On Sunday, I finished our Breathing Room series at Revolution by looking at how to find breathing room between work, life and everything that has to get done. This week, I want to share 6 simple ways I’ve done that and you can to. I’m going to share one each day so you have time to process them and hopefully put some things into practice.
The first one we looked at was how to get a good night sleep. Tuesday, we talked about why you should take a break every 90 minutes. Yesterday, we looked at what electronics can do to our margin. Today I want to look at what will probably be the most controversial or at least, the one you think is unattainable.
Pay people to do what you hate.
When I first came across this idea in Randy Frazee’s book Making Room for Life: Trading Chaotic Lifestyles for Connected Relationships, I thought, “that’s what wealthy people do.”
Hear me out though.
Think about the things you hate to do: laundry, yard work, cleaning your house, or something else. What if you paid someone else to do it?
Unattainable? Maybe right now. Wasteful? No way.
The reason I reacted like I did when I first read this was because we had just planted Revolution church. We had 2 kids with 1 on the way. We lived on $2,000 a month and our rent was half that.
Slowly, we have begun to work some of this into our budget.
Why do this? The goal of life is to enjoy it and use it for God’s glory. Not be miserable or wasteful.
You already do some of this, you maybe haven’t been as strategic about it. Every time you eat out or go to Starbucks, you are paying someone to do something you don’t want to do. So before you tell me you don’t do this, you do. Most of the time, we don’t have a reason for it, we just do it in that moment.
Here’s something our family did, this past year as our family expanded to 5 we learned how much water costs and how much laundry we do. So, we saved up and bought the biggest washer and dryer on the market. The ones that save energy and water. Consequently, we do less laundry because the loads are bigger.
Now, could that money go to something else? Yes, but we chose it to save Katie time on laundry so she could do other things.
Don’t miss this about time: You get 24 hours. That’s it.
Every minute you spend doing something is one minute you don’t spend on something else.
It takes a long time to clean your house? Pay someone else to do it so you can be freed up to do something else.
Now, should everyone do this?
No.
I know someone who has 1 child, the wife doesn’t work and they pay someone to clean. Not to save time but because all their friends do that.
You must be careful about motivation on this.
Some people love yard work and find it relaxing. Others hate it. Yet, it has to be done for all of us.
This might be an area to cut back on.
The point is this: is there something you do that keeps you from experiencing life that you can give away or pay someone to do?
Consider doing that.
Here’s the pushback I get: If you have that extra money, you should give it away and be more generous.
Here’s my response, “I am as generous as I feel God has called me to be. On top of that, if I can be generous to my wife and kids, why wouldn’t I do that? It is stingy to be generous to everyone but my family.”
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