How to Clone Yourself!
How many of us have wished at times that we could clone ourselves? Delegating to a personal assistant is a simple way to reclaim hours of your time and free you up to do what you are best at doing. Think this is not for you? Think again and read on! We’re going to cover how to afford it, how to find one, how to pay them, and ideas for what they can do.
“Isn’t a personal assistant just for rich people and celebrities?”
I am talking about a responsible high school or college student with a car who would love to make a little extra cash helping you out, kind of like a babysitter. You can utilize this person as little as 1-2 hours per week, so almost anyone who can afford a babysitter can probably afford a personal assistant. You can reclaim 2 hours of your time for about $16-20 per week, depending on the going pay rate in your area. This is like foregoing one or two lunches out, a few lattes, or a night at the movies. Of course, you could also hire a professional personal assistant or household manager, but that is definitely a full- or part-time job and a whole other article.
Don’t forget about the value of your time! You can do the math with your salary to find out how much you make per hour. Does it make sense for you to be sitting and waiting in a Jiffy Lube when you could be getting more productive things done?
“What about the ‘nanny tax’ issue? I don’t want to be an employer.”
You can pay someone as much as $1500 in one year (in 2007 in the US) and not have to worry about being an employer and paying taxes. That amount means that you could pay someone about $28 each week for 52 weeks without worrying about it, which if you pay the person $8 per hour, that is 3.5 hours of your time reclaimed! (Readers in the US should check the IRS Publication 926 “Household Employer’s Tax Guide” for questions.) If you plan on exceeding $1500 in one year, you can hire a service to handle all of the details for you. Breedlove & Associates, for example, is a leading provider of payroll and tax services for household employers that can take all of the headaches away.
“How will I find this person?”
If you’ve ever hired a babysitter, it’s just as easy to hire a personal assistant. Your friends and co-workers probably all know some really sharp young person who does babysitting who may not have considered this type of work. Most universities have a job bank or other means for connecting students with work. If you attend a place of worship, they sometimes have babysitter directories and classified ads for members that can help. And you can even post your job on Craigslist.org. Do be careful and check references on anyone you are considering, and get a copy of his or her driver’s license and car insurance information. Do whatever is necessary to make you comfortable with this person.
“What can this person do for me?”
- Groceries and other household purchasing
- Car washes, oil changes and other car maintenance
- Watch and jewelry repairs
- Dry cleaning and alterations pickups
- Shopping returns and exchanges
- Prescription pickups
- Video store and library returns
- Bank deposits
- Pet-sitting, pet care, taking animals to the vet
- House-sitting while you travel
- Business card entry, spreadsheet maintenance, or other simple data entry
- Calling for reservations or making other arrangements on your behalf
- Scanning, filing, shredding
- Transporting items to and from home, office, or school
- Transporting children
- Dishes, laundry, straightening up the house
One way to do this is to save up your errands and have this person come over once a week. Think about how wonderful it would be to reclaim even just 2 hours of your week for other things that are more important! Make it happen!
Lorie Marrero is a Professional Organizer and creator of The Clutter Diet, an innovative, affordable online program for home organization. Lorie’s site helps members lose “Clutter-Pounds” from their home by providing online access to her team of organizers. Lorie writes something useful, funny, interesting, and/or insanely practical every few days or so in the Clutter Diet Blog. She lives in Austin, TX, where her company has provided hands-on organizing services to clients since 2000.
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Comments
fasteddie says on March 20th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
I like your idea of “outsourcing” these tasks that distract you from your goals, but I think that at $8-10 per hour you’ll end up getting what you pay for – a high school kid who needs a lot of training, or else tasks that are done wrong and require you to undo, and redo them, which would cost a lot of time.
How about if you spent a little more on having more convenient or deluxe versions of the services you already pay for? Pay a little more to have things picked up and delivered – Dry Cleaning/Laundry, Pizza, prescriptions. Get Netflix or On-Demand instead of videos that need to be returned. Hire a service mow your lawn, clear snow, etc. Pay a travel agent to make your arrangements.
By paying more for “better” services, you can focus your energies on YOUR priorities.
just my 2¢…
BillOGoods says on March 20th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
fasteddie really has it right. My wife and I are attorneys. We have two children, one now in college the other still in high school. About 20 years ago we started “farming out” the lawn mowing, gardening, snow removal, house cleaning, and, most recently, food preparation (three to five nights a week, we’ll pick up prepared meals at local upscale markets. We also have a nanny five days a week for a few hours each day to ensure somebody is home when the kids arrived from school if one of us isn’t.
Now, nobody is claiming this isn’t expensive, but, do the math. People who do good work for you in these areas, even at $25/hour or more are well worth it when you can leverage those services by allowing you to do work paying eight to ten times that rate.
We didn’t just decide one day to employ all these people at once. It’s been a process, but it pays for itself. Why wouldn’t you pay someone for their expert services when it allows you to serve somebody else for multiples of that cost. It’s good business.
As an aside, we have been very fortunate to have some the same nanny since the kids were born and she’s very reliable. We have also been fortunate as our children have never, ever given us cause for concern that they were having social, health, integrity, or personality problems. That would have completely changed our view and caused one or both of us to be home more. Both kids were involved in sports after school, as well, greatly limiting the times they were home alone.
Lorie Marrero says on March 20th, 2007 at 2:27 pm
Hi guys- thanks for your comments! I have a college student who comes to my home once a week and does all of my errands for me, which is what inspired me to write this. Certainly if you have more complex tasks you might need to provide training, but seriously, just having someone take your car to get washed doesn’t require a lot of skill or knowledge. I wrote this article for those thousands of people who have never considered hiring ANY help and haven’t realized how they could get even just a little of their time back. Obviously you guys “get it” about outsourcing– I am preaching to the choir. Thanks! – Lorie
Jay Goldstein says on February 13th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
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Will Pierce says on April 5th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Great life hack! Right on point. I’ve been thinking about this for the last year or so after reading your post. Seemed like something I wouldn’t be able to manage. Making my own cleaners…sure, that’s a science project. I finally stumbled onto the program “Clone Yourself For Fun and Profit.”
Just got it. It’s step by step. Really interesting style. Fun for a business book. And really has me thinking. I’ll let you know more.
I found it at http://www.cloningyourself.com
Lorie…Keep on helping us Hack this So Called Life.
Will
how to be a good personal assistant says on June 2nd, 2009 at 3:33 am
@ Jay Goldstein
yep… I also came across one site named TimeSvr.com
They provide such great virtual assistant services which saves our time and it’s the quickest way to get the things done.
Euwyn says on November 13th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
A VA can’t do everything, but try Optask.com for one-click outsourcing at just 5 cents per minute, on-demand.
Lawrence Perry says on November 24th, 2009 at 11:57 am
The virtual assistant
can be the perfect assistant for companies. This is because companies get the results with less of the cost and less of the stress.