Hiring a VA

 Hiring a VA has been something I have wanted to do for a while now. In fact, I found this first sentence already written in a google drive. Which, in essence, is another way of me saying that I’ve had the idea of writing a piece about how I have wanted a VA for a while now.

I have so many projects I work on, my podcast, my books, my blogs, to just name a few; there is my board seat on a non-profit, and my church responsibilities, which in many ways is like an unpaid part-time job. 

All these things take my time, while I also work my full time job. So, it is fair to say, I often find myself short on time. I also find myself dragged in many different directions at once. I wish I could progress toward my goals without actively working on them. But alas, there is only so much I can do. 

I think here is where a VA would be helpful. I could delegate some of my tasks to them. Which would free up my time. I could get more content out both on the podcast and on the blogs. Maybe even work on some of these newsletters I never get around to (speaking of which, you do get a beta copy of my newest book if you sign up).

But the problem with hiring a VA, or at least my problem with it, is that I can’t justify the cost. If I look at earnings of the podcast, it's generally very small. Likewise, the blogs are presently making next to nothing. Hiring a VA would probably mean I would be losing money to engage in those activities, and that makes no sense to me.

Using another paradigm, I could justify it, which Tim Ferris in The 4-Hour Workweek talks about turning a salary into an hourly wage. Basically he says, get your salary, divide by 1,000 then divide by 2 (40 hours times 50 weeks a year is 2,000), the number you get is your hourly rate. Tasks that cost less than that should be outsourced. 

So using this method, my time is fairly expensive. But still, using my first test, in a sense that could mean I should just give up on all my side projects.

I also saw an interesting post by Gusto about this, and in essence, the amount of time I would spend on income-generating tasks is limited. Most of the tasks I would outsource only earn me little to no money. Sure, time is time, but as a salaried person spending more time doesn’t necessarily earn me more. 

All of this is a long way to say, I guess I’m not hiring a VA yet. Despite working 12 hour days the past few weeks, I can’t justify the expense. Hopefully one of my blogs, books, or podcasts takes off. But perhaps that is just wishful thinking.