I’m generally the kind of guy who tries to do everything themselves. If given a task I’ll generally try to figure out how to do it myself and take care of it. This ensures quality control and allows me to continually learn new things. My perfectionist / OCD side won’t let me trust others to handle things that I want done in a very particular and exacting way. This can be a good trait and a bad trait. It’s good because it means I can have control over a project to do it how I want, it saves money, I take accountability for when things go well (or bad), and I don’t have to go through the hassle of teaching others just how I want something done. It can also be a bad time because there are only so many hours in the day and despite the fact that I’ve taught myself to be proficient in many domains, I’m frequently not an expert in some of the things I do. So while the end product oftens looks and comes off as being made or done by a specialist the time invested is often significantly greater. Normally I don’t mind and chalk it up to being resourceful while saving money. But a couple times in the past few months I’ve really come to see the value in being able to outsource tasks others. Be honest with how much time, expertise, and money you have and make decisions accordingly. In some cases you’ll find that you’ll find that a short term loss will turn in to a long term gain. This is particularly true when teaching someone else to do the job you would normally do or when paying for a freelancer or 3rd party to handle something and using the saved time to do something that will earn more money than what you spent to outsource.
1 comment
ELNORABanks
February 27, 2010
[...] I force myself to get things done. I will say that this has backfired on me at times and that trying to do everything is never a good [...]