Barlow enjoying Forest role
"That's the way I have wanted it," Barlow told Forest's official site.
"Being No. 1 is all-embracing and I've seen people get swallowed up by the job.
"But I like nothing more than to have my coaching hat on and get out there on the training pitch with the players. It's brilliant.
"If anything, over the years I've come to think about being a manager less and less.
"It's a different kind of business now that it was when I first came into football. You just have to look at the way managers have to handle the media these days to realise that the role has moved on.
"There's much more intensity about it now but for those with ambitions in management, there's no disguising what it's all about. People who want to go into the job know what the rules are and if you are not happy about the rules then you stay out of it.
"Had the job all revolved around working day in, day out with players I would probably have fancied the idea a lot more. But it's not - simple as that."