When business picks up, the first thing owners and entrepreneurs consider is hiring additional team members to support everything from sales and customer service to bookkeeping and website maintenance at the office or store. However, hiring someone to support with non-business tasks at home can be even more beneficial to saving time and increasing productivity.
Spending more time on work-related tasks often creates a time deficit at home, leading to increased stress. The catch-22 is that when you have healthy balanced meals, a clean home and fresh laundry, it’s easier to tackle the growth of your business and challenges that come up.
It may feel like only Fortune 500 CEOs have home “staff,” but most people are already outsourcing personal tasks such as going out to dinner instead of cooking at home, babysitters, getting an oil change and going for a haircut. Here are three ways you can leverage your time with non-business support.
1. Outsource Repetitive Tasks
No matter how much you work, there will always be laundry to do, floors to vacuum and food to prepare for your household. Often these are not highly-skilled tasks but they are time-consuming. Consider hiring a personal assistant who can work a couple hours a week to reduce your to do list.
Task ideas: grocery shopping, food prep, general cleaning, laundry, personal filing, yard maintenance, wrapping gifts and errands such as car maintenance or mailing packages.
2. Hire Out Specialized Tasks
In our businesses we often outsource highly-skilled tasks such as tax preparation, website creation or legal contracts. Consider the personal projects you’re tackling that take a lot of time and energy because it’s not your area of expertise, and look for a professional to hire who can work faster with better results.
Task ideas: landscape design, painting, filing personal taxes, selling items online or locally, tailoring clothing, packing for a move and financial planning.
3. Get Support on Bigger Projects
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Oftentimes we have larger personal projects that weigh on our minds but are difficult to get started and break down into doable steps. Hiring help to manage a big goal can move it along a lot faster and free up energy and focus for your growing business.
Task ideas: moving to a new home, organizing that overdue family reunion, wedding planning, cleaning the garage, a home remodel project or even researching upcoming vacation locations.
When you’re considering what to get help on, ask yourself what personal projects and tasks are consuming a significant amount of your free time, creating a distraction or need to be handled urgently. By setting a budget and finding support to fit your family’s needs, you can reduce your workload and stress.
Comments
This makes sense to me.