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By Little Mummy, May 5, 2010 12:09 am

So in my last post I introduced the concept of Lifestyle Design, a concept introduced to me by Tim Ferriss in The 4 Hour Workweek.

1. Decide what your priorities are.

What are your priorities? Family, money, time, work, freedom.

For me it’s family and freedom. I want my family to be happy and I want a certain amount of freedom. I have a chronic illness and some days I can be quite unwell, I don’t want to feel like I have to drag myself to a cube for eight hours when I feel like that. I also don’t want to rely on my husband for support which is why I’m retraining by getting a degree at uni and building my own income streams. A 9-5 job will always be there as a back up if things don’t work out.

Don’t let the ‘norm’ become your default if it doesn’t fit in with your plan.

2. Decide what you want to achieve in your life

Do you want to travel the world, become a stay at home mum, run a successful business, or build your own home?

I’ve been a stay at home mum but I want to continue to be able to pick Erin up from school and spend holidays with her. I’d also like to travel quite a bit. I enjoy the challenge of making money but I’m not bothered about being rich or owning stuff.

3. Make a Plan

Businesses make plans all the time so why not make a plan for the business of living. Get a pen and paper and roughly right down how you’d like your life to go, what you’d like to do, where you’d like to go, what you’d like to own.

For me it was all about time and freedom. I have two areas that I’ll need money for and they are travel and parenting. I have a fairly long list of places I’d like to travel and one major trip that will cost quite a bit. I’d like to be able to help Erin out here and there.

Figuring out how much you need to earn to achieve your goals was an important step for me and made me realise that neither myself nor my husband need to be shackled to a job we hate. We’re truly happy at the moment and we’re living off one average wage and a side income from myself. We both feel that we have a good work/life balance and spend lots of time together as a family. If I returned to work full time this definitely wouldn’t be the case.

4. Earn to live, or do something you’d do anyway regardless of money

Either earn the money you need (see your plan) in the least amount of time possible, or do something you love that you would do for nothing anyway.

I’m choosing the second option at the moment but if I fail to reach my financial goal then I’ll revert to the first option. I don’t see myself working 40 hours a week again, I’d rather take on temporary or contract work if I end up pursuing the first option.

Again, don’t revert to the default, look for the next best option for you. It’s not all or nothing, it’s about getting as close as you can to your ideal scenario.

5. Don’t wait for retirement, don’t wait for tomorrow

Tim Ferriss pushed the idea of ‘mini-retirements’, his thinking was why spend 40 years knocking your pan in to spend 15 years not doing much because you’re too old. His idea was to have short work bursts interspersed with mini-retirements. Basically sabbaticals but ramped up a bit

I resonate with this idea a lot. I don’t care much for retiring, I’d rather continue to earn money (in whatever way) and enjoy the whole of my life rather than wait for some magic age that I may never see.

So there’s my take on lifestyle design and how I’ve made it relate to my own life, and I definitely feel as though I’m beginning to reap the rewards.

Have you done something similar? Will you be giving lifestyle design a go?

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By Little Mummy, May 3, 2010 6:16 am

Do you ever feel overwhelmed?

Do you feel like you’re ‘doing it all’ rather than ‘having it all’?

Do you feel like you life is passing you by and you spend most of your time doing stuff you’d rather not be doing?

Lifestyle Design could be the answer.

The term ‘Lifestyle Design’ was coined by Timothy Ferriss in his book The 4-hour work week which became an online phenomena a couple of years back. I’ve read the book and although many of the ideas aren’t workable for parents (like becoming location free) there are many ideas that we could all gain from exploring. As with all ‘out there’ ideas you need to keep an open mind and take the bits you think you can apply to your own life that will be a benefit.

What is Lifestyle Design?

Lifestyle Design is the designing of one’s life to make it more authentic, that is more in keeping with your true goals and passions in life. For Timothy and his followers this relates to personal growth opportunities, adventure, leisure and the ability to be location free ie. their income is either passive or their work is based online enabling them to travel the world with their laptop. Not ideal or even a goal for many of us but I think we’d all like a bit more freedom, no?

All sounds a bit ‘buzzy’ and ‘blue sky thinking’? Well don’t write the idea of just yet because I think we can all take something from this idea of Lifestyle Design.

What can we take from Lifestyle Design

At it’s core the idea of Lifestyle Design is to design a life that prioritises the priorities. For many of us the main part of our existence is the pursuit of earning money, I would argue that many of us do so with no fixed idea of how much we need to earn or no specific end goals, we simply go to work earn money and try to get promoted to earn more money. Have many of us actually sat down and worked out a life plan and how much we actually need to acheive that plan? Probably not, I hadn’t until recently.

In his book Timothy says

People don’t want to be millionaires—they want to experience what they believe only millions can buy

Timothy goes on to show you that you can live the life you want on much less than you think.

In my next post I’ll discuss how lifestyle design has helped me move forward with my own goals, freed me of the need to earn and buy and generally made me much happier.

Until then here’s a link to Tim’s book – The 4 Hour Workweek – in case you’re interested, as I said it focuses predominantly on people who want to radically overhaul their lives, but it’s all relative and I think everyone can take a little something from the ideas he talks about.

Hope this post doesn’t sound too preachy, I just think there’s something in what Timothy teaches and it’s definitely encouraged me to take a different view that I think might be of benefit to some other people in the same boat as myself (stay at home mum at a crossroads wondering what the hell to do next!)

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By Little Mummy, April 29, 2010 4:59 am

You’d be forgiven for thinking that my life at the moment is all play and no work, with a stream of posts on going to the fair, visiting sweet shops, building lego farms and playing Xbox. Well yes, we’re having lots of fun but I’ve also been working pretty hard too (and not dwelling on my postponed because of volcanic ash trip to Florida, sniff).

April 23rd marked the end of my business studies course with the Open University and hopefully I’ll have done enough to get my HNC. My final assessment was short on words but hopefully I’ve demonstrated enough knowledge to seal the deal.

Online I’ve almost completed writing the mum blogger e-course and will compile the complete ebook soon. My new blog at Littlemumpreneur is coming along nicely but I forgot how hard it was to get some traction with a new blog, I’m only just starting to get comments now.

The project that I’m really excited about and very busy with at the moment is the Online Business Success for Mumpreneurs course that I’m producing with Antonia Chitty. Antonia and I have decided to team up and produce a course to help small businesses achieve online business success. I’m working on this everyday at the moment to get it finished in time for our launch on 7th June. We’ve already begun promoting it and we’re offering a free ebook and advanced booking opportunities to everyone who signs up to our pre-launch list.

See, so I have been doing some work

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By Little Mummy, April 28, 2010 1:18 am

This is Erin and her Nana (my mum). I like simple photos like this one, I’m also thinking it would look good in black and white. I think it depicts the closeness of the grandparent/grandchild relationship.

Sponsored by Euroffice, the UK’s no.1 online office supplies and stationery company

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By Little Mummy, April 19, 2010 1:20 am

I was tagged recently for a ’seven things you don’t know about me’ meme, I’ve been blogging for four years and I’ve done this meme a couple of times, I don’t think there are seven things you don’t know, so I have just one…

I could have ended up a carnie.

As teenagers my mum and dad both worked on a fairground, my dad on the waltzers, my mum on the hotdog stand. I love the waltzers and hot dogs, my mum often witters on reminisces about how she rode the waltzers (and motorbikes) whilst heavily pregnant with me, so I had my first experience of the watzers at a very young age

Erin, myself and my mum headed for a large fairground last week in Kirkcaldy.

We drove out to Kirkcaldy taking the coastal route, the fair runs along the esplanade and is the largest British fair I’ve seen. Erin was hugely excited, mostly about candy floss but she also spotted a few rides she fancied having “a shot on” (so Scottish!). We headed for the bumper cars first, Erin’s first time on them and she was giggling a lot, even during the couple of head on collisions. Then it was a kid’s ride where Erin nabbed the pink barbie girl car (not a tad like me!).

Finally a spin on the teacups before we stopped for a hotdog and candy floss. I heart pictures of kids eating food

Whilst I bought some freshly made donuts Erin and my Mum headed for a ride on the carousel. I handed over four pound and received four pound change, that’s right my Mum failed to pay, she definitely should’ve been a carnie!

Before walking back to the car I spotted a photo op, I told my Mum I wanted a ‘carnie style’ photo of Erin, Daisy and myself with candy floss and prizes – I handed over my iPhone and what I got was three photos like this….

Good job Mum ;(

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By Little Mummy, April 13, 2010 11:49 pm

There were a few photos I could have picked for this week’s gallery theme – ‘Joy’, I managed to get it down to three, all of which were taken on the same day during our family holiday to Florida. Erin had such a fun day and was completely overwhelmed to meet the playhouse disney characters. At the end of our meal the lion (roary?) hadn’t been over yet and she made us wait another ten minutes just so that she could get a cuddle

I love the way her arms are stretched wide in the photo, and the contented look on her face.

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By Little Mummy, April 13, 2010 1:47 am

Well we’re into our second week of the Easter holidays and so far so good, no tantrums, no “I’m bored”, great weather and two barbecue’s already! (Am I tempting fate? probably)

It’s the second week that’s the real challenge though, you’ve exhausted your ‘fun activities’ list and the holiday money pot is looking a little sparse. Well if that sounds like you, don’t panic British Gas have stepped up to offer free family swims to all their customers.

Figures show that an average of 80 million chocolate eggs are sold annually in the UK* and at an average of 530 calories per egg, that’s a lot of excess Easter egg calories to burn. However this Easter British Gas may be able to help.

As the principal partner of British Swimming, British Gas is offering free family swims to all customers. Not only providing the opportunity to encourage your children to swim, get fit and have fun – but also giving you the chance to burn off some of your excess calories, while saving a few pennies at the same time!

All you have to do to claim your voucher is visit http://www.britishgasswimming.co.uk and follow a few simple steps to book your free family swim

Now my maths isn’t great but even I know I’m well into the thousands (of calories) for easter eggs consumed so far and with a trip to Florida looming (requiring much swimsuit wearing) I’m heading straight for the site to claim my voucher.

Apparently swimming half an hour (if your ten stone) will burn 360 calories, so by my rudimentary calculations if I swim for 22 hours a day for the next seven days I should just about squeeze into my ‘Kelly Brook’ *cough* swimming cozzie.

Have fun!

*There are over 1100 pools partcipating so there should be one near you.

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By Little Mummy, April 11, 2010 11:46 pm

I stole this roundup idea from the genius that is Englishmum.

So here’s what we did in March;

We built…

the lego city farm, or rather Alex and Erin built the lego city farm which includes a farm with tractor and trailer. This is the first set of standard size lego that Erin has had and so ‘Daddy’ ended up doing much of the buiding, I think it’s best suited to the 6-9 age range.

We played..

Xbox, which was sent to us as part of my role as an Xbox ambassador. Read a review on our Xbox Live experience here, or watch my embarrassing video on parental controls for the Xbox site.

We baked…

spring onion and cheddar bread but it tasted foul #bakingfail I think it may have been because the yeast was out of date but I can’t be sure, perhaps blogging baker Becky could shed some light on this…it was heavy like a brick and bland as hell, it was from a weight watchers magazine don’t know if it was their recipe or my baking

I received…

an email inviting me to a bloggers trip in Florida to sample the attractions at Seaworld, Discovery Cove, Bush Gardens and Aquatica with fellow bloggers Laura, Linda, Liz, Jo and Becky. So excited, we go in less than two weeks!

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By Little Mummy, March 18, 2010 12:34 am

I’m blowing my own cornet today rather than the larger trumpet as I used to play the cornet (another useless fact for you, thank me later) and as I said cornets are smaller so it’s easier to blow your own cornet

I’m joining in with the Sleep is For The Weak Writing Workshop this week and I’m tackling prompt five.

5. Tell us about something, or show us something that you do really, really well and are proud of.

There are many things I’m actually quite proud of, for example my daughter and my marriage. I’m very proud of those things they take a lot of work to maintain but bring me the most happiness and comfort.

On a personal level I’m proud of my mum blogger e-course. I’ve produced something under my own steam that nearly three hundred people want to use, and lots and lots of people have promoted and emailed me to say thanks.

I’m proud that I’m only one 2500 word essay away from getting an HNC in Business Studies, it’s taken a couple of years studying from home but it’s the first step towards that coveted degree I’m after.

Mostly I’m proud that I’m living authenticly. My family get to do what they want to do, both in a work capacity and in their free time. We don’t chase material success as it simply isn’t important to us, the few material things we’ve really wanted we’ve bought (I love you my lovely iPhone). We believe in working to live rather than living to work which can sometimes be at odds with the society around us. Things aren’t perfect, I’m sure my husband would rather be a film director with a range rover sport parked in front of a country mansion, myself I’d like a ‘grand designs’ house with a cleaner and a home office overlooking stunning scenery and a mezzanine balcony where I’d have amazing barbecues, but we’re realists and in less you get very lucky or decide to work 80 hours a work for several years then it’s not going to happen.

I established pretty set views on what I wanted from life after reading the book Authentic: How to Make a Living by Being Yourself. It’s one of the best non fiction books I’ve read in terms of getting you to think about what you really want from life and not be swayed by societal expectations.

If this sort of thing interests you I wrote a series on what I learned from the book, it’s four years old now but mostly still relevant.

What are you proud of?

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By Little Mummy, March 17, 2010 12:09 am

I took this photo last year when we vistited Bunchrew House in Inverness. The grounds included a wooded area and a large flowering of wild bluebells.

I’m not a flower person but it was so pretty I couldn’t help but take this rather amateur (I’m sure someone more experienced could have focused better on the bluebells and brought out the colour) photo.