Investing with kids AND a full time job

[Neil Henderson]

I have one young child (3) and a full time job. I often see discussions around strategies of how to invest while holding down a full time job, but I don't often see discussions about when there are also kids in the mix.

I'm curious for those aspiring and active investors out there with kids AND a full time job what your strategies, habits, systems etc. are for balancing job, parenting and investing.

Here are a few of mine:

• Get up early and get as much done as possible before the little one wakes up. 

I typically wake up at 4:30am and do a very brief morning ritual based on Hal Elrod's Miracle Morning and then bang out as much real estate related work as I can, it's usually not much. As soon as the kid wakes up, typically between 5:45am and 6:30am my time is not my own. It's not a lot of time but it's something.

I try to schedule a breakfast/coffee meeting with someone at least twice a month.

• Bring my lunch to work. Healthier and much faster than going out to eat somewhere and it leaves me some time to do the following:

A. I typically eat at my desk and pull up Offer Memorandums or notes from talks with sellers and use that time to evaluate deals. I use Evernote to save the OPM's, Deal Evaluations and my notes for each deal. Evernote allows me to access those files anywhere, home, office, cell phone, etc.

B. Eat at my desk and then go out to my car to make calls.

C. Schedule lunch meetings with investors, brokers, lenders, property managers, mentors etc. 

• Evening. I usually get home around 6pm, have dinner with the family, play with the kid, do bed time and then around 8:30pm my time is mine again. 

I will typically use this time to respond to emails and write offers. I'm usually in bed by 9:30pm and I typically read for about 10-20 minutes before falling asleep around 10pm.

• Make best use of the Weekends. My wife and I typically take turns watching the child. She's a stay at home momtrepreneur so depending on what she's got going on she'll try to give me about 4 uninterrupted hours on Saturday or Sunday to get some work done:

I will typically do mailers on the weekends with the help of my wife. We are starting to involve the kid a little bit with stamping envelopes but the results are not always...desirable.

If I want to go looking at properties, weather and neighborhood permitting, I'll usually throw my kid in the car and drive around with them. My kid is the ultimate ice breaker with property managers and owners.

I usually try to take one of the two days completely off and just spend it with family, but that's not always possible if the "Ops tempo" is high.

• Make 90 Day Plans

Something new I'm trying out are 90 day plans (quarterly). I write down what I'd like to focus on each day of the "working" day and do my best to stay laser focused on that activity.  That looks something like this:

Week 1

Monday - Brokers, reach out to 1-2 brokers and set up appointments

Tuesday - Database, populate and refine property and owner database

Wednesday - Internet, search internet for new property listings

Thursday - Marketing, create or refine my marketing

Friday - Education, read, watch, practice evaluations, etc.

Weekend - Visit properties

Week 2

Monday - Lenders, reach out to 1-2 lenders and set up appointments

Tuesday - Database, work on mail merge

Wednesday - Internet, search internet sites for new property listings

Thursday - Marketing, create or refine my marketing

Friday - Education, read, watch, practice evaluations

Weekend - Mailers

I try to send out mailers at least once a quarter, it's all I can handle at the moment. 

Mondays are typically for reaching out to potential team members, Brokers, lenders, Accountants, Lawyers, Property Managers, Realtors, etc. I just focus on one team member type each week. 

Weekends are typically for property visits and putting together mailers.

• Make the most of my commute

My drive to work is about 45 minutes too and from. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays are real estate podcast days. Tuesdays and Thursdays are Audible business books. 

If I find myself with some extra time in the morning between leaving the house and driving to work, I may swing by and visit a property.

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That's me in a nutshell. Someday soon I hope to be able to focus on investing full time but this is what I do to make it work for now.

I'd love to hear how some of you make it work.