Outsource Your Life Balance?
By David B. Bohl | April 27, 2007 | 2 Responses
Some recent promotional copy that suggested we outsource our time got me to thinking. To me outsourcing means obtaining goods or services from an outside party to cut costs rather than doing them by one’s self. I have to argue, however, that life balance requires in-sourcing. Meaning only you can be trusted with such a critical assignment. You are the only one that has a vested interest in your own life balance.
I wrote a couple of weeks ago back about personal concierge services and how some have billed themselves as an answer to work-life balance. They’re pitching busy people - business owners, executives, working parents, and stay-at-home mothers - on their services.
Their premise isn’t difficult to relate to. We’re all struggling to maintain a balance between our work, family time, personal time, and hours spent with friends and in the community.
The latest pitch I read really got me thinking, however. The promotional copy suggested that we outsource our time. Apparently this would suggest farming out tasks or projects to others to make time for what we like to do, instead of what we have to do. In our instant-gratification society, this may make sense, but it may prove detrimental in the long run.The way I understand outsourcing, it simply means obtaining goods or services from an outside party in order to cut costs rather than doing them by one’s self. Given the above definition, one would outsource duties to a personal concierge in order to make time for other things rather than performing tasks themselves. The promise is that this would create life balance.
I would argue, however, that life balance requires in-sourcing. That is, only you can be trusted with such a critical assignment. You are the only one who truly has a vested interest in your own life balance. Only you can handle the important decisions needed to define and create the life and lifestyle you desire to live.
Sure, effective time management can be a part of achieving life balance. But, unless you have substantial resources - monetary ones to pay for a personal assistant and time to manage that assistant - you may simply be treading water, not balancing your life.
Copyright 2008 David Bohl and SlowDownFast.com. All rights reserved.
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Husband, father, friend, Life Coach and Lifestyle Designer David B. Bohl is the creator of Slow Down FAST at www.slowdownfast.com.
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2 Responses to “Outsource Your Life Balance?”
Comments
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April 27th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
I’m a Single dad and I don’t have problems outsourcing tasks that I either don’t want to do or don’t have the skill for.
Tasks I don’t want to do:
Mow the lawn
Clean my house, etc. I prefer to hire Cleaning people and Gardners to do that so as to free up my time on the weekends for myself and my son, though now that my son is 18 and off doing his own thing its mostly for me.
Tasks I don’t have the Skill for:
Just about any home improvement task.
So for me outsourcing is a very important part of my life.
April 27th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Randy,
I agree. We all do it.
What worries me is the claim that outsorcing is an answer to life balance.
Balancing one’s life certainly includes time management, but it’s so much more than that.
Until we’re able to determine what’s truly important to us - spening the time to figure out where we’re going and why we’re going there - no amount of outsourcing is going to help us define and create well-balanced, fulfilled lives.