Let's say you're an organized go-getter and are looking for ways to be even more efficient. Or, more realistically, you're a disorganized person who's drowning in work both at the office and at home, with six loads of unfolded laundry holding you back even more. The Internet, savior of saviors, allows anyone to simply outsource all kinds of "work" quickly and cheaply. You can hire someone to assemble your Ikea Poäng chair, look up complicated information, book hotel reservations, proofread your resume, and so much more. But does it work, and what can you really get done with personal outsourcing? Here are a few different services for personal outsourcing and what you can get done with each of them. Task Rabbit, one of the better-known personal outsourcing sites, connects job seekers to people who need help with a huge assortment of tasks. A few acquaintances have told me they were happy to pay the going rate to hire someone to pick up their dry cleaning and run other kinds of errands.
I've never used the service, myself, though. You can post a job to TaskRabbit and opt to review the rates people are willing to accept to do the work, or automatically take the first person who bids on the job. The site makes it easy for people looking to hire help to read review of workers who have completed tasks in the past for other hiring parties. TaskRabbit is limited to a few geographic areas: Austin, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and Orange County, Portland, New York, San Antonio, the San Francisco Bay area, and Seattle, although if the work can be completed virtually (like proofreading a resume), the work is fair game to post. Rates vary for work, and you don't have to pay until the task is completed, but you do have to fork over your credit card details before taking bids on assignments. Sivi ($5 per task) Think of Sivi as an email-based alternative to Apple's Siri, but with real humans powering the intelligence. When signed up for Sivi to investigate its services, I got one free credit good for a single task.
You can't ask the workers on Sivi to do anything physical, but you can ask them complicated questions that you don't have time to research, or to make reservations. I actually did have a fairly complicated question ready to go. My health insurance is about to change at the start of the new year, but I want to see a doctor before the end of the current year. I hadn't had the time to research which medical practices within a specified geographic area accepted both insurance plans… and had female doctors and were accepting new patients. So that's what I asked. Sivi promises to send your answer or confirmation of task completion to your email inbox within a few hours. Sure enough, by the following morning, I had an answer that met all my criteria. Sivi's assistants sent me the name, phone number, address, and website of the medical practice. The only part the assistant neglected to mention was whether she or he checked that new patients were being accepted, which can sometimes be a problem in an overcrowded city like New York.
I called the practice (like, a week later, because I still put off) and sure enough, new patients were welcomed. My appointment is in two weeks. Fiverr ($5 per task) Another virtual-only task outsourcing site, Fiverr, has a bizarre list of things people will do for five bucks, some absurd ("I will sing a Christmas song in a sparkly thong to the person of your choice and send you the video") and some downright useful ("I will remotely clean up your computer, speed it up"). Browse the homepage for the ridiculous offers, but dive into the category sections, like Writing and Translation, to find someone who can do what you actually need to get done. Fiverr doesn't have as much credibility as some other sites for a few reasons. You can't go into this network as someone who needs a specific task done and ask for it. It works the other way around. You can only browse the tasks that other people are offering to do. And the more you browse, the more you'll find ethically questionable work offered, too, like "I'll write a positive review of your product."
All these reasons make me shy away from Fiverr. The only thing it really has going for it is the guaranteed low price of exactly $5. Healthtap (free to $10 per question) Healthtap isn't exactly a personal outsourcing service, but it's similar in that it saves you time and money by leveraging the Internet to get a specific task done. The "tasks" on Healthtap are medical questions—it's a health Q&A platform that connects people to licensed medical professionals. If you want to ask a question that anyone on the site can read, it's free to use. Pay $10, though, and you can ask a question in private to any doctor you can find on the site. Sure, you could instead just search the Web for answers to medical questions, but the information you'll find there will be generic. Doctors need context and additional information about you to answer real medical questions. I asked two questions on Healthtap, one about whether tattoos make it difficult for dermatologists to spot potential skin cancer (I don't have any tattoos, but I'm in a high risk group for skin cancer and had always wanted to know), and the other a detailed question about why my body mass index and percent body fat are so wildly different.
Multiple doctors answered both of my questions within two days. I liked that Healthtap had a complete profile of each medical professional, so I could see who answered my question, which degrees they held, where they're located, and in which areas of medicine they specialize. Outsource the Little Things and Get Back to What Matters The next time you need a little help or have a difficult question but no time to research it, a personal outsourcing service might be the solution. They're relatively inexpensive and can help you stay on top of all those to-dos that sometimes pile up. If you outsource the little tasks to someone else, you'll have more time and energy to concentrate on the stuff that actually requires your attention. By clicking on Report you are accepting the Terms and Conditions of Gumtree.“Add being relatively close to my house to the mix, and I have my location for all future donations.” “This is another of my go-to thrift stores on the peninsula.”
“Two cases of costume jewelry, furniture, tons of housewares, domestics and some wedding and men's and women's clothing.” "AADP is a wonderful organization and they literally help save lives! ) to learn how to be a bone marrow donor. It takes about 6 weeks for your results to be entered…" "Why oh why had I never shopped at Goodwill before? I went to Goodwill for the first time today after reading reviews on yelp..and I was AMAZED! I can't believe the prices at which they were selling designer…" Yelp users haven’t asked any questions yet about St Vincent De Paul Society. You Might Also Consider "Like a lot of folks out there, I'm not a huge fan of cleaning my apartment. I'll do my best to keep the common areas tidy, but I am generally averse to getting down and scrubbing toilets, washing floors,…" "First of all, I wish I could write two reviews...one for sales/customer service and one for installation and product integrity. I have chosen to do my 5 "stars" review based on the latter.