Wouldn’t it be great if you had someone to do those things that you don’t like to do? Let me take the question up another level. Wouldn’t it be great if you had someone to do those things so you can do what is important to you? Wait a minute..isn’t that why we have kids?
In my blog post Help for a Complicated Life a few weeks back, I suggested outsourcing tasks that you do not enjoy or cannot do in a time effective way. Can this be done in a way that makes it worth the cost? I say yes!
First step is to equate your time to value. You can start with your hourly wage or billing rate at work. That rate is how your employer or your business values your time. Time you spend at work pays you at that rate and theoretically that rate can be used for your non-work time as well. If you are a typical National Hockey League player, that would be around $23,941.56 per hour (guess they are flipping burgers now that there is a lockout in the NHL).
Back to those tasks. If you can pay someone to do those things for you, you can instead be working making that hourly rate or doing something you value more than what you are paying. It’s a win for you and a win for the person willing do to the work for you. Call this your personal economic stimulus package since you are hiring someone that might otherwise not be working.
Here are some ideas on where to find those willing workers. Start with your own kids and chores around the house. If that “willing” resource is tapped out or unavailable, try the family members of friends. Sometimes kids that won’t clean their room or do anything at their own home are more than willing to work hard at your home.
Need to have errands or higher end jobs to be done. Go to the career center or job office at your local college. We have hired young enthusiastic college students for everything from babysitting to working at our Redlands CPA firm. Work study programs at colleges may even pay or reimburse you part of the cost.
Here’s another idea. I found a website that looks really cool. I haven’t tried it yet but it looks like an ebay type of site that allows people to put their tasks on the website and people in the area can bid on doing the work. The website is call Do My Stuff and here’s the link. http://www.domystuff.com/
If you have enough stuff to do, consider hiring a part time personal assistant. It may sound extravagant but you having someone you can trust to do regular errands and chores around the house can be invaluable. Gauge the cost vs. what you can do with the time you are saving. If you have them handling financial matters or provide them access to a credit card, make sure to do proper background checks. Once you develop a high enough level of trust with someone, it’s amazing the tasks you can pass on.
Do you have a great resource for finding people to get your chores, errands or tasks done? Please pass along a comment.
I hope that you can use some of these ideas to make the best use of your time and make your Life Less Taxing.