My hubby was telling me about a conversation he had recently
with one of his buddies. He was commenting on our radically different
approaches to getting things done.
My hubby is a do-it-yourself-er par excellence – he’s the
kind of guy who will happily spend 2 hours watching a YouTube video and
figuring out how to do something, then doing it. Better than the guy on
YouTube.
Myself, I like to delegate. I love having a team of people
who are great at what they do to support me in my endeavors. If it’s not
something I love to do, I’d rather pay someone else to do it. I didn’t always
use to. I had the same fears that are probably coming up for you when you think
about actually outsourcing stuff to others to do.
I can’t afford it.
The thing I realized reading Rory Vaden’s chapter on the
Permission to Delegate, is this; “We are
always paying someone to complete a task. You are either paying someone else at
their rate of pay, or you are paying yourself at yours.”
It won’t be perfect. I
can do it better myself.
This may be true, at first. There is definitely an
investment of time and money in teaching someone how to do something you
usually do. But if you do the math, in the end, time and money spent now saves
time and money tomorrow.
Or here’s another reason not to delegate.
Guilt. As in “I SHOULD be able to do
it all myself.”
Where does that come from?
This idea that somehow I’m inferior if I don’t do it all myself, that
I’m less than perfectly capable. Or Who
do I think I am, to be hiring others? Some
hot shot?
It’s amazing what our minds will come up with, isn’t it?
Anyway, all these reasons and excuses faded into oblivion
when I met my wonderful Virtual Assistant, Nicole.
Boy, did that change my life. Instead of wasting hours
wrestling with document formatting, I can focus on what I’m good at and
what I love to do - Translating.
Instead of dripping blood, sweat and tears trying to position
text, figure out slide transitions and make my PowerPoint look really cool and
professional, I can focus on my strengths and what inspires me – researching
and creating educational content.
No more embarrassing typos on my blog posts. I can focus on
just writing them.
The list goes on…….
She can do so many things so much better, and faster, than I
can. Plus any number of other tasks that, let’s just face it, I would rather
not do. Or to put it a better way, I was spending a lot of time doing the
things that didn’t actually require my unique skill set.
And you know what else?
Just by virtue of having a virtual assistant, and my weekly telephone check-ins
with her, I am so much more organized and productive, because I have to be in
order to make good use of her time. Having
a virtual assistant is a perfect procrastination kicker!
So here’s my encouragement for you today: Ask yourself, what
can I outsource that will free up my time to do what I was really born to do?
P.S. Here is another resource for outsourcing any number of
tasks: http://www.elance-odesk.com
P.P.S. Want to read Rory Vaden’s book on Procrastination?
You can purchase it here and put a few pennies in my pocket too!
Oh are there are these folks out there? Wonderful to know...I wonder if I can find someone to vacuum, sweep the floors, and dust too? Geeeze...it is called a house keeper isn't it? Thanks for all these Julie..
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