Spend time, not money and don't outsource your life

Ms Nolan admitted this week that she's happy to outsource all the things she has no time for. She's got a live-in nanny, three cleaners, an executive assistant and a researcher.

"I simply could not do it all, maintain a practice and be nearly human," she says.

And for this she's happy to fork out $6500 a week.

Imagine earning that much a week. Let alone a month. But she does. And she's happy to spend the money, saying outsourcing is the only way she can run her legal practice, get enough sleep and exercise, and make quality time for her family.

"There are only 24 hours in a day," she says. "I have learned in my older years that I need to sleep eight of those hours, exercise for one of those hours, and travel to and from work for another hour.

"That leaves me with 14 hours. I realistically need to spend 11 to 12 of those hours working. So those remaining two hours a day, I need to spend with my girls and my husband, not cleaning, doing my accounts, following up emails, washing or tidying the house."

Part of me wanted to hate her. (See mention of dollar amount above). But then part of me felt sorry for her. (See mention of the two hours a day she's got left to spend with the people who really matter.) And so with these two parts to it all, I thought what can I learn from this woman who obviously is a lot smarter than me when it comes to certain things.

So when I thought about it a little more I realised I liked the way she broke down the day into billable hours. Lawyers are good at that. Journalists not so much. But the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. So many nights, particularly just recently, I've gone to bed thinking what a waste of a day. Did I really need to spend an hour playing bloody Two Dots (Candy Crush is so yesterday)? Did I really need to watch The Biggest Loser instead of exercising myself? Did I really need to drive to the supermarket, again, just to pick up the one thing I needed, to cook dinner? Is turmeric really that vital in a yellow curry? (In my defence, try this Jamie Oliver recipe and you'll realise that yes it is.)

Sleep, crucial. But I've got it down to about six hours. Sleep when you're dead and all that.

Carpooling. School days a guaranteed roundabout hour. Throw in a few sports trainings and events and on my worst day there's a four hour black hole I'll never get back every Tuesday.

Household duties, and here I'll throw in daily cooking and cleaning and making of lunch boxes and tidying of benches and emptying of garbage bins. About an hour I'd say, perhaps more if I actually get in the mood to cook properly.

Work. Oh yeah, there's that. Six hours a day, five days a week in the office. Most nights a little more from home checking emails, being observant.

So where does the rest of my day go. Wasted really. If I started billing myself for hours I'd be losing money probably. Time to switch gears.

But then, and here's the other argument. Are those wasted hours really wasted? They are spent with the people I love, my family, my friends. So what if we're goggling about on the lounge watching Gogglebox, who cares if we're around the kitchen bench doing homework, who cares if we're having a quiet wine with girlfriends on a Friday after school while the kids have a swim. Who cares if we're hanging out the washing together, or washing the dog. This is not wasted billable time. This is most precious time of all. And Ms Nolan admits to only two hours of it a day? Who's the poorer for that?

And if I had a spare $6500 a week would I outsource anyway? I'll admit there are days when I wouldn't hesitate to employ a driver. But as my kids like to tell me when I voice my displeasure of being in the car again that when I became a mum that's what I signed up for. And it makes me think about my own parents who ferried us around. So I stop complaining and enjoy the time in the car I have with them. Sometimes trapping a teenager in the car for even half an hour can reveal all sorts of things.

And the same goes for all sorts of things that you could outsource. Cooking family meals with them, doing chores, walking the dog ... perhaps if Ms Nolan stopped outsourcing she'd find more than two hours in the day to spend with her husband and children.

Yes, it's menial work but there's great value in it. There's nothing wrong with taking pride in the fact that you've created a homely sanctuary for your loved ones. Who doesn't love clean sheets, who doesn't love the smell of biscuits in the oven? Who doesn't love spending time instead of spending money.