When I Choose to Outsource My Chores (Hint: It is Rare)
posted by Presh | 17 April 2008
Outsourcing is not just a business concept. It’s a life philosophy. Divide, delegate, and conquer.
This attitude is why working professionals think about hiring help for cooking and cleaning or even for scheduling medical appointments.
After all, why would do something yourself when you can get someone to do it for you? Our time is too valuable.
And yet, there is a problem. Outsourcing has major limitations.
An example: you could outsource breathing and eating to hospital machines, but I can’t imagine anyone voluntarily choosing tubes. Or another: if pressed for time, you could outsource intimacy with your spouse, but again, I don’t know anyone who wants that.
The fact is it’s not desirable to outsource the most important things. Sometimes it’s not even possible–you can’t outsource getting a full night’s rest. Should we really be working under something so unnatural as sleep deprivation? It’s probably not a good balance–respect your tiredness.
Our obsession with time management and efficiency has pushed us over the edge on outsourcing. To reach a balance, we need to cut back and reconsider self-reliance.
When should one outsource? I sought out a comprehensive and well-researched answer. But I ended up with too many contradictions. I found articles justifying both sides of just about every topic I considered. This is why too much information makes me confused.
So when it’s all said and done, I can’t say. But I have developed a rule of thumb, which I hope can serve as a guide for you too:
Tasks dependent on quality or my preferences—I do myself
Tasks dependent on quantity or expertise—I outsource
The rule is why I make my own pizza dough but usually get delivery for a crowd. Or why I track my own expenses but seek tax expertise.
The rule is interesting for simple tasks like grocery shopping, which most would be quick to outsource. The problem is food depends on preferences, which are hard to fully specify. To outsource effectively, you have know all the items you need, or potentially specify decision rules like “buy oranges if on sale; otherwise wait till next week.” I find it’s more efficient to do it myself.
I’m a particular person, which is why my rule is the opposite of most people: I outsource only when I really need to—out of time constraints or to get an expert opinion. Mostly, I am self-reliant.
Where do you stand?
Friday Fun on the Cheap
I recently discovered Redbox DVD kiosks with movies for $1 per night. The discount comes at a cost because the selection is typically limited to recent popular movies. One nice thing is Redbox offers many promo codes for free movies. You can also view movie availability from their website before you head out, which is very nice.
My latest pick was Juno, which was highly amusing. Roger Ebert thinks so highly of it that he admits to watching it three times, but I’m not sure I’d go that far.
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8 Responses to “When I Choose to Outsource My Chores (Hint: It is Rare)”
Outsourcing is great idea but we cant change the mere fact that it can also have a good or bad effect on us. We cant rely everything that we need to do by just simply do some outsourcing. We must also use our physical bodies to do our duties.
I prefer to do my work personally than depend it to other person so that if my work encounter some error at least its my fault and i don’t have to blame other person.
By bernice.0418 on Apr 18, 2008
So funny - I just hired someone to come clean my house tomorrow. Something I’ve never done, but I’ve reached that point. I don’t like the expense, and not being self-reliant, but I have committed myself to other things that I don’t want to change.
Plus, I did an extensive cost-benefit analysis so I know it’s worth it.
By Milena on Apr 18, 2008
Presh
I wonder if its not just quality / preferences but also the amount / difficulty of communicating the necessary information.
For example, if you could send a schematic over to an overseas and get the component back, that’d be great.
Recently my company outsourced some work and what we got back required a lot of editing before it fit in with our existing application. Its not that the other company did a bad job, we just could not communicate enough information initially.
By RohoMech on Apr 18, 2008
bernice.0418: I like your point about responsibility too–I see people use outsourcing to shift responsibility, which is not always the best thing for the team.
Milena: This is a funny coincidence. I avoid judging what is important or needed for others, and I hope the experience works out for you.
I know there are many gains to specializing on labor–the idea of comparative advantage. I like to be self-reliant, but I am certainly not ready to milk cows and harvest grains…
RohoMech: Good point. If a task is hard to communicate, then it would be hard to outsource. I find tasks with many details depend on preferences, which are very hard to specify.
By Presh Talwalkar on Apr 18, 2008
One of my friends emailed me this article, and I think that y’all might enjoy it as well.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/magazine/20wwln-lede-t.html?ex=1366344000&en=7bedb195c932de3d&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
The author strongly suggests growing just a few things (herbs, vegetables) on your own for several reasons: reforging a connection with the environment, understanding where food comes from, tastiness, and the sheer sense of accomplishment when you finish cooking a meal you grew yourself. Even if it’s one small salad from a planter sized garden in your apartment.
I thought it especially appropriate as a response to Presh’s comment that he’s not ready to milk cows or harvest grains. I agree both grains and livestock require expertise I’m willing to pay for in the grocery store, but if you’re making your own pizza dough, that’s already more involved in making your own food than many folks make time for these days.
By David on Apr 22, 2008
David: Just from your comment I sensed the article was from Michael Pollen, author of “In Defense of Food.” This book has been suggested several times by readers before–I’m very curious to read it now.
By Presh Talwalkar on Apr 22, 2008
The fundamental decision that goes into any outsourcing decisions are to ask the following questions.
1.) Is this our core competency?
2.) If this is not, are we doing it at low cost?
3.) If it is not low cost, is it differentiated enough to provide a competitive advantage?
A common mistake people make is to underestimate the work effort that will have to be outsourced. And then when the outsourcer presents the bill with the real work effort they find that it was cheaper to do it inhouse.
The analogy I can think of is that you outsource the cleaning of your home and the outsourcer is assuming that “home” is your living area and quotes a price which is low. And then when the shoes drop with your expectation that you will need to clean the kitchen, bedroom etc, you can’t back out and you will find that doing it inhouse was much cheaper. And if you did not want to clean the house anyway, the cost probably does not matter.
By Mahesh on Apr 23, 2008
Mahesh: You present an excellent explanation–I’m going to use this thought-process when making business decisions.
I like your house analogy a lot. I’d like to add one more point that experts and hired help are likely to point out problems you would have never noticed, but now that you know them, you ought to fix it.
An example: my friend hired outside help to clean his house, and they noticed his crystal chandelier was cloudy. He never cared about it before, but now that he knew it was a problem, it annoyed him so much he had to pay to get it cleaned.
By Presh Talwalkar on Apr 23, 2008