Do you sometimes just feel...rushed

Last time my household that I normally play had a dog, I ended up moving the dog into my Sim's girlfriend's household. Last time my Sim was married, he "accidentally" ended up with a kid. Toddlers are pretty intensive in dealing with. Children and teens aren't so bad, however.

Pretty much, I think that's why I play solo, with a single Sim in a household.

I prefer playing a one-sim household for that reason. I also greatly appreciate the feature of leaving sims at home while traveling, slightly suspended in time.

The few times I have bigger households (4 sims), I have at least one rabbithole career to make one sim go away for a large part of the time.

I do think the more sims you have, the more hard it gets, I find with a family of 3 my sims have more free time too do other stuff, have you thought of creating an household with only 3 sims or less, when you want a break ? ?, I play with multiple households

The max I have in my household is 2. I used to have more, but it was a real drag to take care of all of them

I find days rushed with one sim already. I would love to be able to slow down the time but it doesn't work together with a simulation lag fix as far as I gathered so ?

I make good use of the pause button.

And I micromanage, but also try to set up my households in my rotational save the way I want them to be and act accordingly to; so I never choose the mean traits, since I have full autonomy on.
The erratic trait I really like, but cannot use it to the extent I want, because of the autonomous mean social the sims use, even on their family members and friends.

My plan is to, with lot traits, sim traits, reward traits and my builds have a set up that will make sims not completely ruin my vision, the few times I let them go on with their lives without me directing them to Go Here and There.

I only play small families 1-2 is usually it anything above that I feel is challenge play for me.. so yeah I understand feeling rushed if you have to keep all your sims needs/aspirations/work/homework and skills going then also find time for play. Sometimes it's nice for a change though.
My small households usually supplement by having friends over or even having roommates I can feel like there are more there but I'm not micromanaging them too.

It helps a little if you do not play all your sims as overachievers or even responsible characters. A "D" is good enough to not get taken away by social services, after all.
But, yes, I did feel rushed in the past and for this reason switched to aging off for my main save. Now I don't feel bad anymore for "wasting" precious time for things like a restaurant visit or a family bbq at the park.

I play a 5 sim household with aging off so I have plenty of time to get stuff done. Some of the time I'll move some family members in with relatives in order to focus on a particular sim because managing 2 adults, a teen, a child, and a toddler, and a dog can get overwhelming at times.

I don’t really have trouble finding free time to enjoy. One of the most time-consuming things in this game is using the cheapest shower or only having a bath tub for them. The cheapest shower is the slowest thing in the world. You don’t have to get the most expensive one; there’s a subway tile one that’s priced ok and it’s like twice as fast to shower in.

Sometimes when I’m managing a household of 5 or more, I get a few of them occupied with skill building so I can focus on the rest of them. But that can feel like a grind if that’s all they do, and I think it’s nicer when they can waste a bit of time together as a family just watching endless movies or sitting down to a dinner together even if they’re not all hungry at the same time.

I don’t know, I used to feel rushed when I played on normal lifespan but ever since I switched to long lifespan, I never feel rushed. Not every day needs to be productive.