Laziness gets a bad rep. I may not be the kind of person to spend her entire day in her pajamas, but even I like to indulge in a bit of laziness every now and again.
“I will always choose a lazy person to do a hard job because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”
You know who said that?
Bill Gates! Even he approves of a bit of laziness. Read more
Let’s be honest. We all hold ourselves back in some way or another.
When we start to fall into a bad habit, it’s so much easier to blame something or someone else than to get to the root of the problem. When it comes to poor productivity habits, I’ve heard all the excuses.
I’ve been over a few of them before, but there are so many I thought I’d go over a few that you might be telling yourself these days and help you get past them:
“I’d be more organized if I had more money”
This excuse differs from the others in the sense that it is – technically – true. If we all had the money to afford personal assistants of course we would be more organized!
But just because you’re on a budget doesn’t mean you have to give up on organization altogether. There are plenty of free apps to help you plan your day. If all else fails pen and paper is pretty cheap!
Fix: Stop focusing on what you don’t have and start thinking about what you do. Read more
**There’s an UPDATE to this story…Quicker Than a Celeb Marriage…Zirtual is Back!**
If you follow my blog regularly you know that I’m a huge fan of outsourcing. I’ve given lots of ideas of what to get off your to-do list by giving it to someone else. Plus I’ve talked about some of the best new apps and websites to help with your outsourcing. The good and bad of some of these new startups is that some can’t hack it in the startup world.
Enter: Zirtual.
I’ve told a lot of people about this service and I even mentioned it in my book Listful Thinking — so I feel it’s only fair to give you the skinny and a few alternatives to keep on outsourcing.
Outsourcing website Zirtual has closed its doors. Due to an accounting error almost 400 employees lost their jobs overnight. According to Fortune’s interview with the CEO Maren Kate Donovan — Zirtual outsourced some of its financial management to a Silicon Valley company which provided turnkey CFO support and services.
Unfortunately a payroll error went unnoticed and Zirtual projections had missed two additional payroll cycles. With hundreds of employees, that’s a lot of unaccounted money.
So they had to close up shop quick!
Sadly Zirtual has not yet announced any plans for reimbursing customers who had not used all their hours. Startups.co aquired Zirtual after this snafu and they will most likely strike a deal with old Zirtual customers to keep their business. But I don’t know what that deal will be.
Even if you’re not a Zirtual customer — we can learn an important lesson from Zirtual. Just because you have outsourced a task doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check in on that task every once in a while.
Here are some replacement apps you can try:
Fancy Hands – Outsourcing is one of the best ways to get more done. Fancy Hands is like having your own virtual personal assistant. Assistants can do research for you, make appointments and even make annoying calls to customer service on your behalf. They just can’t do any physical tasks.
TaskRabbit.com – Similar to Fancy Hands, except they do physical tasks as well. TaskRabbit is great for crossing items off your list like putting together Ikea furniture or picking up groceries and laundry. Currently, TaskRabbit is available in 18 cities across the United States, as well as in London.
Alfred – This service specializes in taking care of your chores for you, which you know I’m all about. The cheapest package is a tidy-up service that costs $15 a week, including things like making the bed, doing the dishes and taking out the trash. If you want the option to ask for something special, like food delivery, you’ll shell out $22 bucks a week. Alfred is only currently available in New York City and Boston.
How do you outsource your tasks?
Some mornings when I wake up – I start running through all the things I need to do that day in my head. Even though I already have my to-do list written from the night before. Does this happen to you? But I’ll tell you what I don’t do – I don’t think of things that I need to STOP doing. And I would bet you don’t either. But maybe we should…
The New Year is coming up and you might already be thinking about your resolutions, which I think are a waste of time if they aren’t super targeted. Maybe you want to stop obsessively checking your emails, or drinking less soda. Why not start with some simple things so you’ll be in good shape when the New Year rolls around? Read more
Just wanted to remind you all that I’m doing a live call tonight to help you get more done! If you have an endless to-do list sitting in front of you — listen up. You do not have to do all the things on that list. It’s true! Give yourself a break and get a little help. I’m talking about outsourcing your tasks to get someone else to do them for you so you can get your time and your sanity back.
Just because you CAN do all the things on that list, doesn’t mean you HAVE to do all those things yourself. There are major benefits that come from having an extra set of hands.
If you’d like ideas on what exactly you can outsource from your to-do list and how to get it done cheaply — join me and Speek’s Chief Operating Officer, Konrad Waliszewski, for a virtual fireside chat on Speek:
When: Wednesday, September 10 at 8:00 PM Eastern
Where: www.speek.com/SpeekOut Read more