Outsourcing my Life?
By David Fisher. Filed in life |Tags: 4hww, laundry, outsourcing, twitter, va, virtual assistant
I’m not sure what it says about me. I’d like to think its that I’m a busy person, hopefully not that I’m a lazy one.
I have been slowly looking into more and more ways to oursource various things I do in life to other people. I’m not rich. My parents never really had anyone come do services asides from fixing the A/C unit or fixing the roof at home. We always mowed our own yard, did our own laundry, cleaned our own house, painted the house, etc.
Yet, I really like this outsourcing of various things that I’m finding lately. I have my laundry done for $0.90/pound at the corner. It’s about $50 every 3-weeks and they do a far better job than I could. I’ve been looking into getting cleaning services for my apartment (yes its tiny, but I wish it was always clean too!) as I am never at home to clean it; and when I am at home that is simply not what I want to be doing.
And now I’m looking into getting a Virtual Assistant for some various tasks online, such as research and things that simply take too long for me to do. The first task will be helping me fix my Twitter followers.
Where is too far? What is too much outsourcing. I don’t have money to waste, but I have things to do that I feel could make me more money. I have no time for cleaning, laundry or clicking on the same thing 500 times. Have you outsourced any portion of your life?
I think I share a similar background, in that we never had anybody come clean our house, do the “landscaping,” etc. But I’ll admit to paying for a cleaning service every two weeks now. It’s hard, and sometimes it seems frivolous (esp since I work from home). But it serves two purposes:
-gets the apt. cleaner than I ever could (they are pros, after all)
-helps me feel less trapped in the house. since I’m here all day at least 5 days a week, when the cleaners come, I get to escape.
Maybe its b/c we grew up in semi-working class / middle class households that we feel a bit strange for hiring someone to do something so personal? But I also think it’s indicative of the way we’re supposed to live a little better than our parents did. And if that means we outsource the laundry, et al, then maybe its a good thing.
It is true that outsourcing isn’t just for cutting cost. But it saves time and helps the company find other skilled personal across the globe. And nowadays companies need other companies to help transact their other functions to speed up the efficiency and performance.
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