Outsourcing Myself
As mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been reading Timothy Ferriss’ book “The 4-Hour Workweek”. I’m half way done on a 300 page book. It’s only amazing since I don’t read that much or that fast for ANYTHING.
What peaked my interest was his section on Automation. He proposed that everyone should have a VA - Virtual Assistant. You’re probably thinking what I was thinking, “I can’t afford an assistant.” Yes you can. According to Tim, the productivity you get from an assistant far out-weighs the time spent doing things on your own. He sited examples of using a VA to basically do the nitty-gritty work for you and you use the fruits of their labor to do what you need to do. For example, researching for a project or even researching for various things like blog posting.
The cost range from $5 – $20 an hour. The more expensive ones are located in the US or Canada. The middle of the line and cheaper ones are located off-shore in India, China, or Shanghai.
I think I can afford to pay someone to do some of my work and reclaim some of my time back. This realization is almost as big as the time I realized, “Hey! I can learn to ride a motorcycle and not worry about what my parents thought.” Exciting stuff!
October 18th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
This book was mentioned to me twice today. I’ll have to read it and see what he means by 4-hour workweek. I’ve experienced living the 4-hour workweeks by choice, but entrepreneurship is too much fun and exciting to limit it to only 4 hours/week. Instead, I found myself with 4 companies and 4 hours/night sleep… but it’s so much more fun!