyle we can relate to.

TIM KIMMEL: Big time.

DARCY: I think it’s here to stay.

It used to be that we tried to determine how we could avoid the hurried lifestyle. Now, I think it’s more, “How can we just make the most of it, and make sure it doesn’t undermine our joy and our family?”

TIM: It’s part of the success allusion that we are all bombarded with. But the problem is, when it gets a hold of us, it just is a wet blanket over the whole family. It takes the joy right out of the equation.

And it gets us second-guessing ourselves. Next thing you know, we’re not connected at the heart. But there are some things we can do about it, because if you don’t manage the hurried lifestyle, it is going to manage you.

DARCY: That’s right. And we have raised four children, and with all the kids and all their schedules, one of the things that we have found to be really helpful—and sometimes it happens at the beginning of the school year—is that we just kind of pretend we are a sinking ship.

TIM: Yes.

DARCY: And something has to go. So, we evaluate what everyone is involved with, our schedules, and ask, “What can we do to get rid of some of that stuff, to get down to the bare minimum?”

TIM: You know, another thing is, if you consistently eat dinner together—now, very few families can eat 7-for-7 in the evenings in a week, but if you had two, three, four dinners a week where you shut the television off, nobody can check their emails, nobody can text-message anyone, and you just spend some time—it’s amazing how much calm and rest that brings back to the hearth.

DARCY: And because it’s a time when you all touch base with each other, it keeps those relationships stronger, and that gives a lot of rest and peace in a child’s heart.

Another thing—and this is hard to achieve, but it’s very important—is, make sure everybody is getting enough rest. Teenagers need as much rest as little kids. Otherwise, they can be very grumpy. And moms and dads need a lot of rest.

So, make sure that you are quieting down the house, and everyone has the opportunity to get good sleep.

TIM: And you need to learn the most positive word in the English language—and that’s the word “no.” The more you can say no when you need to say no, the more you are going to be free to say yes when you really do need to say yes.

Listen, the hurried lifestyle is here to stay, but we can do something about it.

DARCY: Yeah. It doesn’t have to manage you.