Thank you so much. Sharing is noble. Keep sharing.
]]>I have needed some photoshop and vector art created for my ppt presentations, however, and have had great success outsourcing that to my virtual assistant with some simple instructions.
If you search Odesk, you’ll probably be able to filter on terms like Powerpoint, presentation, and/or image editing to find a good resource. You can also filter on price and find any price point from $2/hour to $20/hour depending on skills, experience, English proficiency, and location. I recommend trying a few people and if you find one that suites your communication style and speed, stick with him/her! It doesn’t cost much to try a few.
]]>Thank you for your comment. I can tell that you probably have not yet read the 4HWW :). I highly recommend it to you. When you start reading it, you’ll see that your time IS the most scarce commodity!
If you have nothing else to do aside from doing boring stuff that you can outsource, then the problem is NOT that you have too much time. The problem is that you aren’t using it to do things that you like.
So I would tell you to still outsource the boring stufff, and during all the free time, start actively looking for things that you really enjoy. Join clubs, find hobbies, start taking classes, get more involved with professional activities… you might have to try out a few things before you find out what you truly enjoy. Of course that’s just my personal take on things.
]]>Slawomir - thanks for the compliment on the blog. It’s readers like you who keep it gong!
As far as your comment - if you like doing the work, then by all means keep doing it! I completely understand. For example, I find programming addictive. It is not essential to my business or life in general, but i LOVE writing and debugging code. I know its a bit sad, but debugging code to me is a bit like a drug. I can stay up all night trying to get some subroutine to work, and i truly enjoy it.
Can a real programmer write a piece of code waaaay faster and more efficiently then me? Absolutely! But, if I need a subroutine written I might choose to do it myself, because I enjoy it, NOT because i feel like I have to do everything myself.
The main difference being choosing your activities and “having” to do them.
]]>Great comment!
Come to think of it, you’re right! I do not waste time in “group and committee meetings, coffee breaks, safety meetings, or shooting the bull with the person who delivers the mail” when working with a client, as you cleverly pointed out. Good point to bring up with potential clients.
Masha
]]>Thank you for your comments! Glad to hear that you all have found value in outsourcing and in cheap labor of collage interns (I payed my dues as an intern, so I am allowed to say that).
Babette, you are absolutely right about engineers being afraid of brining in consultants, because they think that they will be seen as unable to do their job, if a consultant is called in. But the truth is, if you are a good, smart qualified engineer and a researcher, you should never be afraid that someone might snatch your job from underneath you, because you should be creative enough to constantly learn and re-invent yourself and your work, so that you are always providing value to the company, even if a consultant is able to do a part of your job more efficiently.
When engineers understand how to work with, and learn from, outside consultants instead of being threatened by them, the in-house engineer’s value and job security increases tremendously.
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