Minimal effort necessary

I hope you don't get me wrong, I am not a lazy person, but  having small kids and a job and all that. I would like to know what you would consider the minimum time requirement for F1,  in order to make some progress.  Is three times a week 30-60 min sufficient? Thank you

The short answer is: It depends.

The longer answer would argue that your progress and that the time spend on each training session is a function of many other things than time spent on exercising. Thus, give it a try.

You can divide Foundation training of the seven elements into an A/B schedule where you train 4 of the elements in an 'A' workout and 3 of th elements in a 'B' workout. Including a warmup and cooldown these workouts should be shorter than an hour. If they are longer than an hour, you're resting too long between exercises or between sets. The Handstand training is skill work and depending on the extent of 'warmup' you prefer to include prior to working your shoulders (I for instance need a fair amount), then these sessions can last from 20-50 minutes. Even with my warmup and cooldown it is about an hour of training, though it much less intense and nowhere near as fast-paced as the foundation workouts. Doing these two in conjunction is both expected and a good starting point.

 

The stretch series are each about 40-45 minutes in total, and that is in addition to anything else you do. So, yes, you can do Foundation and Handstand in 30-60 minutes a week amidst everything else. Going forward, the stretch series are a worthwhile investment as is the movement series. The movement series is likely something your kids would want to partake in and would probably be a lot better at naturally, too. 

You can definitely do F1 in under 60 minutes 3x/week, following the split Daniel mentioned. There is a template for exactly that kind of weekly schedule in the workout scheduler if you purchase the course.

Finding time is one of the biggest challenges we all face.  I tell clients every day that even 10 minutes of exercise is better than no exercise at all.  You will be much more successful if you make your workouts fit your lifestyle as opposed to trying to make your lifestyle fit your workout program.  Even if you can only fit in one element on each day, make every minute that you spend on those elements count.  With that mindset and dedication, you WILL make progress.  It may not come in leaps and bounds, but it will still come.  

What Karen said. In addition, once you get started and experience the benefits from investing in yourself, you may discover that you want to shift other things/activities/commitments around in order to invest more time with F1. It's surprising how much more we can do when we're physically and mentally balanced and our hearts and minds are in a good place. Think in "decluttering" terms. Remove what no longer serves you – including people and energy suckers. 

To answer your question, yes 30 - 60 mins three times per week is sufficient for F1. The duration of your workout is dependant on which block you are at for the given exercises, but it will definitely be in-between that timeframe. However, I do suggest doing all seven elements on the same day. Personally, the best results I have experienced is with F1 three times a week, and H1 twice a week coupled with the stretching series three times as my mobility is lacking big time and also speeds up the rate of progress in F1 and H1. If three times per week is your maximum time commitment, one option might be hitting F1 twice a week and H1 once a week and taking it from there.