Comments on: 100 Personal Outsourcing Ideas

By: Jo@simplybeingmum

Jo@simplybeingmum — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 20:35:06 +0000

I heard this too, that an assistant listened to the client, and then told them to forgot about it. She’d worry about it for them…

By: joanne@wright101.demon.co.uk

joanne@wright101.demon.co.uk — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 23:23:22 +0000

Outsource meal preparation to a slow cooker and no I’m not joking. I became enlighted mid-thirties after many many years of getting home late and then preparing food at a most inconvenient time (when hungry!) – outsourcing doesn’t always have to be to humans… check out my blog for inspiration

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 02:48:13 +0000

The person I heard about was using Brickworks India. :)

By: Rick

Rick — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 23:40:08 +0000

I found that list to be fascinating!!

Where do I sign up to outsource worrying? :-)

By: woegeous

woegeous — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 20:42:30 +0000

Bad theme! Bad! :-)

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 20:19:32 +0000

This theme only handles nested comments three levels deep. Which is usually sufficient.

By: woegeous

woegeous — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 19:58:47 +0000

By the way, your blog doesn’t seem to handle nested comments too well. You might want to have one of your productivity elves fix that.

By: woegeous

woegeous — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 19:57:36 +0000

Mark. You are so right. I now see the error of my ways. Me and my dog Ironykins say a big “woof” to you and your canine.

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 19:48:26 +0000

Um. No. As most any of the regular readers here know, I work from home. Our dog gets plenty of attention. If she gets lonely during the day, she pushes the door open to my office and comes down and sits in my lap.

She has traveled with us to Canada, Mexico, Colorado, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Michigan, Texas, Kansas, and pretty much everywhere in between. However, since she is normally accustomed to being around people all the time and going out every few hours, we usually try to have someone check on her, let her out and play with her for at least a few minutes if we have to be gone for what most people consider a standard work day.

I think your original suggestion to “put her down” just because we have to spend eight hours away from home a few times each month is pretty stupid. People like you who go around suggesting that people have their pets killed the first moment they become a slight inconvenience probably cause a lot of good pets to get euthanized for no good reason.

By: woegeous

woegeous — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 19:24:57 +0000

Apologies. You didn’t mention in the original post that the dog was also a companionship-neglected accessory. I withdraw my original comment.

By: Percival J. Meris

Percival J. Meris — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:59:46 +0000

Wow! That’s a lot of ideas you have there. But I agree with you. Each of us have only two hands, and voluminous little things to accomplish within a given period of time. We need others to help us achieve our daily objectives.

At the same time, by outsourcing, we generate employment for people. As you progress further in your activities because of this help, you just might find yourself at the top of a big company.

There are just some people who cannot delegate, because they are afraid to do so. But for efficiency sake, these people might as well come up to their senses, and accept the fact that they need to trust others to help them in their work.

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 04:55:12 +0000

So if you are going to be gone for eight hours during a busy day and can’t come home to let the dog out, you’d rather see it put down than have someone else take it outside for 10 minutes? That is definitely a different perspective.

By: Mark Shead

Mark Shead — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 04:49:07 +0000

I think this list probably covers what a lot of people spend their time doing--wife, husband, or single. My idea of outsourcing is to let someone else handle things where you could be spending your time on something of better value. For example, if someone needs to be at the house to let the cable repair man in, I'd much rather be at the zoo with my kids than cancel our outing because the cablemodem is acting up and they want someone to be home for a 6 hour window. Oh and I'm pretty sure you haven't seen vLetter. It is very different from the handwriting font you normally see. (It also requires a very different process that won't work with the way most people try to do mail merges.) If you have found a way to get FedEx and UPS to call when they are 20 minutes away, I'd be very interested in hearing about how you do that.

By: woegeous

woegeous — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 19:19:40 +0000

This is without doubt, one of the most depressing productivity posts I’ve ever read. If one outsources everything, losing touch with the joys and frustrations and banalities of everyday tasks, you become a shell. I mean for God’s sake, what’s the point of having a dog and then outsourcing the walking. Just have it put down.

By: chris

chris — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 15:34:51 +0000

I looked at this list and cracked up. I did all of this when I was an at-home wife, before I became a physician. I still do most of it, or make the list to delegate.
Mailing packages can be done by ordering on Amazon. Staples can be ordered online for most grocery stores. My daughter has grown, but one of my friends has the meal plan down by rotating 14 meals a month-one day is order out each week, the rest simple stuff. Put your phone on speaker while you are on hold.(Office phone)Put it on the timer mode. If you have been transferred twice, politely say so, and that now you need to speak to a manager. Keep a shredder under each desk in the house, and next to the printer-get the high capacity kind. Banks will pick up deposits for you for about $25.00 a month-but there are often kiosks for your bank at the the same mall as the grocery story-bunch your trips, so you are getting several trips done at once. Dog walker is a must, if your schedule goes out of control. If you do bill pay online from your bank, but write the checks from your connected quicken account, the checks are immediately accounted for, you always have a running balance of your expenses, and as long as you label what your checks are for as you go, your taxes are basically done at the end of the year.
Dragonware, lets you dictate easily, and you can set up your own form letters, and change them.
We can spot those “handwritten”computer notes a miles away. They go immediately in the trash. Don’t bother with the postage.
I don’t know a single friend who does not have a stack of unsigned birthday cards , and bank cards for various ages and genders, in their desk.
In short-you have defined what most wives have been doing forever.
Help is essential, but I have seen a lot of people who lost their jobs this year who were helpless without their secretaries, and as well as doctoring, was mentoring on how to get act together.In our times of plenty it is important NOT to lose track of how to do things ourselves-and if you don’t know, you can become overly dependent on someone(as a colleague did, who allowed her manager to deal directly with her accountant-and got $100,000 dollars embezzeled. She had gotten lazy and didn’t look at every credit card bill that came through.
Google has a meeting feature., so everyone can coordinate calendars.
I never wait for a repairman without doing other work-ie, plumber, fixit guy, window washer, or whatever, along with any delivery are scheduled for the same day. There are given my cell phone # and told to call when they are twenty minutes away, and I meet them.I make sure i get the name of the manager who agrees to this, so I don’t have to leave work until they are on the way.If the repairman arrives without calling first, I have the number of the manager, so they have to wiat until I get there.
Google calendar with text you with your schedule, and a wake up alarm. It will alarm you throughout the day for meetings. (I have my patients set this up for grandmother to remind them to take meds.)
Loyalty point for credit cards are easily seen online -my credit cards happened to come out from one of my bank accounts-and as I go to pay that bill they pop up. I used those points, using a portal to other “specials” from that credit card for Christmas sopping-getting some “free” presents.
I love the idea of a personal assistant-but be careful what you outsource,and don’t he helpless.