I've been reading the best-selling book by Timothy Ferriss, "The 4-Hour Workweek." So far it's gotten me to think about ways to be more efficient, and that alone makes the book worth perusing. I find myself thinking about what I'm doing as I go through my day and evaluating whether tasks really add value to what I'm doing or are time-wasting distractions. (I don't think I'm going to shrink my workweek to four hours, however.)
One of the recommendations Timothy makes is to limit checking your email to twice a day - before lunch and at 4pm. Immediately I thought to myself, this would not work for online retailers. They have to be on top of their email. And eBay sellers are particularly challenged - eBay buyers expect immediate answers to their questions.
However, Timothy suggests outsourcing tasks, and I know larger sellers have employees handling email customer support. Is it possible for a 1-man or 1-woman eBay business to outsource the email process? Or is it possible an email auto-responder system could work well enough to let sellers limit email-checking to twice (or even three times) a day? That's even the premise for HostedSupport.com.
Timothy suggests outsourcing other business tasks (and even suggests outsourcing personal tasks). In my podcast with Doggy Pads' founder, Mark Stern explained how he outsourced the entire fulfillment process using Shipwire.com. (And I noticed Randy Smythe recently blogged about outsourcing using Amazon by Fulfillment.)
As it happens, eLance's public relations firm contacted me earlier this week to let me know about a contest they are running. If you answer this question - "How would you use a virtual assistant to grow your business or improve your personal life?" - you could win $5,000 to put toward a "Virtual Assistant," a concept I'm just getting to in Timothy Ferriss' book. (Timothy is one of the judges of the eLance contest.)
Have you read "The 4-Hour Workweek," and have you found the ideas useful? Which ideas go too far? What are your time-saving techniques? And how would you use a virtual assistant?
