Making the choice to outsource your life, by hiring a virtual assistant or sending work out to be done, can be a liberating experience. There is not a commodity in the world that has greater worth than the value we place on time. Choosing to outsource your life can help you bank this precious resource to use for only your highest priorities.
Before you can hand off your to-do list to a personal assistant or outsource team, however, it is crucial to first identify your priorities. This is not an exercise in jotting down a few things that need to be done this week; this is a heart to heart conversation with yourself where you establish or confirm what it is most important to you.
It seems deceptively easy. Most people would say "family", then "career" but it's not always that simple. Hyrum Smith, founder of Franklin-Covey, Inc. notes that we often merely pay lip service to our priorities.
"Your highest priority is not what you say is most important to you; it's what you spend your time doing," Smith says. "If you say your family is your highest priority but you spend long hours working, rarely seeing your family at all, then it is work that is your highest priority, not family. Actions always speak louder than words. "
Maybe it's your career that's been taking up the lion's share of your time; maybe it's education, like working on an advanced degree. Perhaps it's the daily tasks that add up to hours taken away from the truly important things. Whatever the offender, it's time to reframe your life so that your real priorities get the time they deserve.
Ask yourself these questions: What's the most important thing you need to focus on? What's the second most important thing? What tasks don't require you to handle them personally? What tasks require your expertise but are so time-consuming that you still need help? What are your long term and short term goals? What would need to be moved off your plate for you to have a clear path to accomplishing them?
When you outsource the tasks of your life, it will require a financial investment, even for a firm that offers the most reasonable of rates. Compare the cost of outsourcing to the cost of spending the time to do it yourself. If you make $100K per year, your time is worth a great deal more than the few dollars an hour you would spend to hire someone to run your errands for you. Your time is extremely valuable, no matter what your income level. No one can give the people and projects in your life the kind of attention and expertise that you can.
If someone else can capably handle your lower priority tasks, ask Sunday freeing you up to spend more time working toward your goals or being with your family, can you think of any reason why you wouldn't invest in outsourcing your life?
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