Before you start thinking about outsourcing, you really need to think about how you actually work. Are you a morning person or are you a night person? Do you like to work in an office setting or do you like to work at a café?
So let’s start with are you a morning person? People who aren’t morning people, tend not to understand morning people. Not everybody is good until their coffee kicks in. Other people like to work before the sun gets up. I get up early and as the army says, “we get more done before 9:00 in the morning, then the rest of the world does all day or something to that effect”.
Early Birds and Night Owls
Time of day can also be a factor in figuring out how best to outsource. Let’s say you are an early bird and you are able to batch things bright and early in the morning? That gives you options to use many outsourcing services that are locally based – or at least in your same time zone. In most cases, you want to be able to outsource tasks so they are ready when you’re ready to deal with them again the following day. You may find that if you’re doing things early morning that using an off shore virtual assistant in say India or the Philippines may not work as well for you. This is because we’re doing work at the time that their day is typically ending. People that work a normal eight to five can generally outsource stuff so that it is ready for them the next morning. But if you’re an early morning person that may not be the best. You may have be able to better leverage local talents that are within the same time zone as you.
Let’s say you are at your best later in the day. You may be a night owl. That actually works very well for outsourcing to either the Philippines or of the Far East.
How You Work
Outsourcing isn’t just about when you work, it’s about how you work. Do you typically follow a kind of a Pomodoro timer? This is basically a sprint to do work followed by a period of rest. Rinse and repeat. Other people just plow right through until they get exhausted.
We are conditioned to work in a model where we start work at say 8:00, we take a break at 10, we take our 30 minute lunch at noon and another big break at 2:30 and then we go home at 4:30 or five. Your exact hours may very but you get the idea. Unfortunately, this is really not how people are most conducive to working. People, tend to work best in 70-90 minute sprints. And unlike most of the United States, the rest of the world has found that naps are good for both work and for a productivity in general.
Where You Work
Location is also an important consideration. Some people like to have an office in their home, but for other people that drives them nuts. Some entrepreneurs have been known to actually wake up early in the morning and drive for half an hour just to come back to their house. They do this just so that they’ve got the time to clear their head and focus on things before sitting down to work.
Other people like to roll out of bed and get right to work. Even within a particular location, people’s approach to working there is going to be different. Some people need to have an office or they like to be at a location like a Starbucks where they can have a cup of coffee. It varies for everyone. If you’re one of the people that needs an office but doesn’t want an office in their house, you may find that using a shared office meets your needs.
I had a shared office at one point. It was very nice, but I prefer to work at home. I am considering using one again but for a different mix of services. If you need a location with shared services like mail or conference facilities than a shared office location might be the right solution for you. It’s really an a la carte outsourced office. Some people use it a couple of days a week, others may use it more frequently. Some people may only use their facilities a couple times a month. There are chains that are propping up worldwide that you can basically use the same shared office facility in many major cities. This could be a solution for those of you that want to have a corporate presence without the corporate overhead.
