Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's tip is that when you outsource, you're still a resource. You can't check something entirely off your list. Even if you hire someone else to do it, you still have
to do a little management and supervision. So it's best to focus on how you are saving ninety percent of the time you would have spent on a task, rather than get frustrated about the ten percent that likely won't go away. Longtime listeners know that I advocate outsourcing lots of things. Often a manageable amount of money can free
up a good bit of time. Than spending your weekends cleaning or running errands, you can spend them hanging out with your family at work rather than handling every detail. You hire a team to specialize, and you provide direction. Even for folks who work for themselves, having an in person or virtual assistant can be quite helpful. Here's the thing, though, When you outsource a task that would otherwise fall to you and that actually needs to get done, you won't
be able to let it go completely. You will need to have some level of involvement it will just be way less involvement than when you are handling the task directly. People are much happier when they focus on the reduction rather than the small amount of lingering mental load. So, for instance, you might like to imagine that hoving house cleaners come every week means that you won't ever have to spend time cleaning your house again, but that is
not entirely true. At the beginning, you will need to show the cleaners around the house and let them know how you like things. Some weeks you might need to ask for some area to get extra attention, really spiffing up the guest room, for instance, Because company is coming, you'll probably wind up picking up things before the cleaners come, so anything small and important does an inadvertently get put
in the wrong spot. You will need to tell the cleaners when you are canceling a week because you are on vacation or moving the time because you're having a party at the exact moment the cleaners usually come. If you get the same team every week, my guess is you will want to build a relationship with these people to the extent that it is possible, so they will tell you if they see anything out of the ordinary. Now you know about that's leak in the bathroom a
week earlier than you would have. And of course, if the cleaners are cleaning your kitchen on Wednesday, that really just doesn't do your dishes on Saturday. So even if your house cleaners do almost everything, you can't check house cleaning off your list completely. You will be a lot less annoyed by the little things you have to do when you remember that fact. Likewise, as convenient as grocery delivery can be, someone still has to order and put
away the groceries. You might also want to check your bags to ensure you received what you ordered. That means fewer unpleasant surprises when it's time to cook dinner. And if you're hiring a full time staff member at work, you probably can't just hand this person a job description and assume everything listed will get done exactly as you
want without you lifting a finger. If you hire a direct report to support your work and take on some things you've done yourself, you still need to be a resource. You may not have to perform the work yourself anymore, but supervising and supporting your direct reports does require time and attention. Nothing else you want to keep these people happy. This concept of still needing to do some work, even if you have offloaded a lot even comes into play
with the idea of passive income. You probably can't get any category of work in your life down to absolute zero. I maintain that there aren't a whole lot of truly passive forms of income out there. I get royalty checks from books I wrote fifteen years ago, but that is because I am still out here in the world talking about time management all the time. Even dividends and interest require bookkeeping and making sure your accountant has the right forms.
Most forms of so called passive income require way more work than that. If you have a rental property, even if you use a property management company, you will need to make sure that they get paid, and you'll need to check in occasionally to see that they are doing
a good job. If you've got a website where people can pay for virtual courses, even if you've already made the courses, you'll need to check that the websitet is still working as it's supposed to, And if the search engines change their algorithms, you will need to update things too. So it goes If you are hoping to spend one hundred percent of your hours on leisure. This would all be really annoying, but when you recognize that the reduction in time is large, you can choose to focus on that.
There is no free lunch. There are very few instances in life where you can get something done and have nothing required of you. So when a little bit is required of you and a lot is done by someone else, best not to resent the little you have to do. If you have made wise choices and train people well, it probably will be just a little after a while, which is a lovely thing. Indeed, what have you outsourced successfully? You can let me know at Laura at Laura vandercam
dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura Vancam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.