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How To Spend More Time With Your Family

 

Consider the following scenario - you work 40+ hours per week and are home each evening between 6pm and 7pm. After work you enjoy dinner with the family, assuming that they have not already eaten dinner. The kids have an 8pm bedtime and they still need to take a bath or shower - which means there isn’t much time for you to spend playing with your kids or talking about their day.

On the weekends, you have a long list of things to do around the house: mowing the lawn, laundry, cleaning the house, etc. There are quite a few demands on your time and it can be difficult to get everything done and still have time to enjoy with your family.

Wouldn’t it be great to free up even an hour or two to spend more time with your family?

You’re likely nodding your head in agreement but might not be sure of how to go about creating more free time that you can spend with your family when you have so many things to do.

Outsourcing!

That’s right - outsourcing is not just for large corporations that are looking to save a few bucks.

Outsourcing For Individuals

It might not be something that you have ever thought about before but outsourcing is something that can certainly apply to individuals.

There has been quite a bit of buzz surrounding a book by Timothy Ferriss, The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich, that does a great job of introducing the idea of outsourcing your life. I’m reading this book right now and I have to say that there are quite a few very intriguing ideas.

While the book focuses more on outsourcing your business related tasks in an effort to reduce the volume of work that requires your attention, think creatively and look at other aspects of your life that you can outsource to an outside party.

The beautiful thing is that you do not need to outsource significant tasks in order to save yourself some time. Examine your regular schedule to see where you might be able to hire someone to complete the task in your place.

Examples of Personal Outsourcing

When you think of ideas on what you can outsource in your life, place an hourly wage on your personal time to determine if it makes financial sense in your situation.

If you can hire someone to complete a task for less than your hourly wage, you’ll be ahead of the game. In some cases you may find it worthwhile to outsource something even if it costs you more - it all depends on how much more and how little you enjoy the task.

To get you started, here are a few examples for you to consider:

Lawn Care: Do you own a home that requires you to mow the yard? How long does that take you? I’ve got a decent sized yard and it takes approximately an hour to two hours (depending on whether or not I bag the clippings) to mow the yard. By hiring a lawn care service to mow my yard, I instantly created an additional 1-2 hours per week that I can spend with my wife and kids.

Instead of having to wake up on Saturday or Sunday morning and mow the lawn, I arrive home from work on Friday afternoon and the yard is already mowed. You’ll likely spend somewhere around $20-30 per week for this service.

House Cleaning: I’m not a big fan of cleaning the house - my wife likes to say that I what I do is “picking up” and not cleaning. Call me crazy but I didn’t think to dust the baseboards throughout the house or that the blinds need to be dusted on a regular basis. I’ll be the first to tell you that I don’t notice things like that and would go quite a long time before doing something like that on my own.

Hiring a maid service to come in and clean the house can save a considerable amount of time. It is possible to have the house cleaned every week or maybe every other week. You might even be able to get by with a good cleaning once per month where you need to “pick up” the other weeks. Prices will vary depending on the frequency and the services provided.

Personal Shopper: Grocery shopping is a necessary but tedious task that typically consumes at least an hour of your time. While there have been services such as PeaPod that have attempted to alleviate some of the hassle, not everyone can get this type of service in their area. How about hiring someone to do your shopping for you? It can be as simple as emailing your shopping list and being home to accept delivery of your items.

These are just a few examples of what you can do to outsource the mundane tasks that occupy a considerable amount of your time. Don’t be afraid to brainstorm ideas and get a little crazy - just about anything is possible.

It should be pretty easy to outsource at least one or two things to provide you with an hour or more of additional time to spend with your family. There are costs associated with outsourcing these tasks so you’ll need to determine what you are able and willing to spend for an extra hour or two of time.

What tasks can you think of to outsource from your life?

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    Comments

    1.
    On September 23rd, 2007 at 11:32 pm, ToddlerDaddy said:

    I’ve got to say I enjoyed this read and will probably take on some of the hints.
    As someone who works long hours followed by a long commute, and in the recent past spent weeks on end in hotel rooms around the country I am always looking for some hints on how to spend more time with my two daughters.
    The other thing I have started to do is either my wife or I will go out after the kids are in bed at night and do some of those little things - like groceries, putting petrol in the car or visiting the ATM. Not only does it mean more time with the kids but it these things also get done a lot quicker at weird hours!

    2.
    On September 24th, 2007 at 9:37 am, Marc Vachon said:

    Hi Derek,

    I just found you through a google alert e-mail notice on work-life balance. I’ll be following along to hear your perspective. My wife and I host a site dedicated to sharing parenthood equally and frequently blog on work-life balance issues as well. I’m looking forward to your posts.

    Marc
    http://www.equallysharedparenting.com

    3.
    On September 24th, 2007 at 10:57 am, Brown Baron said:

    I tend to spend a lot of time on the computer even when I’m home. What I do is to turn it off(scary right?). That works like a charm. I get to play, wrestle, and talk with my 3 kids while my wife laughs at me.

    4.
    On September 24th, 2007 at 8:09 pm, Derek Semmler said:

    @ToddlerDaddy :: Thanks for sharing your feedback. You make a great point about trying to do what you can at off hours to maximize your family time while also gaining the benefit of less crowds while running errands.

    @Marc :: Glad that you found the site and I hope to hear from you more. I’ll certainly be checking out your site!

    @Brown Baron :: Lol, there are times it does seem scary to turn off the computer but nothing bad ever happens. Thanks for making that point.

    5.
    On September 25th, 2007 at 8:50 am, Mother Earth said:

    I outsource my IT,have a handy man, and someone else cleans my oven - I have mentors for just about everything I do and their support keeps me on task for the things I am up to — writing, blogging, personal growth and ballet ( yes at 47 I started ballet again!!), sharing nutrition. With regards to my kids I do the same, we utilize the teachers and the counselors at school - I am not afraid to ask a teacher to drop my daughter off, as a single mom this has really been a blessing. When mine were younger we also added a theme to certain evenings - monday was pasta night. We played endless word games with what rythmed with “sghetti” or
    “noodle” this turned into epic story telling - one fav was about the monster that ate lasagna - having dinner time be fun made the short evening time together more memorable. FRiday night was pizza movie night but a picnic on the floor complete with checkered table cloth ( TGIF!!!) This may not exactly be outsourcing yet took away the ho -hums of the routine we seemingly had each and every night.

    With one away at college and an active teenager Friday nights are just not the same anymore!!

    Mother Earth
    www.bestwellnessconsultant.com

    Mentions on other sites...

    1. Monday Motivation :: Life is Good - eMoms at Home - The Internet Home Business Blog for Moms & Dads on September 24th, 2007 at 8:31 am

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