The beginnings of my outsourced life
16 January 2010 | blog,General,Introspective | Comments Off
I’m currently experimenting with my life in ways that I wish I would have a few years ago. Tearing a page from Tim Ferriss’ playbook I’m testing assumptions left and right. I’ve already chronicled the elimination of physical media. In February it’s likely I’ll sell my beloved big screen TV, home theater system, all my gaming systems and my AppleTV as well. I know that I couldn’t have done this before now but it’s interesting to think how things might be different if I had. This however is not the intention of this blog post but rather the new in-flow of products in my life.
I’m beginning to believe that I can have anything physical delivered to my house. And since the start of the year it’s proven remarkably easy with a little planning. Books and content are now all digital and get delivered immediately. Physical books get delivered in 2 days from Amazon but those have only been gifts for folks and not things I’m keeping. I’ve even shipped packages from my house without even seeing the delivery service guy.
The two things that I regularly left the house for in my car were work and groceries and well the FitBit now has inspired me to walk to and from work every day and Safeway’s ridiculously good grocery delivery service has completely replaced the grocery runs. Maybe this makes me really lazy but I can’t describe the excitement I get every time the grocery delivery truck pulls up.
I used to hate grocery shopping. I don’t really care or get “food” which is something that many friends are constantly disappointed about. Accordingly, going to get food was never a great experience. I am not nearly as educated as I should be regarding this area of life and I’m sure that that’s a big reason why I am so meh on it. What I really hated though was the time it took to go to the grocery store, find something that seemed appealing and then check out, drive home and walk through the apartment complex loaded up with multiple plastic bags and finally organize it. Now I’ve got a personal shopper who picks fruit and meat better than I ever could and brings the bags into my kitchen. The kicker is the price of this service: free. Or at least it has been for the few times I’ve had deliveries now. I know Safeway is simply fostering this purchase process to becoming a habit during my first two months but seriously, I’ll take that versus all the hassle. When it comes time to pay $10 per delivery I’ll gladly pay when grabbing a week’s worth of groceries.
I can already see the next step on this delivery/outsourcing kick though: outsourcing my diet to an online nutritionist who will not only select which recipes to help me eat better but speak with my personal shopper (or virtual assistant) to make sure the food is here at the house for me to make. The ultimate goal is to remove me from the cooking process even by having a personal chef come here and prepare meals twice a week. (If that sounds like something you’re willing to do and you live here in Phoenix, shoot me an email.)
So the question becomes what will I do when my apartment is empty but full of food and I no longer need to leave the house other than to go for strolls around the park and walk to work? Probably work on more side projects which in turn make me happy and not just the ones that have a positive financial impact. I’m continuing to test assumptions to see if there are other constructs I can outsource and/or simply have delivered so I can simply do the things I want to.
The question I pose to you is as follows: What are you doing simply out of habit that you dislike and could be letting someone else handle? Have you considered outsourcing it or simply having it delivered?