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October 15, 2024 5 mins

Choose fulfilling tasks for your non-working hours

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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is don't buy time to do lower paid work.
If you are highly paid, it doesn't make a lot

(00:25):
of sense to cut back on your working hours to
free up space for something you could pay someone else
to do for less. It might be worth it to
do high quality activities in your personal life, but not
for the laundry. Since I write and speak about work
life balance, I often hear from people who are thinking

(00:49):
of going part time. A busy professional feels time poor,
that there aren't enough hours in the week for their
job and everything else that's going on in their life,
so they consider cutting their working hours. And on the surface,
this might seem like a smart idea. Work a little less,

(01:09):
be paid a little less, and have more time for family,
other relationships, and life maintenance. That is the best of
both worlds, right, But I think there are some potential
problems with this plan. First, and people who've listened to
this podcast for a while have heard me say this
before going part time makes more sense for some types

(01:32):
of work than others. A nurse who is scheduled to
work twenty four hours a week, is probably going to
work about twenty four hours a week. Her patients aren't
randomly showing up at her house on her days off.
A knowledge worker who gets client calls, on the other hand,
is probably going to take a call on a day

(01:53):
she is not in the office if it seems important,
and she's not going to be able to guarantee that
her colleagues will only do with her projects at the
time she is supposed to be working when the workload
is more nebulous. Many people who go part time find
they for sure change their salaries, but only maybe change

(02:14):
their hours and their workloads. But the second issue, and
the one that's the topic of this episode, is that
people don't always go part time for reasons that make
a lot of economic sense. If you want to cut
your work hours to have adventures with your kids, or
write your novel, or train for a triathlon, or have
meaningful conversations with your aging parents, be my guest. These

(02:39):
are things that don't really have a dollar value, because
they are all about the meaning that you assigned to them.
But if you are going part time because the laundry
isn't getting done, this is a different matter much housework
can be assigned a dollar value and may not particularly

(02:59):
be about any sort of deeper meaning. What if you
continued to work full time and use the income you
are not giving up to pay someone else to take
on some of these tasks rather than going part time
because you can't find time to clean your house, hire
a cleaning service rather than going part time. To create

(03:21):
time to grocery shop, have your groceries delivered, or use
a meal prep service rather than going part time because
you feel overwhelmed by all the life maintenance details, hire
a household manager to come in a couple of mornings
a week and attend to them. If you are a
highly paid professional, as I know many people listening to

(03:43):
this podcast are, the amount of money it takes to
pay for a cleaning service or grocery delivery is likely
a lot less than you would be giving up by
going part time. If you stay full time but outsource
some tasks, you will still get more margin in your
life because you will have more time without a task

(04:05):
assigned to it, and you'll continue to get paid more
and get retirement contributions. Based on that higher salary. You
may also advance in your career. Faster than if you
are part time. Buying that time can be great, but
you want to be sure the time you are buying
back is worth it. So really think about what you

(04:28):
plan to do with your time off. Make sure it's
something you enjoy or finds meaningfuler more meaningful than your work.
Otherwise you might be substituting one kind of labor for another,
but not in a way that makes any sort of
economic sense. Don't buy time to do lower paid work.

(04:50):
Buy time to do things that feel to you like
they are priceless. In the meantime, Laura, thanks for listening,
and here's to making the most of our time. Thanks

(05:13):
for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app,

(05:35):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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Laura Vanderkam

Laura Vanderkam

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