Prime Minister Andrew Holness admits that his average day is long and hectic, presenting him with a challenge to balance his ceremonial, executive and legislative duties.

Now, he intends to make a slight adjustment because his first year as head of Government saw too many ceremonial engagements in his diary.

“This year I’m going to compress that and expand the executive and legislative duties,” Holness told

Jamaica Observer editors and directors at a breakfast meeting hosted by the newspaper’s chairman Gordon “Butch” Stewart last Friday to review the Government’s first year in office.

The adjustment may give the prime minister, who took office on March 3, 2016, a little more time to rest, but that is left to be seen as he has already fallen into a pattern that sees him going to bed about midnight, then getting up between 3:00 and 4:00 am to check and respond to e-mails, after which, he disclosed, he takes another nap, then is up again by 7:00 am.

“By 9:00 am I’m usually in the office, and the days are like meetings, visits, dispute resolution, and I do quite a bit of the technical work — writing and reviewing — and working with the AG (attorney general) and with the ministers and looking at the PR stuff and just coordinating the whole of Government,” Holness explained.

Asked how his schedule has affected his time for political activity, Holness, who leads the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), said there was no question that it has reduced his time interacting with supporters and the general public.

“I don’t think I was as active politically last year as I was the year before,” he said. “But when you’re in Government you can’t go to the ground empty-handed. The Opposition have that luxury, they can complain about everything, but when you’re in Government you have to go to the public with results, so what we’re doing is, we’re planting the seeds, we’re doing some reaping and then we’re going back to present the harvest.”

In relation to the effect that his office was having on his family, Holness said: “The good thing with my family is that they are incorporated in what I do.”

Holness’s wife, Juliet, contested and won the St Andrew East Rural seat on a JLP ticket in the February 25, 2016 General Election.

They are the first prime minister and wife couple to sit in the Parliament. They have two sons.