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Vox Pop: Have you tried outsourcing your life?

A lot of my friends have been reading The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, and, to varying degrees, several of them have started trying on some of his more audacious ideas, such as checking email once a week, finding an "income muse," going on an extreme information diet -- a few people I know are considering outsourcing pieces of their personal and professional lives.

For reasons I can't fully explain -- and will, for now, just write down to Tim's engaging style -- I also found this outsourcing idea weirdly fascinating. You identify the tedious tasks in your life that don't represent the best use of your time, and assign them to an overseas worker who can complete them for a few bucks an hour. This apparently can be virtually any kind of mundane task, from booking a dinner reservation to doing research on a company to -- heck, why not? -- answering your email.

So, while I know lots of people share my theoretical interest in this, I wonder how many of you have tried it, and how many of you are using outsourced help on a regular basis. What's your experience been? Does this work? What sorts of task are most amenable to long-distance assignment?

By the way, if you haven't read the book yet, here's an excerpt from Tim's chapter on outsourcing.

Comments are open for your stories. I'd be grateful if you can try to limit your comments to firsthand experiences hiring and utilizing outsourced employees or in regard to evaluating the quality of their work. Thanks.

Sam's picture

Jaya, Not really an overseas outsourcing...

Jaya,

Not really an overseas outsourcing design firm, but I've found designoutpost.com to be a lot like what you are looking for. You post your job, put up a small contest prize, and designers submit different designs. It's all done through a forum. You can give them feedback and make changes until you have exactly what you like, then you choose the winner, he delivers the files and you deliver the cash.

Takes about a week or two and $50-$500 depending on the task. My whole website was designed (very well) by them and it cost $400. You could probably do fliers and postcards for around $50 - $100.

 
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