Balancing a family with rabbit hole/non-rabbit hole careers

Try to have the rabbit hole hours line up with the non-rabbit hole hours. That way 2 sims are effectively "out of your hair" while you're doing the firefighting tasks.

Or if thats not possible, just make sure the other 2 have their needs in the green and set them to a hobby. Or just leave them to their own devices, what's the worst they can get into ;)

So it sounds like my thought process is correct: minimize the number of family members who have non-rabbit hole jobs. This problem may be fixing itself very soon. With three pets in the home, a new baby was born that maxed out the household. I want my heir to have another baby so her brother, wife and son will likely be moving out, taking with them those two rabbit hole jobs.

The non-rabbit hole professions like fireman, stylist, lifeguard, etc., are pretty time consuming, and I think it would be very hard to manage a household with more than one sim in that type of job, so I would agree with your approach. In fact, I've only really enjoyed playing a sim in one of those professions when they've lived alone. It's tolerable if everyone else is either at a rabbit hole job or in school during the same hours the fireman - or other professional - is also working. Self-employment, however, is an entirely different matter. It's pretty easy to manage several sims who are self-employed (painters, gardeners, writers, etc.) because you need to follow them less. You can just queue up activities for everyone and check in on them once in a while.

I found it much easier to have one sim in a non-rabbithole career. But it's doable to have one that works in the daytime (i.e. stylist, firefighter, etc.) and one that works at night (i.e. performances for the higher level Showtime careers and the ghost hunter career). Particularly with the performance careers, your household can maintain their relationship by attending the performances, even though they're never at home at the same time