If there’s one task I hate, it’s vaccuuming. It’s so awkward. The stupid vaccuum gets caught on door frames or against furniture, so you have to yank it around. It’s loud. I find it almost impossible to do the stairs. So while I don’t mind cleaning generally, I’d happily farm out that task, if I could pay someone to do that one thing.
We’re preparing a story on “outsourcing your life.” If you could pay to have someone do one dreaded ‘life task’ for you, what would it be? Paying your taxes? Answering the sea of emails that accumulate? Let us know! We’d love to get your response on the air!
I blogged about the virtual personal assistant trend last month:
http://tinyurl.com/2vhafm
Here’s a paragraph from that post:
“For the average middle-class person living in this post-consumer age, time is increasingly replacing money as our scarcest asset. It’s funny (though not particularly surprising) how moving to Malta has freed up a ton of my time. If I were back in Vancouver, though, I can see how five or ten hours of somebody else doing mundane tasks would be quite useful.”
I’ll add that this trend definitely coincides with the popularity of the book “The Four-Hour Work Week”.
In that post, I reference two other stories that are worth reading:
http://www.itjournalist.com/?p=14
http://decenturl.com/latimes/personal-aides-worth-it-los
Thanks, Darren. I’m looking for an interview guest, actually, so those resources will be helpful. I know what you mean about ‘geographical busy-ness’. When I lived in Winnipeg, I had a busy job, but the pace of life didn’t seem quite so intense as it does now that I am back in Toronto.
Definitely, manage the tons of information that comes across my desk and computer in various shapes and from various sources. I often thought that if I had a clone, that’s what I would put him to do.
This is the main reason I am probably going to leave Facebook, Robert. The other day, I looked at the list of ‘friend requests’ event invites, requests to add a ‘fun wall’ and just thought: why am I voluntarily adding to the stream of digital info-flows in my life?
First of all, Nora, I couldn’t agree more about Facebook and its dozens of “fun” applications.
I’ve been thinking pretty hard about what I’d want to outsource, and it seems I’m generally pretty content in life. There are no jobs or tasks I find oppressively difficult, except maybe some interpersonal stuff… and frankly, even in the 21st century, I don’t think you could outsource phoning your family.
The frivolous answer I’ll go with is: shaving. I absolutely LOATHE shaving. I’d pay to have someone shave my face while I slept. Or better yet: I’d reciprocate by shaving them on alternate nights. Save us both the cash!
Ha! I was at a dinner party a while ago at which several of the men were complaining about how awful shaving is, and that the only thing worse than shaving is NOT shaving.
Vacuuming – buy a Dyson. Emptying the plastic cup full of dirt and hair is very satisfying. I empty it everytime I vacuum to get a sense of accomplishment.
I would pay someone to fold my laundry and put it away in a tidy fashion. I like doing laundry (I enjoy watching the pile of dirty clothes get smaller. Waching the clothes tumble in the suds through the round glass window of the washer can be better than TV) but I never want to fold and put away.
Ha…I love that…vacuuming as goal-oriented activity!
See, I LOVE folding laundry; I think we could work out some sort of barter system. You come to my place with the vacuum, and I’ll show up with my special wicker laundry basket ready to fold!
I have contacted the company mentioned on this interview ‘Tasks Everyday’ at Mumbai, to outsource my life, they sound great! i am going to give this a go with my business and personal tasks!
check them out http://www.taskseveryday.com
I’m in the process of outsourcing parts of my life right now… it started simply enough by hiring a cleaning lady. Now, it has progressed to hiring a virtual personal assistant to do a bunch of tasks for me: booking a mechanic to service my car, finding someone to ghost-write a professional article for me, and even find a solution to sending out Christmas cards to business associates (yes, I’m horrible… I know)
DISHES…I hate dishes. Just after a big satisfying meal you have to drag yourself out of your comfy chair to do dishes. We really should consider a dishwasher but it seems like such an unnecessary luxury considering there is only 2 of us. If someone wants to come to my house and do my dishes I’d be more than happy to feed them for their trouble.
I am a virtual asistant and you would not believe the stories I’ve heard from other VA’s. One such tale tells of a client packing the WHOLE filing cabinet into cardboard boxes and sending it to the virtual assistant. The VA sorted the contents into a proper organized filing system and then sent them back.
I wonder if anyone wants to trade an overflowing desk for kitchen duty after a Sunday night dinner party??
Amy, that story about the filing cabinet is hilarious! Do you like your work as a VA?
Learn all you'd ever want to know on how to outsource to a "Virtual Assistant" at http://www.VAnetworking.com