Do you enjoy mowing the lawn?

When my first daughter was born, my working days looked like most agency owners':

Starting early, ten or twelve hours in, and then coming home to what was effectively a second shift. My wife was tending to the baby, which meant that when I finished work, I'd cook, then clean, then handle whatever else the house needed.

By the time I sat down, the evening was gone, I was exhausted, and the small amount of time I'd expected to spend with my family had evaporated.

After too many months running my life this way, I sat down at the end of another achingly long day and thought: “this makes no sense… what am I doing”

What felt like a second later I booked a food service.

Someone who'd come to the house twice a week, cook enough food for two days at a time, clean up after themselves, and leave. The cost was about a hundred and thirty to a hundred and fifty dollars per visit. Which sounds like a lot until you compare it to our Door Dash bill, which was running around five to six hundred a week - because when you're that tired at the end of a day, you don't cook, you order in.

The food service was cheaper, it was significantly healthier and it gave me back an evening at a time, twice a week.

Then a cleaning service, on similar logic.

Then Instacart for groceries.

Then a concierge service for travel planning, because my wife and I aren't travel agents, and every hour we'd spent researching hotels and building itineraries (I mean this takes forever right?) was an hour we weren't spending on things we were better at.

I pretty much developed a new mantra at this point.

“outsource the thing that doesn't require your specific skill, and reclaim the mental capacity for the things that do”

Now, the test I run on any given task is simply: Do I enjoy doing it?

If the answer is yes (if mowing your lawn is the thing that lets you zone out on a Saturday morning, if cooking is where you decompress, if grocery shopping is a restorative errand for you) then keep doing it.

I'm not going to tell anyone to outsource something they enjoy.

That would be missing the point entirely.

But if the answer is no (if you're doing the task because it feels like you should be doing it, or because outsourcing feels indulgent, or because you can't quite justify spending money on something you technically could do yourself) that's the signal.

I think a subtle guilt around outsourcing holds a lot of people back.

The feeling is something like I should be able to handle this myself or this is what a normal adult does.

But you're not running a normal adult's life.

You're running a business that requires a specific version of your attention and energy, and every task you're doing that doesn't require your specific attention and energy is eroding both.

If you're making over ten thousand dollars a month in your business, the opportunity cost of your time is significantly higher than the cost of the services that could reclaim it. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, groceries, travel logistics - each of these can be outsourced for less per hour than what your time is worth to your business.

So write down the things you don't enjoy doing that you're currently doing anyway and outsource them.

I guarantee you’ll be blown away by the quality of the time you get back.

Nick

P.S.

When you’re ready, here are three ways I can help:

1. Find out what your agency could sell for

2. Identify the biggest profit leaks in your agency

3. Book me to deliver a keynote at your event