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July 8th, 2007 by Spud Oregon
In my third speech recognition video, you saw that I had taken John Chow’s advice and bought a copy of Timothy Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek. I’m not a particularly fast reader so I still haven’t finished the book but I did enjoy the chapter on “How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want”.
The funniest and most eye-opening section is a true account of outsourcing one’s life by AJ Jacobs, the editor of Esquire magazine. If you haven’t already bought the book, you can read this section on Tim’s website, and I highly recommend you do.
Anyway, I was motivated to try this for myself. I mean, who wouldn’t want to communicate with their spouse via a remote personal assistant in India, or have memos sent to their boss on the back of a picture postcard of the Taj Mahal?
With the success of “The 4-Hour Workweek”, it’s not really surprising that the website Tim suggested for outsourcing your life has buckled with the huge increase in demand. GetFriday.com recently put up an announcement stating that there will now be a three-week waiting period between signing up and starting the service, and the last three entries in their blog were titled:
- Got work, Get Friday - Hiccups and more…
- Coping With the Deluge, and
- Getting Snowed In
I’m going to wait a while for the frenzy to die down, but will be checking GetFriday from time to time to see if they have caught up with the backlog. This doesn’t mean I won’t start outsourcing my life, however. I have just registered at Elance.com, posted a project and accepted a bid for a small task I could probably do myself, …but what would be the fun in that?
Do you have a virtual assistant? Have you ever outsourced anything? Would you like to? Let’s hear your comments.
Rice: 
Posted on July 8th, 2007 in Random Observations.
Comments: 9
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As always, beware of things that appear to be too good to be true. Is the rate you are paying this “virtual assistant” going to compensate for the future potential headaches of miscommunications and/or language/cultural barriers?
Please be sure to do your due diligence before hiring out with an overseas company of ANY sort
Jill Chongva
http://www.vadiva.com
That’s fair advice. The only way to know is to try and compare.
Remember, you get what you pay for. Also, as Jill asked, is the rate going to compensate for potential headaches of miscommunication and/or language/cultural barriers?
Why not compare? If you’re looking to hire a Virtual Assistant, why not try posting an RFP to http://www.vanetworking.com? You may be paying more per hour, but you will find a lot of individuals that are knowledgeable in their fields of expertise.
I once posted a request on an art forum, looking for someone who could draw hundreds of very simple cartoons for just a dollar each. My request was followed by dozens of replies from angry artists who claimed my “job” was an insult to the professionals on the job board. The moderator soon locked that particular thread.
I did however manage to pick up an artist who was willing to do what I had asked for. Eight months later, he still draws for me and has made hundreds of dollars from these ten-minute pictures.
My point is: Sometimes, the client isn’t a big-time businessman looking for an assistant to take care of his business, but just a regular guy with a regular job, who could do with a helping hand once in a while with some simple tasks.
If I paid $5 an hour, I wouldn’t expect the service or quality that a much more expensive professional could provide. However, it might just be all the help I need… and all I could afford. This is why Get Friday is so appealing.
it’s seem like everyone is into outsource, I haven’t read this book yet, but there is one book I read sometime ago that i highly recommended is “go it alone”, now you can read for free online here in the writer website :
http://www.brucejudson.com/
my rule of thumb of outsource is if it’s not your core activity, outsource, but i think “4 hours workweek” really went “too far”, you can’t outsource your care, your friendship, your love, your core competent, can you?
i suppose some things can be outsourced. but in my experience you have to micromanage if it’s anything specialized. trust me on this one. i’ve heard accounts of people starting off doing a good job, then when things go on auto pilot, results go down the toilet. not only have i read these accounts, but i’ve experienced them at my company. but hey if you can get them to do a good job (remember, they will most likely slack off if they can get away with it, this isn’t a myth), then i suppose it’s worth a try signing up with elance and outsourcing the job
let us know how it goes. and good luck!
I have tried to outsource a few things, in the end doesnt work out like you think it will. Good review though.
Hey, why stop at work– I’m sure you’ll appreciate this Spud, check this article out from Macleans Magazine in Canada- Who needs to go thru the pain and anxiety of child birth when we can outsource that as well…
“Wombs for rent”
http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=20070702_107062_107062
Expat_Allan
Now if only I could outsource someone to do my eating for me, then I could lose some weight.