1384: [Part 1] How I Achieve Work Life Balance Despite Working Full Time, Running 3 Businesses And Caring For 2 Kids by Steve Chou

[00:00:00] This is Optimal Work Daily, Episode 1384. How I Achieve Work Life Balance Despite Working Full Time, Running 3 Businesses And Caring For 2 Kids. Part 1 by Steve Chou of mywifequitterjob.com And I am Dan, I'm your host, and welcome back to Optimal Work Daily if you are a regular listener.

[00:00:19] And if you're just discovering us, let me tell you a little bit about what we do. So, we take these articles that we find from great authors that we find who write about all sorts of work-related topics, like work-life balance, starting your own business,

[00:00:32] managing your work finances, and a whole lot more. And today's post is a little bit longer than normal so I'm going to make it a two-parter. I'll read the first half for you right now and finish up the rest tomorrow.

[00:00:43] So, let's get right to part 1 now and start optimizing your life. How I Achieve Work Life Balance Despite Working Full Time, Running 3 Businesses And Caring For 2 Kids. Part 1 by Steve Chou of mywifequitterjob.com I recently came across a statistic from Fast Company magazine that really surprised me.

[00:01:07] According to the American Sociological Review, over 70% of employees in the United States struggle with finding a balance of work and play. 70%. 70%. Does this number sound a bit high to you?

[00:01:20] When I look at my life, I find myself having quite a bit of free time on my hands outside of work, so it's a little difficult for me to relate to this number.

[00:01:28] In fact, many of my readers often ask me how I managed to juggle working full time as a hardware engineering director, running an e-commerce store, a blog, a podcast, and an online course while caring for two kids. Anyway, if you're curious, here's what my typical week looks like.

[00:01:44] Monday through Thursday I work at my full-time job from 9 to 5. Earlier this year I went down to 4 days a week at my engineering job in a conscious effort to cut back. Because my kids require so much work and energy, my wife and I were having problems

[00:01:57] finding the time to have one-on-one dates. So by going down to working 4 days a week, we now have one free day to spend together as a couple. Sunday nights I write a blog post for my wifequitterjob.com.

[00:02:09] Writing used to take me forever and I still dislike doing it, but I've gotten the process down to the point where it takes me about 2 hours to write a 1000 word post. Wednesday night I hold a live webinar for the students in my online store course.

[00:02:22] I actually look forward to these nights because it's the best way for me to get to know the students in my class. Friday morning I work for about 2-3 hours on making forward progress. Basically, Friday is devoted to working on whatever task is necessary to grow my businesses.

[00:02:36] Afternoons are usually spent with my wife. During random times of the week I interview various entrepreneurs for my podcast. My podcast is actually the most stressful part of my business because I have to accommodate my guests' crazy schedules.

[00:02:49] Sometimes I have to drive all the way back home from work for a one hour interview in the middle of the day and drive back. But overall, the benefits are totally worth it. Finally, I probably spend 3-5 hours every week answering emails and doing miscellaneous tasks.

[00:03:04] All told, I spend roughly 10-13 hours a week on my businesses and 32 hours per week at my day job. Also, I try to devote all weekends for the family and usually have Thursday and Friday nights completely off.

[00:03:16] Now one could argue that I'm blessed to have such an incredibly awesome and flexible day job in order to facilitate this lifestyle. And it's true, I'm definitely lucky. But a lot of my decisions over the years have been made to specifically craft the current lifestyle that I live.

[00:03:30] And today, my day job represents a small fraction of my household income so I can leave at any time. Here are some tips if you want to do the same. Number 1. Decide your priorities

[00:03:42] Most of the people I know who work themselves to the bone and complain about work-life balance often don't have their priorities straight. From the very beginning, my primary objective for both my day job and my various businesses was to free up additional time.

[00:03:56] And it starts with choosing the right day job. Should you take the job that pays 50% more but requires you to work 80 hours a week? Or do you take the lesser paying job that allows you to work only 40 hours?

[00:04:07] Can you cut costs and get by on a lower salary? How much is free time worth to you? Now admittedly, not everyone has the luxury of choosing a comfortable day job but I've

[00:04:17] found that most people tend to chase the money rather than the lifestyle and it's a slippery slope. Once you start making more, you start craving more and more money. Every single raise that you get is quickly forgotten and you start seeking more responsibility and higher pay.

[00:04:31] Pretty soon you are working your butt off. The one key for me to get over this hump was realizing that climbing the corporate ladder at my day job was not going to lead to freedom.

[00:04:41] With your own business, you can easily make more money working less hours by leveraging computers and technology to do the heavy lifting for you. Once I realized this fact, I started making very deliberate decisions to focus my time on my own income generating opportunities. 2.

[00:04:57] Hear that on tomorrow's episode. You just listened to part 1 of the post titled How I Achieve Work-Life Balance Despite Working Full Time, Running 3 Businesses and Caring for 2 Kids by Steve Chiu of MyWifeQuitHerJob.com, this show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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[00:05:56] Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapists any time for no additional charge. Stop comparing and start focusing with BetterHelp. Get BetterHelp.com slash WorkDaily today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash WorkDaily.

[00:06:17] And a big thank you to Steve for this supposed to which we're going to hear the second part of tomorrow as I mentioned. When Steve's wife became pregnant and she planned to stay home with the baby, the

[00:06:25] couple knew that they'd need to find more income so they started a little online store called Bumblebee Linnons. And in just one year they were able to replace his wife's salary of $100,000 for a year. And they started MyWifeQuitHerJob to document all of it, including income reports.

[00:06:40] As of 2016, Steve said that he expected to have the website's first seven figure year which is huge obviously. But he didn't stop there. He started the MyWifeQuitHerJob podcast and then even held his very first e-commerce conference called The Seller's Summit.

[00:06:55] So clearly he's done a lot and thanks to him for letting us share this post and come on by MyWifeQuitHerJob dot com to learn much more. Okay, that's it for part one and as I mentioned we're going to bring you part two tomorrow.

[00:07:08] So thank you so much for being here as always and I'll see you back here tomorrow where your optimal life awaits.