When you think of outsourcing you probably think of big companies moving your job to a foreign country. That is certainly outsourcing, but I intend to talk about the outsourcing we do in our lives.
Tasks you can do youself
If you hire a gardener, maid, or dry cleaner or even go to a barber you are already outsourcing some of your work. Is this money well spent or should we claim our spot behind the lawn mower? These are decisions you need to think about rather than go with the flow. I would not hire a pool cleaner or gardener as I could save hundreds a year by avoiding their services; in fact, I was both at times for my parents. However, I use the dry cleaners because they provide a service that would be much harder for me to perform for a fairly low price.
Alfred, a bit much?
There is a service which takes outsourcing to the next level by trying to remove you from your chores. Too busy to drop off your dry cleaning? Use Alfred. Too lazy to get groceries? Use Alfred. You pay $32 a week for the tidying up and everything else you pay for. This could end up costing lots of money and I would not recommend this.
Tasks you can not do yourself
If you can’t do something, learning would be a great way to improve yourself and not have to pay others. However there are some things that are really time consuming which may be worth outsourcing. I really like my logo, but I definitely do not have the skills to make it myself. I could take the time to learn how to design it, but I’m not too interested in that field and it is a one time job so I hired someone to make it for me. I used Fiverr to outsource my logo and paid $15.75 and am thoroughly satisfied with the service. I was impressed and decided to hire another person to move my wordpress site for $10. First, I tried to do it myself with some tutorials, but after a few hours and uncertainly I felt like $10 for peace of mind was well worth it. I have had good experiences with Fiverr, but feel free to check out other sites.
Conclusion
Do not go overboard on outsourcing as it will result in Hamiltons fleeing your home. Always investigate the difficulty, time commitment, and cost of something before outsourcing it. Although convenient, outsourcing can become a trend that makes us lazier and lazier until we refuse to learn new things or do chores, so watch out.