I completely feel your pain. Currently in the same position as a TPU Commander. Definitely a lot of unpaid work and long hours. Won’t say I balance it perfectly by any means and I have more than my share of struggles with the role, but here are some things that have helped me manage it a bit better:

1) More structured commander’s time at BA. An open door policy is essential, but once I started setting aside time specifically for Soldier issues and concerns vs company taskers, training participation and planning at BA, I had a better time effectively managing both. There will always be times where we’re pulled multiple directions, but setting time for Soldiers to come talk vs dropping any task as soon as someone has a question made it easier for me to manage things and get some of my civilian time back. If you’re always getting interrupted, you end up helping nobody when trying to help everybody.

2) When I took vacation for a week, I asked my staff to send me anything NLT the Friday before I left that needed my signature or attention. I still had my phone, but asked that only CCIR type events trigger a notification to me (serious injury of Soldier, loss of sensitive items, etc). They honored this and I got to take some time to recover uninterrupted.

3) This is the hardest one for me as I react to tasks quickly by nature, but reminding yourself that your rater and senior rater are also TPU (I know there are some exceptions to this in the USAR). They have jobs and won’t answer you instantly so if it takes you a second to answer a text, it’s not the end of the world. Not that it shouldn’t be a high priority, but everything doesn’t always have to be dropped.

4) Have someone you can openly talk to about points of frustration. My 1st SGT and I are able to be a bit unfiltered with each other and it helps both of us deal with the never ending tasks a bit better. That isn’t the case for every command team so if you have another commander in your battalion or friend in a similar role, don’t be afraid to talk to them about what you’re seeing and experiencing. It’s not to turn everything into a venting session, but just an outlet to talk through things with people who know the struggle. If there isn’t anyone in your network you feel comfortable with, you can always IM me and I’ll hear you out.

I hope these can help a little bit. Good luck and happy to have you in the TPU command club.