This pretty much represents how I play, although I use some other methods mentioned in the poll, too. I do keep one of the offspring per generation in the original household, but other kids move out, and I play their households as well. The grandparents usually go off to do their own thing in retirement after their first grandchild reaches young adulthood, or thereabouts (I do rotate to their households, too, though - sometimes they can be rather fun). I rarely put any of my sims in rabbit hole jobs but do occasionally if it fits the story in my head or if I'm just not too interested in a particular sim. To get sims out from underfoot, I'm more likely to send them to the library to study something (because that keeps them occupied for a long time) while concentrating on other family members, and, like you mentioned, I'm usually working on relationships during that time, which takes more of my attention than skill building or self-employment activities do. The rest of the time, everyone is all queued up, and yes, I pause to get that all set up.
