Notes on outsourcing

As I write this blog there’s a man on the roof of our shed, clearing a huge ivy plant.. It feels a bit weird to have someone sorting this out for us while I sit inside tapping on a computer. However, it’s something I am getting the hang of this year since I took the step to ask someone to clear some trees, and then made the leap to  arrange for a pair of gardeners to come in once a month to wrestle the overwhelming grasses that just keep on growing. It is a bit embarrassing that we don’t seem to be able to do what they do in a swift two hours … but it is so nice to have a manageable garden for the first time since moving here 20 years ago.

As a freelancer, it shouldn’t really be a surprise how good this feels. After all, I make a living from stepping in to carry out the writing and editing tasks which come more easily to me than to my clients. I don’t look down on these people for not wanting to do that work, or for not being able to do it as well as I can … I’m GLAD they want to hand over these tasks.

The other thing I outsourced this year was installing the Blabber theme on this website. Setting up the site has mostly been a DIY project (as described in this article on how to set up a website) but that particular task was just one step too far for me, so someone in Bangladesh put it into place, and someone in Pakistan sorted out the updates, via the Envato Studio. Again, I felt a bit hopeless and out of my depth in my correspondence with them, but both freelancers were very nice about explaining what information I needed to send to them at each step along the way.

Receiving the upgraded versions of my website was amazing, and a real step up in professionalism and blogging power. It thrills me to see what can happen by adding a widget here or there, and all the fancy connections to other posts within the site.

This feeling of a ‘step up’ is why I recommend you try outsourcing your hard or impossible tasks if you are a freelancer of any kind. You will understand how your clients feel when they hand over a task to you and receive the improvements you can make to their projects (or property).