Now What?

I thought that the hard part about having a blog would be setting it up.  It was actually incredibly easy.  I immediately learned that the hard part is really the writing.  I have thousands of things floating through my head all day about what I want to say about our "lifestyle redesign" experiment, how we are going to get started and what I plan to do here at The Four Hour Family.  When it comes to "putting pen to paper" (or fingers to keyboard), I realize this is going to be tricky.  

Early in The 4 Hour Work Week, Tim Ferriss suggests that the readers think about what they would do if they didn't have to go to work from 9 to 5 everyday.  When I went to bed pondering that question, all I could think was, "I would stay home and clean my house." I was a bit annoyed at myself for being so unimaginitive that the only thing I could come up with was house cleaning.  But, as I have been giving some thought to this question, I am finally starting to formulate a clearer picture of the life I want to lead.

If I did not have to go to work every day....I would be a stay at home mom!  I realize that for some, this "dream" ranks right  up there with... I want to have root canal or I want to have surgery without anesthesia - but hey, this is my dream!

Upon further reflection, I do realize that my dream of being a stay at home mom is not really be because I want to clean my house better.(Later chapters of the book are devoted to how to get people to do the stuff you don't want to do for you while you do all the stuff you DO want to do).

  So I am starting a list of what I want from my Four Hour Lifestyle:

• I want to be home everyday when my children get off the bus
• I want to help with homework
• I want to be present for my children (instead of trying to run around like a lunatic doing 20 things when I get home from work)
• I want time with my husband every day.
• I want to be able to visit my parents, who live 10 hours away, anytime I want. 
• I want to be able to have a cup of coffee any morning of the week with a girlfriend or two
• I want to summer at the beach
• I want to read lots and lots of books
• I want to have a clean house (sorry, I really do want this).
• I want to stop living paycheck to paycheck.
• I want to travel with my family while our kids are young and we can have fun together

Now that I have gotten started, I think I will be able to think of many, many things that I want from creating a four hour work week. 

You may be asking yourself, what about the rest of the Four Hour Family, what do they want from life?  Well, Four Hour Dad has not yet finished reading the book - so I imagine one of the things he is going to want is time to read a book.  I will let you know what he wants as soon as the information becomes available.

As for the three Four Hour Children, they have not yet been included in this discussion.  I think they are stuck with 6 hour school day for the forseeable future. No way am I planning to be Four Hour Home Schooling Mom!  Please see above where I stated, "I want to be home everyday when my children get off the bus". I am not totally crazy.  I did not even start this plan until all 3 of them were in school full time. 

So now that I have a loose outline for what I want from my new life, time to start thinking about how to start making it happen...