We think our full-time work is an 8 hour workday, which is a lie.
A workday for normal person would go something like this:
Sleep: 8 Hours
Work: 8 Hours
Free time: 8 Hours
Total: 24 Hours
While that is true on paper. It is far from how we really spend our precious time. To have some healthy sleep we need to sleep between 7-9 hours. The older we get the less sleep we need.
But how does our workday really look like?
How many of our daily activities is work related?
Let’s try to sum it up.
| Our Job | Hours/Week | |
| (Before adjustments) | 40 | |
| Adjustments | ||
| Commuting | 7.5 | |
| Costuming | 2 | |
| Relaxing at home | 5 | |
| Talking about job | 2.5 | |
| Escape entertainment | 5 | |
| Job related illness | 1 | |
| Job, with Adjustments | 53 | |
| Hours/Day | 10,6 | |
If we count every minute there is job related we end up on 53 hours/week, and not 40. And this has several disadvantages. (And this calculation exclude working overtime and in weekends.)
If we think we have an hourly rate of 15 $, we are more likely to have a 11 $/hour. But because we spend 2,6 hours more than we think on something work related and we only have about 5 hours of “free” time.
This free time includes all of the household chores as laundry, grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, picking up kids and so on.
If we on average spend two hours a day on all of the household chores, we end up with only 3 hours of free time. These can be used for family/friends/spouse, training, reading/writing or whatever that brings us joy.
But is that how we want to spend all of our 50 years of working?
I know how those 3 hours feel. I’m often super exhausted, and I don’t feel like doing anything.
And is that what we want?
Three hours of not feeling like doing anything?
Just looking forward to the weekends and the holidays three months from now?
That my friend is just sad.
Fortunately there is a solution to all of this nonsense we call “normal”!
Not Spending All of Our Income
It can be done in extreme ways, saving +50% of our income (Which is what I prefer). But saving “just” 10-20 % of our income can make a huge difference for a start.
Doing this has a lot of different advantages.
- We can work for six months, and then take the next six months off.
- We can work part-time. So we only have three workdays instead of five
- We can save and invest for 10-15 years and quit our job for good
And this is something we can do this very day. It is just a decision not to spend all of our money, and maybe quitting some monthly subscriptions.
Living A More Minimalistic Life
Less is more.
And let me show you how.
Whenever we do/have less, we make space for the more important things.
And there is several ways we can do this:
Skipping breakfast. Yes you got that right. Breakfast is not the most healthy meal of the day. There is several studies on if we decrease the time we eat everyday from 16 hours to 8 hours we will have several health benefits. One of them is longevity. In other words. Only eat lunch and dinner. This is called Intermittent Fasting or Time Restricted Eating. This does not only free up the time we need to prepare extra meal, but we will also save some money since we do not need to shop for breakfast.
Having less stuff can benefit in SO many ways.
- Less stuff in our homes makes it easier to clean and tidy up.
- Having fewer parts of clothes makes it easier to laundry.
- Having fewer parts of clothes makes it easier to decide what to wear.
Commute on our bike to work. By doing this we can skip the membership of our gym, and we exercise five times a week instead of a couple of times. Time and money well saved!
Let’s imagine that you listen to what I say. And you will start to:
- Skip breakfast.
- Wear the same dress shirt for a week.
- Cleaning and tidying less.
I think you are going to at least save 30 minutes everyday which you can spend on your free time instead of your workday!
Let me help you!
If you feel overwhelmed in your daily life. And you would like to have a more simple life, where you are in charge of your day and finances.
Then let me help you!
I walk the talk. Trying to live my own life to the fullest. By ditching the shit that doesn’t matter to me. And making room for the awesome stuff.
Click on the link below, and let me know your story, and I will let you know how I can coach you.
If you are based in Copenhagen we can meet up, but I can coach you online aswell.