

Ask HN: how do you find time for side projects / self study after having kid? - simplezeal


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kls
I have 4 children ages 1 to 10. My wife left her position as medical
practitioner to work as a full time mom. We also had to externalize some work
that I and her where doing, we hire someone for lawn service, we have a girl
come and help with cleaning and we now employ a mechanic when we have car
troubles. We home-school so that creates more demand on our time to be
parents. I would say it was tough for both of us to adjust but probably more
so for me. I grew up on an farm where from the time we woke up to the time
dinner was served we worked and fixed our own issues. It was a perfect example
of self reliance. My grandfather (grandparents raised me) was also an aircraft
mechanic in the Air Force, so we fixed all car / truck / tractor issues
ourselves. Anyways, long story short it was very tough for a person of that
upbringing to adapt to hiring people to deal with personal life based work.

I read a good article once that convinced me to try it and it could be summed
up as, if the job is not a specialty job (e.g electrician) and it cost more to
hire someone than your hourly rate then do it yourself. If not you should be
hiring someone and applying those hours to your business or project or
personal life hours. This rule of thumb has worked well for me after I let go
of past upbringing and applied it. It was hard for me to let go of vehicle
repairs due to the cost of repairs but when factored out it is more cost
effective to have the shop do it and apply those hours to my firm or enjoy
time with the kids.

In a nutshell the trick is to delegate work to third parties, household work
is usually the cheapest work to do so with, this will free up more hours for
work life balance and more hours to commit to projects / consultancy.

