Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is don't buy time to do lower paid work.
Speaker 1: If you are highly paid, it doesn't make a lot
Speaker 1: of sense to cut back on your working hours to
Speaker 1: free up space for something you could pay someone else
Speaker 1: to do for less. It might be worth it to
Speaker 1: do high quality activities in your personal life, but not
Speaker 1: for the laundry. Since I write and speak about work
Speaker 1: life balance, I often hear from people who are thinking
Speaker 1: of going part time. A busy professional feels time poor,
Speaker 1: that there aren't enough hours in the week for their
Speaker 1: job and everything else that's going on in their life,
Speaker 1: so they consider cutting their working hours. And on the surface,
Speaker 1: this might seem like a smart idea. Work a little less,
Speaker 1: be paid a little less, and have more time for family,
Speaker 1: other relationships, and life maintenance. That is the best of
Speaker 1: both worlds, right, But I think there are some potential
Speaker 1: problems with this plan. First, and people who've listened to
Speaker 1: this podcast for a while have heard me say this
Speaker 1: before going part time makes more sense for some types
Speaker 1: of work than others. A nurse who is scheduled to
Speaker 1: work twenty four hours a week, is probably going to
Speaker 1: work about twenty four hours a week. Her patients aren't
Speaker 1: randomly showing up at her house on her days off.
Speaker 1: A knowledge worker who gets client calls, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: is probably going to take a call on a day
Speaker 1: she is not in the office if it seems important,
Speaker 1: and she's not going to be able to guarantee that
Speaker 1: her colleagues will only do with her projects at the
Speaker 1: time she is supposed to be working when the workload
Speaker 1: is more nebulous. Many people who go part time find
Speaker 1: they for sure change their salaries, but only maybe change
Speaker 1: their hours and their workloads. But the second issue, and
Speaker 1: the one that's the topic of this episode, is that
Speaker 1: people don't always go part time for reasons that make
Speaker 1: a lot of economic sense. If you want to cut
Speaker 1: your work hours to have adventures with your kids, or
Speaker 1: write your novel, or train for a triathlon, or have
Speaker 1: meaningful conversations with your aging parents, be my guest. These
Speaker 1: are things that don't really have a dollar value, because
Speaker 1: they are all about the meaning that you assigned to them.
Speaker 1: But if you are going part time because the laundry
Speaker 1: isn't getting done, this is a different matter much housework
Speaker 1: can be assigned a dollar value and may not particularly
Speaker 1: be about any sort of deeper meaning. What if you
Speaker 1: continued to work full time and use the income you
Speaker 1: are not giving up to pay someone else to take
Speaker 1: on some of these tasks rather than going part time
Speaker 1: because you can't find time to clean your house, hire
Speaker 1: a cleaning service rather than going part time. To create
Speaker 1: time to grocery shop, have your groceries delivered, or use
Speaker 1: a meal prep service rather than going part time because
Speaker 1: you feel overwhelmed by all the life maintenance details, hire
Speaker 1: a household manager to come in a couple of mornings
Speaker 1: a week and attend to them. If you are a
Speaker 1: highly paid professional, as I know many people listening to
Speaker 1: this podcast are, the amount of money it takes to
Speaker 1: pay for a cleaning service or grocery delivery is likely
Speaker 1: a lot less than you would be giving up by
Speaker 1: going part time. If you stay full time but outsource
Speaker 1: some tasks, you will still get more margin in your
Speaker 1: life because you will have more time without a task
Speaker 1: assigned to it, and you'll continue to get paid more
Speaker 1: and get retirement contributions. Based on that higher salary. You
Speaker 1: may also advance in your career. Faster than if you
Speaker 1: are part time. Buying that time can be great, but
Speaker 1: you want to be sure the time you are buying
Speaker 1: back is worth it. So really think about what you
Speaker 1: plan to do with your time off. Make sure it's
Speaker 1: something you enjoy or finds meaningfuler more meaningful than your work.
Speaker 1: Otherwise you might be substituting one kind of labor for another,
Speaker 1: but not in a way that makes any sort of
Speaker 1: economic sense. Don't buy time to do lower paid work.
Speaker 1: Buy time to do things that feel to you like
Speaker 1: they are priceless. In the meantime, Laura, thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: and here's to making the most of our time. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
Speaker 1: or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
Speaker 1: vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
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