I built a system for outsourcing household management for people with “too many things to do and not enough time” and have generated 3,300 personal hours from it. I’d love to connect with folks who have thought about this and potentially help them using the same system (email david@mya.homes or schedule time)

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Over the past 9 years, I’ve generated 3,300 hours (~1h a day) in my personal life using a home-grown system that streamlines outsourcing of household tasks to assistants. With the extra time, I’ve been able to – despite always being a "60 hour work week" type of guy – explore hobbies (1, 2, 3, 4, 5); build an AirBNB portfolio (6, 7); date (8); tend to my health (9); build lifelong friendships (10, 11); and be a decent father, husband, son and brother (12, 13, 14).

You see, for as long as I can remember, I’ve felt that there were too many things to do and not enough time.

10 years ago, I read Tim Ferriss' 4-Hour Workweek and it inspired me to delegate activities that were less meaningful and redirect my energy towards activities that were more meaningful. In 4-Hour Workweek, Ferriss advocates delegating work to virtual assistants. I loved the idea, but most of the work I wanted to delegate (chores, errands, restocking, pet care, house care, self care, etc.) was in my home and couldn’t be done by a virtual assistant. Traditional cleaners couldn't (or wouldn't) do most of what I wanted done and weren't as reliable or as communicative as I would have liked.

As a result, in 2014 I started hiring in-home assistants to handle this work. I found that the process was harder than expected: finding the right people, training them and getting reliable / satisfactory service; and handling the logistics of scheduling, reimbursements and payments. I’m a pathological optimizer, so I kept at it, cobbling together an “app” in spreadsheets and iterating on it over the years.

Fast forward 9 years: In between jobs, I decided to ditch the spreadsheets – they require a lot of assistant training and are error prone – and level up to an actual app. To that end, I built the MyA app, which systematizes the definition of in-home work and automatically creates punch lists that assistants can execute on shifts. As the client, I receive a top down report after each shift, that summarizes what was done, what wasn’t done (and why) and how much it cost. Additionally, I've created well paid jobs for my assistants, who also have commented that the punch lists help them enjoy their work and get into "flow."

Here’s a demo of the app: (it's early stage)

This app has helped my marriage. Specifically, having a way to outsource household management has given my wife and I a way to circumvent really hard trade-offs. In many heterosexual marriages, house work is a source of resentment and the brunt of the burden usually falls upon women (reported on extensively by The Atlantic). MyA gives us an additional tool to put more focus on career (both of us have busy careers) and family (e.g., spending quality time with her or each other).

Another nice thing about the system is that it gives you a form of "passive income”: once you define the work and onboard an assistant, you gain a few extra hours per week...for the rest of your life. And, like money, time investments have compounding returns. For example, hours invested in improving your sleep, diet, exercise, emotion or attention management practices improve the quality and performance of your other hours.

Here's my ask going forward:If you've had the “too many things to do and not enough time” problem, I'd love to chat to hear your perspective and potentially help you with it. Maybe you're a busy parent or you just have a lot to deal with or you are an optimizer. You might have questions or doubts on how this can work. I have answers.Comment, email me, DM me, schedule time, throw pebbles at my window or fly a plane with a banner over Santa Monica...just get in touch!⇒ david@mya.homes⇒ Book timeAcknowledgements: When I turned 45, I realized that despite decades of experience in tech, I still hadn't built my own app. It was important to me as a matter of self expression. So, it became my mission to build an app and MyA is the result. I was able to do it in a few months thanks to really solid coaching from Gaby Román and Kristen Youngs of Coaching No Code Apps and the Bubble no-code platform. Also thanks to Paul Graham for writing Do Things that Don’t Scale (very liberating) and Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel for explaining it to me on their YT Channel.I also want to thank my wife Irina and folks who have contributed to or discussed this work with me recently: Aitan Weinberg, Alex Sukhanov, Amal Devani, Bob Dvorak, Chris Motz, Gowtham Gundu, Kim S., Michelle Hsu, Milos Ribic, Nancy Soni, Navin Ramachandran, Ricky Yean, Sarah Ouwayda, Shiku W., Siva Koneti, Steve Gomez and Tess Hau. Also grateful to my assistants over the years: Arturo, Francis, Marilyn, Kelly, Mayanna, Olivia, Sidra and Sophie.