Alejandro and Laura Bautista.

It is early Sunday evening, and Laura just walked in the door of the suburban home she shares with her husband, Alejandro, and their infant daughter, Kennedy. She has spent the last three full days attending MBA classes in downtown Philadelphia, while Alejandro spent the weekend as a solo dad. Laura is greeted by a quick kiss from Alejandro and Kennedy's toothless smile and tiny arms reaching out for her. Laura willingly accepts the hand-off and immediately takes over the evening parenting shift, which includes Kennedy's dinner, play time and bedtime story. After finishing the bedtime routine, Laura gives Kennedy a quick cuddle before laying her down in her crib and heading back downstairs to get snacks and bottles ready for daycare the next day. She passes Alejandro, who has been sitting at the kitchen table doing his own MBA schoolwork for the past few hours, and suggests an easy dinner. They eat together before heading to the couch. Side by side, Alejandro completes another school reading assignment while Laura catches up on emails she missed on Friday. Both yawning, they head to bed in preparation for work the next day.

Juggling life as two full-time working lawyers who are relatively new to the Philadelphia area, both pursuing master's degrees, raising a daughter, and still trying to find time for themselves sometimes feels elusive. There are days when you feel on top of the world, days when you feel defeated and days with every variation of feelings in between. While we are by no means experts at navigating life's demands and we continue to learn new tricks each day, we have found a few approaches that have been essential to helping us enjoy life beyond the every day tasks. In this article, we share approaches to encourage others in similar shoes to share methods that have, or have not, worked for them, and hopefully help anyone searching for ideas to navigate life's responsibilities.

Our first approach is that we understand that we each have unique goals and responsibilities but that we are stronger as a team. We work hard to identify ways that we can support each other in getting every day tasks accomplished while simultaneously working to advance our careers. Often, this approach means that the task allocation in our household defies gender norms. For example, Alejandro adjusted his schedule to accommodate daycare drop-off and pickup so that Laura could attend an out-of-town work conference for a couple of days. This change meant that Alejandro would be the first parent to spend a night alone with Kennedy. Other times, it means recognizing when someone needs a break. For example, Laura encouraged Alejandro to attend a happy hour with colleagues he had not seen in a while, understanding it would make her fully responsible for Kennedy that evening. While taking on, or even just offering to take on, a bigger role in the moment makes it more difficult for one of us, we have found that it encourages communication at home and provides us both with the opportunity to do more in the long run.

Second, we recognize that burnout is real, and we need to find time to do things for ourselves, both together and independently. Admittedly, when we do find a few hours of free time, it is often easier to stay home or turn on the TV, but maintaining an active lifestyle has helped us stay true to ourselves while raising a family. Whether it be playing on a work softball team, relaxing at the spa, traveling to a new destination, attending a friend's wedding, taste testing a recent beer release or trading off who pushes the jogging stroller on a run, we aim to incorporate these pre-baby activities into our daily lives. The cadence at which we do these activities may be different—for example, we typically join the 5:30 p.m. diners to accommodate bedtime rather than fighting for the 7:30 p.m. dinner reservations. Or we may adjust our travel plans—for example, we try to consider nap times when finalizing our travel itineraries, which we have found other airline passengers also appreciate. While we may have adjusted how or when we engage in these activities, they still come with the satisfaction that we are enjoying life and all it has to offer.

Third, to facilitate our lifestyle, we live by our calendars—a sometimes uncoordinated mix of work calendars, iPhone calendars and a home-written calendar—and a joint to-do list application, often supplemented by using a physical post-it note as a reminder. From our business classes, we have learned the value of making and testing a process. As such, we sat down to chart out our daily routine prior to Laura returning from maternity leave. We decided who would do daycare drop-off or pickup on certain days, who would have the morning to work out, who would be responsible for getting Kennedy (and her food) ready on a particular day, and what items could be pushed to a different day or eliminated altogether. As a matter of course, we revisit this process on a regular basis. We may make tweaks to steps that no longer work for us, test out possible improvements, or shift things around entirely to accommodate individual schedule changes. But charting out our plan from the beginning has given us a framework that we both use to feel in control of and satisfied with our day-to-day lives and the division of labor within our house.

Despite the value that a schedule brings to us, life requires flexibility. If we rigidly stuck to Kennedy's napping and eating schedule, we would be confined to our house. By having her take her morning nap in the stroller, we can enjoy shopping for fresh vegetables at the Saturday farmer's market. By not letting schedules dictate our plans, we can check out a local street festival, even if that means catching a little side eye while breastfeeding her in a public place. The point is that a schedule provides a good framework for the daily routine and is something that we rely on heavily, but treating it as a guide rather than a strict rule makes it the most valuable.

Finally, we have surrendered certain time-consuming tasks that are easily outsourced. We started by hiring cleaners. Neither of us had ever been particularly fond of (or good at) cleaning, but we get a strange amount of enjoyment over seeing vacuum lines on the carpet. Plus, despite Kennedy's best efforts to take over for our Roomba, we just could not keep up with the housework and thought that task was better accomplished by someone else. With the proliferation of grocery delivery services, and Laura's hatred of the grocery store (Why are things never in the same place?), getting our groceries delivered was an easy decision. We (really, Alejandro) occasionally will still run to the store for one-off items, but we have certainly become regulars with a variety of grocery delivery companies. Most recently, after a theatrical encounter with yellow jackets, Alejandro pitched hiring someone to take care of the lawn. He won that debate after a neighbor kindly—maybe as a hint—mowed a portion of the lawn while we were away. And then, of course, there is Amazon Prime, whose subscription deliveries come in handy for diapers, wipes, deodorant … and hopefully, one day, wine.

Despite the best of intentions, the reality is that it is not easy raising a family, maintaining professional careers, and carving out time to do the things that you love. Candidly, we spent the four-hour drive to Key West—our first overnight getaway as parents—working on this article, and we probably blur the work-life separation line too frequently at home. But we continue to learn from our decisions each day, try to do what works the best for our young family, and strive to learn from others' wisdom as well. So our question to you is: What suggestions or tips do you have to share? Because if there is one thing that surprised us the most about parenthood, it is the dynamic and supportive group of other parents out there who are always willing to lend a hand.

Alejandro Bautista and Laura Bautista both work as in-house counsel. Alejandro is counsel at PJM Interconnection in Audubon and Laura works in the office of general counsel at the Vanguard Group in Valley Forge. Contact them at [email protected] and [email protected].