Time and money aren't always fungible, but I find it helpful to keep a number in mind in terms of opportunity cost.<p>How do you value your time, either at work or your leisure time?
When freelancing at an hourly rate, I often use that same calculation for everything that I do.
That $15 cab ride will save me 20 minutes on the subway, maybe I can figure out a way to work more efficiently and bill that time?<p>I no longer find the mentality of wanting to make that calculation productive. Treating my time like such a scarce resource makes it hard for me to "waste" my leisure time. My rational self questions why I choose to "lose" 6 hours rock climbing, when it's something I completely love, but had to trade off many other things I could have done.<p>Similarly, it's a huge reward for me if I can get hired for 40 hours of Android development project that's going to "cost" me an additional 10 hours of un-billable time to be "forced" to learn something that I've wanted to, even if I'm "losing" more than it would have cost me to pay for some Android dev workshop.<p>I'm in my early 30s and personal time seems to have shrunk. I now cherish grabbing a beer for 45 mins after work with my childhood best friend, because he has kids. When ten years ago we would have thought nothing about wasting hours.<p>My point is that when I was eager for it, dollars were a great metric for my hourly value. Now, personal enjoyment, or feeling like I'm doing something valuable with that time has a much greater importance.<p>That's my $0.02.
A way to maximise leisure/family time is to eliminate doing things that you can pay a service to do for considerably less than your opportunity cost. Just remember to account for the income tax you will have to pay when comparing costs.