Schedule Dilemma

[andrewraenewton]

Hey everyone!

My name is Andrew, 33, married, and with two kids (age 1 & 2). I'm looking for some advice from the tribe!

I've been working out for about 10 years. I currently spend about 2 hours at the gym doing weights and cardio. I would say that it's a non-negotiable and critical start to my day. It's an important tool that helps me maintain mental clarity, overall vitality, and confidence.

After almost 3 years off, my wife recently returned to work as a nurse. The days are different each week and her hours are always 6:00AM-2:30PM.

Prior to kids, and my wife's return to work, I got up at 5:00AM daily. I was able to workout, get a full day of hustle in, and then have time for family and wife after work. No compromise.

My Dilemma... Daycare opens at 7:30. It's my responsibility to get the kids up and ready in the AM, then drop off and begin my day. That means I'm not home from the gym until 10:00. Once I eat, shower, and get to the office, my work day doesn't start until 11:00AM.

From what I understand, once the kids are in kindergarten and school, they don't take the kids until 8:45AM. This won't be getting any easier for me...

It's important to me to maintain a strong relationship with my wife and kids, so I'd like to be home for dinner and bed time each night (5:00pm-8:30).

I'm noticing the compound effect of missing those hours each day, and I'm finding it hard to keep up with life and business development.

How do you all find the time to take care of yourselves, your family, and hustle? Would appreciate you sharing how you crush it!

Thanks!

 

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[heavy_industry]

I would buy a barbell, rack, and stationary bike and do my workouts at home.

Food is also an area where you could save a lot of time. I would either do meal prepping and have everything ready to eat, or switch to intermittent fasting and only have one meal a day, after I finish work.

 

[andrewraenewton]

I would buy a barbell, rack, and stationary bike and do my workouts at home.

Food is also an area where you could save a lot of time. I would either do meal prepping and have everything ready to eat, or switch to intermittent fasting and only have one meal a day, after I finish work.

Thanks for your words of wisdom!

I do have some equipment at home, but it may not be a bad idea to add to the mix. I could workout 2x per week at the gym (when my wife has days off), then 2-3 times a week at home.

I currently prep portioned breakfast wraps once every two weeks and keep them in the freezer for breakfast. I also have a local company in town prep 5x macro specific lunches for me each week.

I'll do some research on the intermittent fasting. Admittedly, I don't know much about it.

Again, thanks!

 

[BizyDad]

Join a gym with kids care.
Find a daycare that opens earlier.
Adjust your workout schedule. Two hours seems like a lot if the goal is "mental clarity, overall vitality, and confidence". Do you need to do cardio and weight lifting everyday?
Alternatively, shift your workouts to between 8:00 and 10:00 p.m. after dinner.

Or...

Make more money while working less. Build a business that accommodates your needs.

For example, as a single dad and business owner, I've adjusted my work life to be 35 hours of work one week, 50 hours the next. You can tell which week I have my kids more. I don't "need" to work this much generate my revenue, but I enjoy what I do so I choose to put in the time.

 

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[andrewraenewton]

Join a gym with kids care.
Find a daycare that opens earlier.
Adjust your workout schedule. Two hours seems like a lot if the goal is "mental clarity, overall vitality, and confidence". Do you need to do cardio and weight lifting everyday?
Alternatively, shift your workouts to between 8:00 and 10:00 p.m. after dinner.

Or...

Make more money while working less. Build a business that accommodates your needs.

For example, as a single dad and business owner, I've adjusted my work life to be 35 hours of work one week, 50 hours the next. You can tell which week I have my kids more. I don't "need" to work this much generate my revenue, but I enjoy what I do so I choose to put in the time.

All good points. Ive tossed around the idea of an evening workout. I think I like the home gym solution better. Less chance for me to skip workouts. I always have had a habit of scheduling important things in the AM, because they have less chance of getting skipped.

I'm currently working on building that business!

Registered my corp last month and am building as fast as I can in the free time that I have when I'm not focused on my primary income generating business.

Again, appreciate the words of wisdom!

 

[ZCP]

be more focused and effective with the hours your work. make them count

are you busy or are you effective.

my productivity skyrocketed when i began to limit my hours like @BizyDad is saying

 

[andrewraenewton]

be more focused and effective with the hours your work. make them count

are you busy or are you effective.

my productivity skyrocketed when i began to limit my hours like @BizyDad is saying

I'd be lying if I said that I crush every single hour of every single day as if life depended on it. Some days I win more than others.

It's a good reminder that being "busy" can be very dangerous. It actually drives me nuts when I hear it...

"Hey Jim, how are you?"

"Oh you know... busy busy"

Kill me please.

 

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[BizyDad]

"Oh you know... busy busy"

Kill me please.

I feel personally attacked!

I'm pretty sure I said exactly these words to @Andy Black on our call the other day.

 

[andrewraenewton]

I feel personally attacked!

I'm pretty sure I said exactly these words to @Andy Black on our call the other day.

LOL. Excuse my while I go ahead and put my foot in my mouth

 

[ZCP]

I feel personally attacked!

I'm pretty sure I said exactly these words to @Andy Black on our call the other day.

for you AND @Andy Black .... that's cool, can you do it in 30 hrs a week?

 

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[heavy_industry]

I currently prep portioned breakfast wraps once every two weeks and keep them in the freezer for breakfast.

LOL
This is exactly what I've been doing when I was meal prepping.

Unfortunately I can no longer metabolize carbs properly, once I start I can't stop eating them, and after the meal I am drained of energy and can no longer focus.

Fixed the problem by adopting a high fat - high protein diet and only eating 1 meal / day. I try to get some days without eating anything for the extra health benefits of autophagy.

I do have some equipment at home, but it may not be a bad idea to add to the mix. I could workout 2x per week at the gym (when my wife has days off), then 2-3 times a week at home.

Yes, this is a great idea.

Training is extremely time efficient.

If you choose the right exercises and perform at the right intensity, you can get a gold standard workout with just 30 minutes of cardio and 30 minutes of lifting weights - and that's for an advanced athlete.

A beginner can pull this off in 15 minutes / 15 minutes, and see extraordinary results.

The biggest waste of time with training is the logistics behind it: driving to and from the gym, dressing, undressing, washing clothes etc.

Getting some equipment at home removes all the logistics BS.
It takes you 5 minutes to get dressed/undressed, enter the "gym", shower, and throw your clothes in the washing machine.

my productivity skyrocketed when i began to limit my hours like @BizyDad is saying

Thanks @ZCP and @BizyDad for this great advice.

I will be changing my strategy from next week. I will focus exclusively on the things that bring actual results, and stop being "busy" and running in circles 12 hours a day.

 

[ZF Lee]

I would buy a barbell, rack, and stationary bike and do my workouts at home.

Food is also an area where you could save a lot of time. I would either do meal prepping and have everything ready to eat, or switch to intermittent fasting and only have one meal a day, after I finish work.

Sometimes we think we have to cook like Chef Ramsay.

We don't. Food can be as simple as just a few ingredients.

For example, I just take boiled eggs and cucumber for breakfast, after a recommendation from a mentor figure.
It is surprisingly filling and has the proteins or vitamins you need.

For main meals, I just take some core veges like potatoes and carrots, some meat and boil them up in a soup.

Unfortunately I can no longer metabolize carbs properly, once I start I can't stop eating them, and after the meal I am drained of energy and can no longer focus.

I am finding similar effects of carbs on myself too, although I'm not that old haha.

Suddenly the carnivore diet is looking to have some truth to it, although it would take some effort to get the organs and real meats that a strict carnivore would go for.

 

[heavy_industry]

although it would take some effort to get the organs and real meats that a strict carnivore would go for.

If you base this assumption of the hypothesis that we have evolved as hunter gatherers, the total amount of organ meat consumed would be way below 5%, because that's the ratio found in most animals (muscle meat / organ meat ratio).

Don't believe the "carnivore influencers" and their stupid hype. They are only trying to sell their organ meat supplements.

 

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[ZCP]

i often use a modified pomodoro

Pomodoro Technique - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

i block an hour for a 'major task'. then must complete it in 45 minutes. do for 3 cycles.
i set a lot of 'small deadlines', then remove all the bullshit and finish early so i can go rest / walk the dog / hang with the kids.

if you want an even simpler version ... use the 'done for the day' list.
make a list of the one to three MAJOR items, that if you completed them, you would be DONE for the day. AND proud to leave at whatever time it was (10a or 10p). THEN get them DONE. ..... it helps remove any guilt of not 'working all the time'.

 

[BizyDad]

for you AND @Andy Black .... that's cool, can you do it in 30 hrs a week?

I did this exercise once before. I think I can get my essential tasks down to 15-20 hrs a week.

With the right employees and training, I'm sure I could limit my involvement in the agency to team meetings only.

My "problem" is that my biggest "hobby" happens to be what I do for a living. So with more free time, I would conduct more experiments so that I could look at more data and understand how Google works better. Or I could just keep doing that on client websites and have more variety in my life.

A couple of examples for the past two weeks...

Google events

Clients calls me up. Google is listing their event with the incorrect start time. This is a huge problem because the mayor amongst others will be there.

I didn't build the website, I knew it wasn't my error.

But I also knew that no one else would take it seriously enough. I had a couple of meetings with their developer, several different Google searches to research the problem, and in the end...

There was no solution.

I spent 6 hours on that in the hopes that I would learn something that would make me better at what I do. The developer and I attempted seven different fixes for the problem. We learned is that there was no solution that we could find.

Phoenix calls

Client calls me up and says things seems a little strange with their phone calls. They "feel like" they haven't gotten a call from Phoenix in a month. They're getting calls from everywhere else that we target.

That's a pretty unusual phone call for me.

It took me two minutes to figure out they are getting calls from Phoenix, but it was significantly less calls than normal.

It took me 5 minutes to isolate the issue to something in their ad campaign.

It took another 30 minutes to come up with a game plan on what to do about it.

And another 5 minutes to execute that game plan.

Turns out, one of their competitors has a new offer that seems to be for Phoenix only. I'm not sure my fixes will get them back to where they were, but I'm hoping the data will show improvement.

And they're going to get back to me on whether they want to match the offer or not.

------

Plenty of other people I know would have passed the buck.

Would have just told the clients that everything's fine in Phoenix.

Would have told a client that there's nothing that I can do to fix the event since I didn't build it.

Others will tell me that I should charge extra for stuff like this.

But at the end of the day, I like it. It feeds my brain. It keeps me curious.

It's like playing a video game with real life consequences. And it is easy for me to keep score. (Did phone calls go up or down).

Maybe someday I'll be able to leave it behind. Maybe someday I won't want to be the best search marketer I can be anymore, and decide I'd rather be the best business owner I can be.

But right now I'm trying to do both. And occasionally they work at cross purposes.

And I'm okay with that. Because I like how I spend my time.

 

[andrewraenewton]

Thanks for all the feedback guys. After reviewing all of your input, I've decided implement the following habits and routine.

For reference, I'm someone who is self employed in the slow lane. Thankfully I have an assistant to leverage, but I often find myself wasting hours in my work day on non-essential tasks.

My personal meal prep and planning is pretty dialed already, but I'm going to be keeping alot more whole foods on hand for the kids to snack on. I'm currently spending alot of time making them little meals here and there. More time than I spend making my own meals actually .

I've attached a snapshot of my possible daily schedule...

My focus is going to be on delegating more tasks, and scheduling a "power hour" as my first and top business priority for the day. That leaves me a window of opportunity in the middle of my day, before I take appointments, to work on building a Fastlane business.

I start a trial test use of a sleep anea machine next week. I've struggled with 'getting enough sleep" for years. I'm hoping to reduce the amount of sleep time needed by getting a better sleep at night. Even if I could shave off 30 mins of time every day, that could be a huge help.

Also looking to experiment with taking the kids to daycare via bike to replace cardio and shorten my gym and commute time. Obviously this isn't as viable in the winter months, as we live in Canada.

Again, thanks for the words of wisdom. I'm looking forward to carving out more time to build my business.

 

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