How I Outsourced My Life to a Virtual Assistant
Here are the Outsourcing companies I’m reviewing for my voyage into hiring a Virtual Assistant:
“Step 3… A is for automation” begins the 4th track in my audio book “The 4 Hour Work Week“.
To my utter surprise… only a few days after reading the article “My Outsourced Life” I started hearing the EXACT SAME article being read to me through my speakers! I was shocked at the amazing coincidence. I hadn’t even expected that this book had anything to do with outsourcing, let alone outsourcing to India!?
My outsourcing juices are really flowing now. Ferriss makes an excellent point in this chapter… paraphrasing, he says that the steps of going through the process of initiating a relationship with a virtual assistant is more valuable than the instant benefits of the work they perform. The learning and experience related with the process… getting one’s feet wet is what counts. It is here and now that I commit to at least testing a virtual assistant relationship. I will also document the process of How I Outsourced My Life!
12/30/07 Update: The more exposure I get to Tim Ferriss and his philosophy the more I am impressed and excited. I’ve been devouring everything I can get my hands on as it relates to his DEAL principles. A great summary of some of the concepts I really like can be found here: http://manisheriar.com/blog/my-life-may-have-just-been-changed
Today I did some browsing on the net for companies and information on outsourcing and came across an article called “My Outsourced Life” by A. J. Jacobs. Wonderful article that ties hand in hand with what I learned reading “The World Is Flat.”
Even though the article was mostly focused on personal assistant, almost secretarial tasks, I started to get a few ideas about how I could leverage a virtual assistant to do a bunch of my busy work.
Two companies are mentioned in the article that I’m going to look into: Brickwork India and YMII (Your Man In India).
Now that I’ve finished World Is Flat I need some new listenings. I searched CALIFA and find a book on tape called “The 4 Hour Work Week” by Timothy Ferriss. Sounded interesting so I downloaded it and started listening. I’m only about an hour into it and so far not totally impressed. It seems that the author is a bit “over the top” about only checking email once a week. That may sound appealing to some, but not at all interesting to me. The tonality of the book also seems a bit “Tony Robbins” for my taste, but that could also be the style of the person reading the book. People love the book so I’m going to stick with it.
Finished the book – really impressed – fired up for outsourcing – nuff said!