Elimination and Outsourcing Closer to Home
This post is Part 2 of a series describing my experiences in implementing some of the ideas in The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris. You can follow along starting with Part 1, Do You Want to Work a Four Hour Workweek?
In my last post, I briefly summarized The 4-Hour Workweek and described my first, largely unsuccessful experiment with outsourcing my life. When I realized that maybe I’m not ready to manage a team of low cost assistants, I decided to refocus my efforts and tackle some issues that are a little closer to home.
Elimination – The Key Step
In the early parts of the book, Tim explains that living the 4-hour lifestyle involves lots of DEALs, an acronym which stand for Definition, Elimination, Automation, and the coveted goal of Liberation (also known as napping on the beach while being fanned by my cabana boy). When I started dissecting my first experiment with outsourcing I realized that I jumped prematurely into the Automation phase and skipped over a lot of the Definition and Elimination parts.
Definition became fairly simple once I put my mind to it. For right now, I want to streamline some of my personal tasks so that I have more time to work on this blog and to be social. That’s not my ultimate goal, but it’s what I am choosing to concentrate on in the here and now.
Elimination turns out to be the step that is the most difficult, and of course, the most important. As Tim points out in the book, there is no point in outsourcing crap work. If you do that, you’re just paying someone else to do things that don’t need doing anyway. He recommends doing 80/20 analysis (as an aside, that whole meme is WAY overused right now!) to figure out what tasks are the biggest time sucks with the least amount of results.
In my analysis, I discovered that housework was causing me the most grief as far as personal tasks go. A few years ago I didn’t mind cleaning, and sometimes found it therapeutic (perhaps someday I’ll tell the story of how I scrubbed the whole house when my uncle died suddenly), but over time I have come to dislike and even resent having to do much of it.
The good news is that there were just a few causes of the majority of the mess in my home. The biggest clutter offender is definitely mail. For some reason, mail seems to dominate my living room. I live in a small house, so any amount of messiness can cause livability issues. A pile of bills and newspapers on the coffee table is a huge irritant for me. Going all electronic with bills isn’t feasible for me at this time, so I needed a system for controlling the paper.
The other issue is the bathroom. I am completely neurotic about having the bathroom clean all the time, but I really hate cleaning it.
Eliminating these time and energy vacuums turned out to require very little effort and investment on my part. I simply visited my local Big Box store and purchased a few items that would help me easily deal with the mail issue and the bathroom cleaning issue. Now, when I grab the mail, I sort it into:
- Junk to be Recycled – this goes straight into the new miniature trash can, which is emptied into the recycling bin.
- Junk to be Shredded – is immediately run through the new table-top shredder.
- Stuff I Need to Keep – lives in the bill sorter that hangs on the wall by the front door. The sorter also has hooks for keys.
The result is a clear coffee table and a clear mind.
In the bathroom, I decided to take advantage of some of the newer convenience products. I went ahead and purchased a new Scrubbing Bubbles Automatic Shower Cleaner. I also bought some cleaning wipes for quick sink and toilet basin pick-ups. The verdict is still out on the effectiveness of the shower cleaner, but the wipes are definitely more convenient than breaking out a sponge and some cleaner.
With those two major issues handled, I felt like I was ready to explore the Automation step a little more, but I wanted to stick to a local provider this time.
Outsourcing the Old Fashioned Way
Yes, Mom, I hired a cleaning lady.
Even with the improvements in my house cleaning processes, I realized that elimination isn’t enough. No matter how convenient you make it, cleaning is still time consuming and, for me at least, unpleasant. It was time to hire some help.
I knew that the big franchise companies can be quite expensive and have some deal-breaking limitations on what they’ll do, so I did a little networking and got the name of a woman in my town that runs her own business. She came over, took a look at my little house, and said she’d clean the bathroom, kitchen and living room for $30.
I immediately hired her to come in twice a month.
This past Tuesday was her first day. I came home to a sparkling kitchen (she even washed my coffee pot – I NEVER wash my coffee pot!), a clean and sanitary bathroom, and a neatly dusted and vacuumed living room. Totally worth every penny.
Continuing the Journey
This is just my first step on the road to the 4-hour lifestyle. So far my household outsourcing seems to be a success, but it’s really just a drop in the large pond of stuff I have to do. I’m currently making a list of research and marketing tasks related to this blog that I can outsource overseas. I’ve also begun a relationship with a local tech-savvy person I know to do some design and administration on the site.
In the coming months, I hope to have new experiences to share and concrete examples of ways to successfully implement the principles of the 4-Hour Workweek. In the meantime, if anyone else has experiences to share please tell everyone about it in the comments.
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[...] Elimination and Outsourcing Closer to Home // Sep 13, 2007 at 9:42 [...]
Maria,
Way to go on hiring cleaning help! I am also neurotic about having a clean house, but hate the time it takes. And while I still find it therapeutic at times, it has to be done whether I am in that mode or not. Especially since the kiddos came along… they are just a mess waiting to happen! ha ha
I plan to hire cleaning help at some point in the future, when it is financially feasible for me to do so. Way to go!
I am really interested to hear how the overseas outsourcing goes for marketing and development of your blog.
Brooke
Brooke, I would remind all of your loved ones that certificates for cleaning services make excellent gifts! I used to coupon books for my Mom when I was poor and did things like clean the bathroom and cook.
I will definitely continue to share my outsourcing experiences as they happen. Thanks for the continuing interest!
Maria, great post! The Tim Ferriss way – I am impressed that you took action and experimented with Tim’s virtual assistant outsourcing suggestion.
There are a lot of skeptics about Tim and his book. But Tim’s points are valid and worthwhile, as you found out with the outsourcing of house cleaning. You probably are asking yourself why didn’t you do it sooner?
What else are you going to outsource now?
Pierre Cutler
http://www.our4-hourworkweek.com
I haven’t read the book yet, but it’s an interesting concept. I’ll be curious to hear how it goes to outsource your blog-related tasks.
When I was a young teen, my siblings and I pooled our allowances to hire a housecleaner so that we could spend less time at home on the weekend and more time with our friends. It’s a habit I’ve kept most of my adult life. I’d rather do more of my own work (to pay the housekeeper) than clean house myself.
I really should follow suit with the cleaning bit. If somebody came in twice a month and cleaned the bathroom, kitchen, and living room then I think that keeping the rest of the house clean would not be nearly as stressful.
I’m sorry to hear that your overseas outsourcing didn’t go well. I think most people should start with help around the house. As you’ve seen, it’s very gratifying and you can certainly see the results instantly.
Michael
http://www.familyhack.com
@Pierre – I am definitely wondering why I didn’t outsource some of my household chores sooner! For my next outsourcing task, I’ll probably look at something related to groceries or laundry. I’m open to suggestions!
@Millionaire Mommy – that is a great story! You started off right from a very young age. No wonder you’re now the Millionaire Mommy.
@Blaine – It really does make it easier to keep the rest of the house up. In fact, having my time freed up from those tasks has helped me tackle some bigger projects at home, like sorting through some clutter.
@Michael – your blog is really inspirational to me as I take this journey. I look forward to your next video.
Maria,
Great post! As a real estate and mortgage consultant in Phoenix, Arizona, I read Tim’s book and started immediately putting it into practice.
I’m glad you expressed the mistake I see a lot of folks making… immediately going out and hiring overseas folks without doing the first part of what Tim talks about in definition and elimination.
I have had great success with virtual assistants. I have a transaction coordinator in Colorado, a marketing coordinator in Texas, and marketing assistants in India, all helping me grow my businesses in Arizona& Missouri.
One thing you should also remember to do is “bathching.” This has been very helpful for me.
Like you found out you don’t have to go overseas to outsource things. For example, I have outsourced 2 things that I hate doing but need to be done.
I have outsourced cooking healthy meals. I hired a company to provide heart healthy meals for my wife and I. Cost around $120 for 20 servings. Also, whenever there is a “free grocery delivery” coupon from the grocery store in the paper I have them bring us groceries.
The second thing I hate is going to the video store. Two months ago, I outsource that task to US Government Post office. I contracted Netflix to have movies that I want to see lined up for me and then have the postman pick them up and drop it off for me.
This is just a few things, but in all I have eliminated and outsourced about 20 hours of work (business/personal) so far… and I can’t wait to do more.
Thanks for listening,
Kendall Matthews
Excellent post. I bought the book early this year while on a trip, then forgot about it. Guess I need to dig it out …
One major thing I’ve done is organise my life as far as work and living space goes.
Early this year I bought a condo and had it renovated for ease of use. The third bathroom was changed to a walk in pantry. Major storage units were built into two rooms and I purchased large plastic storage boxes to fit. While packing to move I categorised bits into the boxes so they went straight into their planned slot.
So far it’s working out perfectly and I’m not struggling to find anything (before I had a storage room, with items I hadn’t seen in years).
While packing, I made serious decisions on what to keep and what to take. Although giving away and throw out stuff was a difficult thing to do, the lack of clutter gives me plenty of breathing space. Also, I don’t miss opening closets to falling items!
I’ve also created an office that has only important items available. It’s a serious work space that I’m hoping will help keep me focused. Working at home, keeping a work focus is a priority for me.
On house help: The warm and fuzzy of keeping a house wore off ages ago, so for the past twelve years I’ve been a huge believer in cleaning help . I love my privacy and I’m now living in small accommodation so there’s no more need for a full timer (a selling point for a smaller living space).
On the work side: I used to try and do it all, but now I ask for help from those who are better skilled than I am. This leaves me time to improve the skills I have a desire for. It also creates less stress in my life as I’m not battling with chores that bore me to tears. Not so much anyway.
Now if I could just convince someone to take over the kitty litter …
Hi Catherine,
Your kitty problem can be solved by Pet Butler.
I use them for keeping my backyard clean as I own 2 dobermans. Use my name, email and zip as I will get a $ 20 discount on the monthly service. Hope this helps, m zip is 34984. Thanks, Kris
p.s. I’m just now listening to the book 4-hour workweek on cd. I hope to get out of the day-to-day misery asap.
Hi Catherine,
It’s http://www.petbutler.com
1-800-738-2885
nationwide.
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