Escape the Infinite Workday Trap (Plus: How to Grow $200/Month Into $300K)
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If you feel like you are working all the time, you're not wrong. A new survey says the thing you do to make money, your job, is keeping a lot of us tethered at all hours of the day. Today we'll hear about the infinite workday and what you can do to make it a bit more finite. ♪

Welcome to NerdWallet's Smart Money Podcast, where you send us your money questions and we answer them with the help of our genius nerds. I'm Sean Piles. And I'm Elizabeth Ayola. Later on this episode, we're going to be getting some advice on how to save when you're a stay-at-home parent. But first, we have our weekly money news roundup, where we break down the latest in the world of finance to help you be smarter with your money. Our news colleague, Anna Hilhoski, is back with some takeaways from a study about how much we all are taking our work home with us.

especially when we work from home. And we've got some ideas about how to tamp down what's being called the infinite workday. Ana, welcome back. Great to be here, Sean and Elizabeth. So after the workday is over, are you logging more hours than you should? Checking your work email on your phone? Shooting a quick message to a coworker or more likely your boss? I know I certainly am, and I don't think I'm alone. How about you two?

I do that, but in reverse. I feel like my workday is starting earlier and earlier. I'm sometimes checking my work email when I'm still in bed after waking up, and it's not great. Yeah, I do the same. Well, I personally am guilty of checking emails after work because my emails are on my phone. And it's so interesting how it's just subconscious. I just check my email every couple of minutes. But I do try to be conscious not to work too late, especially because I already have a second job of being a mom.

So don't need any more work. Well, in 2017, Gettysburg College estimated that the average U.S. worker spends 90,000 hours of their life working. Yikes. But in 2025, that number may actually be a serious underestimation. Some new research by Microsoft found that the lines between work and home have become more blurred than ever. And what it calls the infinite workday is on the rise.

To explore more about the report, what it means for workers, and how artificial intelligence fits into it all, we have Colette Saulbommer, co-founder of Microsoft WorkLab and general manager of Microsoft 365 Copilot. Colette, welcome to Smart Money. Hey, thank you, Anna, for having me. So the report paints a vivid picture of what an infinite workday looks like, and I think people will find it a pretty familiar one. I know that I did. How do you define a workday?

How do you define the infinite workday and how does it typically play out? Yeah, so, you know, my role at Microsoft, in addition to helping to shape and make great products for our customers like Copilot, is to really study how work is changing.

My team does research on this, and we've been at this now since early in the pandemic. And this latest report looks at trillions of productivity signals in Microsoft 365 and really reveals exactly what you said, that we are at a point in time where we sort of have an infinite workday, as we called it.

one that sort of flows across time zones and attention spans. I think there's a sense that one of the things that we gained in the past five years is flexibility, but that also means that my workday is uniquely mine and

and my flexibility is mine. And so your flexibility looks different. And so what that's left us with is a situation where we're all kind of working on our own time, if you will. So how is this fed into the patterns that you're seeing? Let me break it down a little bit. What we see first is this concept of sort of morning overwhelm, that work starts long before employees either walk into their office or log on. And

we saw that 40% of people who are online at 6 a.m. are reviewing email for the day's priorities. We also saw in the data that the average worker receives 117 emails a day and 153 chats. And so all of that means that work is already rolling, right? By the time you roll out of bed.

And then the second dynamic that we see is what we sort of see is happening in the middle of the day, okay? When people really need to use some of that high value time for deep focused work. And instead, they're mostly in meetings, okay? Whether they're synchronous or asynchronous, half of all meetings take place between nine to 11 and one to three. And that's precisely when our brains are primed to be doing deep focus work.

So that's an interesting finding. And then finally, in the evening hours, the triple peak phenomenon is alive and well. What that means is that people are logging back on in the evening. You know, evening meetings are up 16% year over year, and employees now send or receive 50-plus chats outside of core working hours. So can you explain a little bit when we started seeing this pattern emerging and why?

What some of the implications of that third productivity peak happening during a time that would usually just be considered off hours? We sort of saw this phenomenon emerge mid-pandemic. What was interesting to see is that, again, I think depending on your patterns at home, right, whether you have young kids, your patterns may be different versus I have teenagers. So my work patterns are a little bit different. But what we saw was that after that dinner hour, they were logging back on and

And now what we see again is just that that phenomenon that started in the pandemic is very much alive and well.

And you mentioned meetings. You know, they're part of most people's work, love them or hate them. And I don't really know anyone who loves them, but sometimes you just got to get in the same room, even virtually, to get some of that stuff done. So you mentioned that it's not just the amount of meetings that hinder focus time, but it's also the timing. Can you go into that a little bit more? In the pandemic, what became normalized are back-to-back meetings, right? And we also did some research that showed that your brain actually needs breaks between meetings.

And I think what the data is speaking to now is that by 11 a.m., that's sort of peak brainpower time. And that's also when meetings are really picking up. So this is an opportunity for people to actually

in some ways, reclaim time and think about how they're prioritizing their best hours, right? Like, when are you best at doing your most focused, most innovative, creative thinking and work? And really look at meetings through that context. You know, here's where AI offers a little bit of a life preserver, because with Copilot or another AI tool, you never have to really take meeting notes again. So maybe I'm using that time to

to do what I need to do while Cofilot is actually kind of doing some of the work for me. Do tools like Teams, Messages, or Slack help alleviate the amount of meetings, or are they just feeding into the chaos?

I think that's a great question. Our data only covered telemetry and Microsoft 365, right? So it doesn't include all the other notifications that you might be getting. So I think what this is really saying to everyone is, wow, it's really important to set boundaries and think about reclaiming your time, right? And how are you using it to do the most important work? We talk about something called the 80-20 rule, which is really just applying the principle that in today's

environment, you know, I have a lot of empathy for employees and people who are in this situation. I also have empathy for businesses and organizations and leaders who are under pressure, right, to do more with less and to deliver results. And so I think really as individuals, as people, we have to kind of say, okay, how do I create my own boundaries so that work does have some start and stopping points? Because

In the pandemic, that's part of what was lost. I have to say that the concept of an infinite workday culturally seems something that's not being driven necessarily by us worker bees. It's more of a top-down issue. So it can be hard to see what we can do about it. And yet companies love to tout their focus on work-life balance. Has that gone completely out the window? I think that we've just had these evolving norms. And so I think...

Every problem you ever need to solve in some ways starts with awareness, right? And the data tells us that people do need to reclaim some of their time for their own well-being and

and find ways to put those boundaries in place. It's also on leaders and companies and organizations, you know, to establish those norms. In my team and in our company, we do have a norm around not sending email after 6 p.m., using things like delay send, using AI, and not on weekends unless there's really a strong need to. So it's all about flexibility and choice, I think.

And how should managers and other leaders help their employees work smart and stay sane, of course, in this new environment? We're still in the early innings of AI at work, as it were. And our data shows that only 1% of organizations worldwide have actually fully implemented AI. Okay, so you've got this unevenness, right? Not everyone has these tools. It's

It's not a cultural norm yet for everyone to do their work this way. I'll give you a great example of, we have an agent called Researcher, which is just basically AI that takes on increasingly complex tasks, okay? So this is like, Researcher is like delegating to a digital colleague that can do really deep thinking and research reports. And I had my sister's wedding over the weekend that I was traveling to, and I needed to have a paper published

written and ready to go for my leadership team meeting at 8 a.m. on Monday. And so I used Researcher on the plane to help me write the paper, and it saved me hours and hours of work. And so I do think there's a lot of hope and optimism for how these tools can help people. The report does suggest that AI could make the effects of the Infinite Workday even worse, unless workplaces are going to be taking a more intentional approach. Can you walk us through...

how it maybe could make things a little bit worse than they already are. A lot of that speaks to the moment in time that we're in. The technology distribution, which is the nature of tech diffusion always, because not everyone has the tools, we're not all working in the same way with them. What we see, as I mentioned, with companies where there is broad adoption and people are actually, everyone's using the tools and the norms are being created on

how to use them to save time and take on more of your work, whether it's more of what we call the digital debt or the drudgery of work tasks that can be automated away through AI or as a thought partner and a brainstorm and a collaborator. Both of those things, when you start really using AI like that, and I see this on my own team, make a big difference. But we're just at this point in time where

where organizations are still trying to figure it out and people, right? One of the hardest things to do is behavior change, right? For all of us as humans, adopting new habits. It is a new way to work.

And so you have to have the end in mind and the outcome you want and the goal you want to achieve and then ask AI as a thought partner to help with that. That sort of flips the script on its head. And that's going to take, I think, some time for people to really adopt those new habits. And what can an individual do to push back against the infinite workday and restore some agency and structure to their work? Yes, I love that question about agency. Okay, so again, I think the first thing is

If you're not already using Copilot or another AI tool daily in your work, if you haven't started to make that a daily practice, you're never going to get to what we describe in our WorkChain Index as an agent boss, okay? Where you're really taking full agency and you are the boss of many agentic agents doing work at your behest on your behalf. So I think the...

Key is daily use, making it a part of your daily practice and starting to build the habit. From there, I think once people start to do that, it's actually fun. And they actually start to see the benefit and what they can gain from it. And then it just builds from there. Everyone has agency. I think what's exciting about this time, yes, the infinite workday could say,

Gosh, there's people are pretty overwhelmed. There's a lot to be concerned about. At the same time, there's never been a better time for human ingenuity, right? To have creative courage in your work. And if there's a skill that you've always wanted to learn and you've never tried or you haven't mastered it,

Gosh, AI can help you with that. So I think it's a time to lean in and learn as opposed to sit on the sidelines. You want to take the agency and be someone who knows how to use AI so that someone who does know how to use AI doesn't take your job. All right. Colette Stylebomber, thanks again for joining us. Thank you so much, Ana, for having me. And thank you, Ana. Absolutely. Up next, we answer a listener's question about saving for retirement when you're a stay-at-home parent.

But before we jump into that, a reminder to send us your money questions. Maybe you are shopping around for car insurance and need help making a decision. Or you're trying to figure out what budgeting system works best for you. Whatever your question, you can leave us a voicemail or text us on the Nerd Hotline at 901-730-6373. That's 901-730-NERD. You can also email us your questions at podcast.nerdwallet.com.

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We are back and answering your money questions to help you make smarter financial decisions. On this episode, we have a question from a listener named Teal, who sent us an email. Here, our producer Tess Vigeland is going to read it. Hi, Sean and Elizabeth. I was hoping that you could do a podcast segment on financial considerations for stay-at-home parents, mainly around retirement.

I became a stay-at-home mom in the last six months. When I was working, I was contributing to a 401k, but now can no longer contribute.

I'm worried about the future because I didn't start saving for retirement until I was 27 and I'm now 32. As a stay-at-home mom, I do have some income and we're able to make ends meet without worrying, but I don't have a ton of extra money for investing and wouldn't even know where to start. I made up 60% of our household income when I was working, so it's been a big adjustment for us. And frankly, I'm scared of investing money and not having it available for a rainy day. My

My questions are, what are the best plans for stay-at-home parents to continue saving for retirement while not working? Would it even be worth contributing if I'm only able to contribute $200 a month? How accessible is this money if I did have an emergency and need it? Parentheses, we do have a savings account, but I just have a fear of not having enough money. Anything else stay-at-home parents should consider for financial success? Thank you for your consideration. Teal.

This episode, we are taking a different approach to answering Teal's question. Elizabeth and I are going to do a little role play with Elizabeth taking the place of our listener, and I will be myself. So, Elizabeth, aka Stay At Home Mom, let's do this. So, what's on your mind? What do you want to talk about? Where do you need help?

Hi, Sean. First of all, I just want to say I'm a huge fan of the show. You and Elizabeth are so cool. Thank you. And you just give me the best financial advice ever. Okay, not advice, right? Nerdy tips. Exactly. But now that I finished fangirling, I want to tell you about my dilemma, Sean. Let's get into it. Tell me all about it. Okay.

I feel really blessed to be a stay-at-home mom because I know that's something not many moms can afford to do if they choose to. But let me tell you, Sean, I am extremely worried now that I'm going to be stepping away from the workforce and caring for my two kids about my financial future.

So I essentially want to know, how do I save for retirement while being a stay-at-home mom? Well, we can get into some specific tactics for you in a moment. But first, it's helpful to zoom out and know what you're saving for and how much you need to save. So to get that...

It's helpful to use something like a retirement calculator. We have one at NerdWallet, and that can show you the number that you might need to save for in retirement. A lot of folks can live off of 70 to 80% of their pre-retirement income in retirement. Have you and your spouse played with a retirement calculator at all?

I haven't, Sean. And I feel like I need to share some more details with you about where I am with retirement right now. Yeah, please. So I'm currently 32 years young and I didn't start saving for retirement until I was 27. So I don't have maybe as much as I should have for my age. I have about $50,000 saved in a 401k.

But now that I'm no longer going to be working, I won't be able to contribute to that 401k anymore. Okay. Well, you've been saving for five years. That's better than nothing at all. And don't feel bad that you don't have as much as quote unquote you should have. You have been thinking about this, which is better than a lot of people. So pat yourself on the back for that.

But again, work with your partner, figure out what that number to save for might be. And then you can think about how you might want to get there. If your partner is working and has access to something like a 401k, try to funnel as much money into that as you can. But for your own retirement contributions, I think you might want to look into what's called a spousal IRA. Are you familiar with this?

I've heard about it, but I don't really know what it is. Can you explain, please? Yeah. So with the spousal IRA, you can put money into an IRA without having what's called earned income. Traditionally with an IRA, whether it's a Roth account or a traditional account, you have to have what's called earned income from a job like a 1099 or a W-2 gig to put money into one of these accounts. However, with the spousal IRA, you can put money into an IRA without that earned income. It's

It's important to know that a spousal IRA is just a strategy for contributing to an account. It's not a type of account. So essentially, you would choose whether you want a Roth or a traditional, and then your spouse would put money into this account on your behalf. So that's a great way to save, and it's going to be one of your best options. Sean, I know that you're more of a financial advisor than a marriage therapist, but honestly, me...

Me and my husband haven't really sat down to talk about what we want our retirement savings to look like. I'm a little nervous.

I'm a little nervous about having this conversation with him because one, if you're listening, hubby, of course, I never want us to break up. But what if we break up, you know? So I feel like maybe I should be saving for retirement separately or Sean, should we be saving together? And then if we do this thing that you mentioned called the spousal IRA, and let's say my husband's also contributing to his workplace 401k, how do we both save together? Like as a couple, as a shared goal, you know, like work as a team.

Well, here is the open secret in financial planning is that being a financial planner is as much being a therapist as it is actually doing nuts and bolts planning. So we are here to talk about any and all emotional and marital challenges that you might have, but it can help to start by getting aligned on your shared goals.

Beyond just that number that we talked about before, how much you need to save for retirement, to get to that point, think about what you guys want to do with your life together. What kind of retirement do you want? Open up that conversation. Start with a bit of dreaming and imagining, and that can help you align on what you want to do together.

But you're right that while you and your partner are very much in love today, we know that things can change over time, unfortunately, and you want to be prepared for any circumstance. That is part of why the spousal IRA is great, because it would be in your name, even though your spouse's money would be going into it. It's completely your own.

So that's something that should provide some bit of solace to you. And beyond that, you could also contribute to something like a taxable brokerage account that would be in your name. That's a way where you are making sure that your bases are covered if and when you maybe need to go out on your own.

But when it comes to working with your partner and having your contributions to a spousal IRA and theirs in a 401k or a similar account, have this be all working toward that ultimate goal of that number you are saving toward that you figured out using the savings calculator before. But let's talk a little more about how much you can contribute to any savings account, any sort of retirement account at all. Do you have money coming in on your own?

Well, actually, Sean, I do. So I make these cute handmade wine glasses and I get about $500 a month from that. So I was thinking out of that income, I could put $200 towards my retirement savings, but it doesn't really seem like a lot of money. I don't know if that's worth saving at all. What do you think?

Anything you can put into retirement is worth it. That's just the bottom line. So even if you only have $200 to put in, that can grow tremendously over time. And I want to point you to another cool tool that we have at NerdWallet, which is our compound interest calculator. Have you heard about this or used it? No, I've not.

Okay. Go on your favorite search engine. Just type in NerdWallet compound interest calculator. And I want you to do this with me right now. All right. Do you have your internet up? I got my interwebs up. Okay. Now, go to the page that you see on top. And let's do this in real time because it's actually so simple to do this. There are a few things to fill in. The first thing is your initial deposit. Let's say that's that $200 amount that you have and you'll be putting in over time.

Now, how many years until your retirement? You are 32 now. So let's just say you're going to retire at 65. That's 33 years. Wow. Are you sure? Seems a little, ooh, it's a lot of working years. Yeah.

Yes, but it'll go by very quickly. And then for estimated rate of return, let's just put in 7% to be conservative. You're putting money in on a monthly basis, again, $200 each month. What I'm seeing is that over 33 years, that $200 a month could grow to over $310,000. So that seems pretty worth it, right? Yeah.

It does. Just the $200,000 growing to that much money? $200,000 a month over time with compound interest. That is the magic of compound interest. They should be teaching this in schools. They should. And that's why we're here to teach it to people. And here's kind of the wild thing is that you are only putting in just under $80,000, but you'll end up with that over $310,000 balance because of all of your earnings. Pretty remarkable, huh? Say no more, Sean. The $200,000 is going in the retirement account monthly. Another thing for you and your partner to talk about is...

how much they can put in and whether they might be able to help you put in more in a spousal IRA account or some other sort of retirement account. Because the maximum amount that you can put into an IRA, if you're under 50 in 2025 is $7,000, that would be a good goal to work toward.

You can put in $8,000 if you're 50 or older, but just that relatively small amount would grow into a good amount of money over the next 33 years or so. Well, Sean, this is a good segue to another thing that's been keeping me up at night, which is my emergency fund.

I made up to 60% of our household income. And now that will be gone. I'm worried about what's going to happen in case of an emergency. So can I tap into the money that I'm saving for retirement in case an emergency comes up? Husband, I'm so sorry if you're listening to tell your business, but my husband really does not want to put that much money towards retirement savings because we're not going to have as much income. So he wants liquid cash that we can easily pull from. So I'm worried. How are we going to do this?

The good news is that if you have a Roth IRA account and it's been open for five years or longer, you can take the contributions out. I'm not a big fan of this because I think IRAs and retirement accounts should be for that purpose for your retirement. That's why emergency funds, ideally held in a high yield savings account, are most people's best bets. Do you have an emergency fund and is it in a high yield savings account? We

We do have an emergency fund, but it only has two months worth of expenses. And yes, it's in a high-yield savings account. Okay. Because you are a one-income household and you have how many kids? Two. You have two kids. Yes. Sally and May, four and five. Precious. Precious.

Give them my best, Sally and May. Thank you. So a lot of financial planners will recommend that you have closer to six months worth of savings built up just for insurance purposes, basically. You never know if Sally or May is going to get sick and you'll incur some hospital bills or your car will break down. You want to make sure you have AC in that thing for these hot summer days.

And you know Sally and May are going to have some education expenses coming up. You got to think about their future too. You just never know what's around the corner. Emergency savings can help you at least have some sort of security to cover what's going to pop up because it will pop up. Well, what

With that said, how do we budget for this, Sean? Because I'm still not clear about how I'm going to slice up this smaller income and then the little income I'm making. So my husband makes about $80,000 a year. He's an operations manager. Then I have this $500,000 coming in. So how do we save enough for retirement, as you're saying, for a six-month emergency fund, which seems like it'll take forever to save for, and then also for our daily expenses?

This is where the 50-30-20 budget framework that we talk about a lot on Smart Money comes in handy. This can help you get a sense of where your money is going. And it's a good jumping off point, really. So you want to put 50% of your income towards your needs. Ideally, you can have everything like your car payment, your mortgage payment, all of these necessities under 50%. And then you can have 30% going towards wants, 20% going towards savings.

because you're in a place where you're trying to prioritize your savings a little more, you might wanna flip those actually and have 30% going towards your savings and then 20% going towards wants. I understand that having kids is really expensive. So think about how you can fit all of your expenses

into that 50 30 20 framework and then you can fine tune from there you might want to look into where you can cut some expenses just to really beef up what you are putting into savings and you're right it may take several months if not years to actually get to six months worth of savings it's a long-term goal but it's one that will help you day to day and it can save you from going into credit card debt when you do have an expense pop-up

So are you saying that I can save for retirement and also save for emergencies at the same time, or should I prioritize one over the other? If you don't have an emergency fund of six months, which you don't right now, you'll want to think about putting a little bit more toward your liquid savings because, as we mentioned before, it's not often advisable to pull from your retirement to cover emergency expenses. So how exactly that breaks down is a personal decision for you and your partner to make.

But it's something to at least have that conversation about. And it seems like you and your partner are still pretty new to money conversations. One thing that helps me when I'm trying to talk about something that I'm a little bit uncomfortable with is putting on some music or going for a walk.

When my partner and I were early in our relationship and having some of those tough conversations ourself, there was this Erykah Badu mixtape that I would always put on because it made me feel relaxed and I could talk about things more easily. So whatever that might be for you, thank you. But think about what that might be for you. How can you make yourself more able to talk openly and candidly with your partner and not have it become something emotional?

You know, it's like they say sometimes the best time to go to therapy is when you're feeling good about things. Sometimes the best time to talk about your money is when things are good and you're not in a crisis. So consider that with your partner. Oh, I will. So I think I'll plan like a nice little date night or like you said, can you send me the playlist, the Erykah Badu mix? Sounds good. I will. Okay, I might have to use that. And I think we have a lot of talking to do in terms of planning a retirement and figuring out how we're going to get that part of our finances on track.

And I want to go a little more into an exact strategy for making sure you're getting your emergency fund to where you want to go. Are you familiar with the pay yourself first method of saving? Well, if I had to take a wild guess, you pay yourself first. That's exactly it. You set up direct deposits from your checking account or maybe even your paycheck itself into a savings account. And that way you basically don't see it. You know it's going into that account first.

You're building up your savings. You don't have to worry about setting up a manual transfer. It's just going on in the background. So that's a really easy way to save continually. And that's how I approach my emergency savings too.

Wow, this has been so good, Sean. I feel like I came in here so anxious, not sure what to do. And now I have clarity. Thank you so much. You are so welcome. What do you think your next step will be? My next step is to plan a date night with hubby and tell him all the things I learned on the Smart Money Podcast. I'm also going to make him put on some Erykah Badu. You got it for the vibes.

And I'm also going to make him listen to this episode. And then maybe we'll have a talk about it after about how we can kind of work together. But I'm definitely going to put that $200 away. First, I thought it was futile, but I will put it away for my savings. Yeah.

Yeah, and I'll work on that emergency fund too. So that'll likely come out of hubby's income. But I'm excited for the future. Well, I'm excited for you and your partner. Let me know how things go with you. I will. I'll send you a follow up. And I'd love to be back on too. Of course. I'm sure we'll have you on really soon. Fabulous. Just fabulous. And cut. That was so fun. It was. See, we need to do at least one a month. I think this is great.

Well, I really hope that helps Teal and their partner because this stuff is difficult. And I have so many friends that are in the same situation. And a lot of my friends who have gone from working these great corporate jobs to staying at home with their kids have pretty much stopped saving for retirement. And they're just thinking, eh, we'll just rely on what my husband's bringing in. But like we talked about, that might not actually be the best for their own financial security. Yes. As women in this world, you have to have your own money set aside. Yeah.

as some people call it, a FU fund. So you're just going to hit the road and go if you need to, and you got to have your own liquid cash for that. Oh, I'm all, all, all for that. So I love that Teal has some emergency or rather income, even if it seems small, it's something that can go towards something. Agreed.

Okay, well, I think that's a wrap for this episode. Listener, remember, send us your money questions. We love to answer them whether we're talking with you on the show or we are pretending to talk with you through Elizabeth and me doing a bit of role play. So send us your questions on the Nerd Hotline at 901-730-6373. You can leave us a voicemail or text us there. You can also email us at podcast at nerdwallet.com.

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This episode was produced by Tess Figland and Anna Helhosky. Hilary Georgie helped with editing. Nick Karistamy mixed our audio. And of course, we want to give a big thank you to NerdWallet's editors for all of their help. And with that said, until next time, turn to the nerds.