So my friend put me onto The Four-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris, and one of the main highlights of his book it to outsource your life. This is were a Virtual Assistant (or Online Personal Assistant) comes in.
I love this concept for many reasons. One - I like to live out my "eccentric billionaire fantasies" as suggested by Tim. I now have someone do things for me like find out if the organic shop home delivers. Maybe I'm not that eccentric yet, but give me time. Two - I can pay someone to do the time-consuming things I need to do to get this online business up and running such as research and writing content. Sweet. My VA can also find me a web-developer and do some book-keeping for me should I ever make any money from this. I'm also getting her to manage my Google Calendar and appointments and do errand-type things (online of course) that annoy me.
My VA's name is Maria and she is from the Philippines. Her going rate is $1.39 per hour. I have hired her for 30 hours per week (less than $42). I feel a bit guilty about paying her so low but she told me she is thrilled to have steady full-time employment and can't believe I have included 4 weeks paid annual leave into her contract. I don't think she cared so much that I said her hours were mostly flexible. But dw, I will give her bonuses and pay rises frequently as incentives for performing well (which I expect she will).
I like the book because it talks about Lifestyle Design, something people often overlook, and it was time for me to redesign mine. It also shows you how to set up a remote and fully-automated business online, something I will attempt. I'll keep you posted. I would love to be able to still help people and their health, but do it from any location I choose at whatever time of day I choose etc. This is what I want for my lifestyle.
Other ways my life is now outsourced - I use MyBudget.com.au to look after my bills and budget etc. I haven't found anything as good as them and I'm happy to keep paying the $25 per week. I have also just hired a house cleaner. I have been considering this one for awhile. Firstly, I kinda hate paying for someone to do something that I can do myself, however I have reconsidered that point since reading the book and now realise that, although I don't mind doing housework, not having enough time to do it at times is the source of about 50% of all the stress in my day-to-day life. That is worth $30 per week to remove. I have also found a good cleaner which makes it even better.
