Board Thread:Boruto: Naruto the Movie/@comment-27457951-20151223181333/@comment-25771935-20151224090639

It is actually the writers integrating the true side of having to run a village/city. Being the Hokage means more than just being the strongest ninja in the village. He is an elected official and as such must spend his time running the place and dealing with any problems or official stuff. Which means that he doesn't have a lot of time for everything and just like in most RL cases, it is often time spent with the family that will suffer. While he was always so enthusiastic and saying things like he wouldn't change (though he fundamentally might not have) in his youth, he was always a bit naive. The realities of being in charge aren't something that he can just Talk no Jutsu around.

However I will give you this: why doesn't he just use Shadow Clones to get through most of his work faster? I'm guessing that the mental strain of having clones active to spend time with his family for hours while simultaneously trying to work would be too much, but using clones to do multiple tasks would be easier and cut down on the work-day tremendously so that he could spend time with them. Maybe it's just a creator oversight.