When do I hire something out rather than doing it myself?
Why would I pay someone else to do the work that I know I can do?
Have you ever asked these questions when you had a project that you needed to tackle?
Now that I am hedging closer to that 40 years old mark and I am really having to weigh out how much work I should be doing and how much I should be hiring out. My father taught me quite a bit to be handy around the house. I can change out electrical outlets, switches, lights, ceiling fans, tiling, roofs, plumbing, do spreadsheets, sell, etc.
I can do even more now with all the experiences I have had with homes including flipping one while I did all of the work. Most of the time I would have extra experience as I would have to do it twice do to trying to short cut something. A good rule of thumb in my experience is that a well performed project should not reveal extra screws, bolts, or other retention components when are you finished.
What I have sometimes wondered is if I am at a deficit because I am capable of using my own hands and time to do quite a bit. I struggle with that I can do the project, but is it the most beneficial use of my time. I want to do it to show myself that I can, but is this approach worth it? This has been hard because small projects are very therapeutic for me. I can work on something that is completed in a small amount of time compared to most of my projects that take months upon months to work on. It’s nice to be able to step back and look at something that I have created with my own hands. The issue is that I am doing this at a cost that I have never previously rationalized.
My mentor when I first got into sales taught me that wealthy people put a value on TIME. When working on projects, thinking about investments, they calculate the cost of their time that will be invested in the project. Time is something that we have a limited supply of. When we are born time seems to be ticking away until we finally expire. We can not add hours in the day, multiply our time, we can only invest our time into those areas that we feel most important.
Lately I have had to start hiring out the work on my house so I can keep moving my business and projects forward. I have had to put a value per hour that I would have to pay myself to perform the task. If the quotes from contractors come in lower, or even close to my cost, I typically hire them to perform the work even if I am capable of doing it. Most of the time they can actually do the work faster as well.
I recently had to have two foundation walls on my house dug up, pushed back straight, reinforced, sealed, and then back filled. Now I am fully capable in doing this work, but it would have taken me months to complete. I did not have the time to do this on top of everything I am working on. It took the contractor three weeks to complete and I was able to work on other projects. The cost for them to do all this work and in the time they did it was less than it would have taken me. Sure, I would have been able to use digging equipment which would have been fun, but they did it for cheaper than I could with all of the time that would have been involved from me to do the project.
When preparing for that next project, career change, purchase of a home, or moving dirt think about the cost of your time as a function of the investment. Think about the amount of work and hours that you will need to complete. Then think about how much it would cost for you to do the work compared to hiring it out so you can be freed up to do other things that are more important.
For those of you looking for a new job, this should definitely be part of your decision if you are going to change companies. If the new company that you are interviewing is for instance 15 minutes each way longer of a drive, you need to calculate that into your salary expectations? See 15 minutes each way is 30 minutes a day. Multiplied by five working days a week is 2 ½ hours a week more driving when you could be doing something else. Now assuming you have to only work 48 weeks a year that is 120 hours a hear you will be in the car more than in your current position. Say you make $25/ hour, that is $3000 a year that you are losing to driving. That is also not calculating the operating costs of your vehicle or fuel.
Next time you are figuring out a budget for a project you are about to take part in make sure you are also figuring in how much your time is worth. It may reveal that training someone else may be able to do the smaller items so that you can focus on the higher value items. If you are looking for a new career figure out the time investment and keep the focus on if it will get you closer to where you want to be in the time frame you are working with.
Time is a precious commodity and we need to protect it’s value!
Sincerely,
Kevin Sidebottom