15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management pdfdrive com

In Their Own Words…
Focus on what you are great at and hire everyone else to do the rest.
–Lewis Howes is a bestselling author, entrepreneur, and former professional athlete. He is the host of
The School of Greatness podcast.
Today You Can “Uber” Everything
Ever since the success of The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, using virtual
assistants has been somewhat in vogue. Initially, using a virtual assistant, or VA,
generally meant working with someone in India or the Philippines to screen your
email, schedule appointments, and other general tasks. While some found these
arrangements to be helpful, others found the language barriers and the lower
quality of work to be unacceptable.
But since the early days of VAs, the concept has really grown and morphed
into the idea that you can outsource almost anything, with very little prior
planning.
Uber was really the company that popularized the concept of on-demand
mobile service (ODMS). Remember being envious of the “rich and famous”
with their chauffeurs? Well in the same time it would take you to say, “Home,
James,” you can now tap your Uber app and have your personal chauffeur show
up to take you to your destination.
Spend
too
much
time
grocery
shopping?
See
if
Instacart
(
www.instacart.com
),
Peapod
(
www.peapod.com
),
or
Fresh
Direct
(
www.freshdirect.com
) operates in your area. For non-perishables, use
Amazon.com
Subscribe
&
Save
(
www.amazon.com/gp/subscribe-and-
save/details/
).
Need someone to do some Internet research, make social media updates,

---

make reservations at a restaurant, or cancel your cable? Just visit
FancyHands.com
.
Have miscellaneous chores to complete? See if the folks on TaskRabbit
(
www.TaskRabbit.com
) will hop over to clean your oven, build your Ikea
furniture, or organize your closets.
And don’t forget, for all your general freelance needs:
www.fiverr.com
,
www.freelance.com
, and
www.upwork.com
.
When The 4-Hour Workweek first came out, outsourcing was a novelty. Now,
it’s just assumed you can give the work to the best people, and nobody cares
where they are located. With WiFi Internet access, Skype, email, and project
management communication tools like Asana (
www.asana.com
) and Slack
(www.slack.com), working with remote team members has become no big deal.
I live outside of Philadelphia and personally use “virtual” help for all kinds of
things:
Clarissa is one of my book cover designers; she lives in Singapore,
and I have no idea what she looks like (we’ve only communicated
via email).
Balaji lives in India, and I’ve used his team to do research projects,
data mining, and slide designs.
Serena answers my Mailchimp email technical questions (when we
first connected, she was spending time in Ireland, and now she’s in
Thailand).
Camille is one of my book editors whom I found on
www.Fiverr.com
(her profile page says she lives in the United
States, but I have no idea where).
Matt and Chris are the two guys who handle my websites (I’ve
never had a face-to-face project meeting with them).
In addition to the team of remote freelancers I routinely work with, locally I
also outsource these items:
I pay $60 a week to a company to mow my lawn.
I pay $100 to a guy to plow my driveway when it snows.
I pay $150 every two weeks to a cleaning service to clean my
house.
I pay $20 an hour to a woman to help me get my kids off to school
each morning.
I pay a bookkeeper to handle both my personal and business
accounting needs; I never write a check myself.
I hire plumbers, electricians, and painters to maintain my home.

---

But Mark Cuban Still Does His Own Laundry
So what shouldn’t you outsource?
Notice that while I have someone who stops in a few mornings each week to
help, I’ve never had a full-time nanny for my three kids. While I have good
friends who have live-in nannies or daily full-time nannies, I just never felt
comfortable with that myself. For me, I don’t want a non-family member living
in my house, and parenting is my first value, so I want to do it myself as much as
I can. I’m fortunate in that I have a lot of schedule flexibility that enables this.
I’m not judging others who are making different choices; I do it consciously,
knowing that it is costing me potential income and career advancement.
I also do my own grocery shopping—almost every day or every other day
actually. This makes no sense from a time optimization standpoint. But I actually
like it. I like having the freshest fruits and vegetables and fish possible, and
zipping quickly through the store is my way of going to the market each day.
Since I work from home, it’s a good excuse to get some fresh air and sunlight.
Billionaire Mark Cuban revealed on Shark Tank that he still washes his own
laundry. I do, too. It would be easy for me to have someone stop in each week to
do my laundry or to drop it at the dry cleaning place—it would be easy for you
to do that too, and maybe you should. But I just find it grounding somehow to do
my own laundry.

---

The bottom line is you should try to outsource everything you can unless:
1.
You enjoy doing it and it’s part of your rest and recharging
process.
2.
It’s part of your values to continue doing the task.
3.
It costs you more per hour to outsource it than you want to make
yourself.