2-3-4 Friday

‘Seeking to spark the most potential within you per word of any online newsletter’

1 thought

If you come to Singapore, you would see domestic helpers. They are people who live with families, helping families with caretaking for children, adults, cooking, cleaning.

Some people say it’s modern day slavery, others say it’s been a saviour to their marriages.

Because if you look at many conflicts within families, they aren’t about whether you love me.

They are about:

1. Why didn’t you do the dishes?
2. Don’t you know how to put down the toilet bowl?
3. Why can’t you do your own laundry?

Whatever you think of it, it does help Singapore residents to do a lot of the things they don’t like doing, or are not adept at doing.

Like doing the laundry, cleaning the toilet, or mopping the floors.

If you’re honest, do you really like doing that?

That’s why I think it’s a great idea.

But if you take this idea of outsourcing what you hate doing to your corporate life, you might realise that there’s a lot to learn.

Like getting a personal assistant.

I confess. I’ve been using a personal assistant (PA). 2 personal assistants. 

Not because I’m very busy, but because I’ve learnt to be lazy. They currently do things like:

1. Scheduling
2. Replying my emails
3. Reconciling my personal finance transactions
4. Doing the work I don’t want to do like billing, invoicing, client servicing

But also because it makes you more effective at the work you’re already doing.

For example, within the world of social work, you can already imagine PAs

1. Scheduling your appointments with clients (changing, setting, confirming them)
2. Doing the admin for work meetings like sending out agendas, sending out the Zoom room, booking the meeting room, sending out the preparatory materials
3. Handling stuff you hate doing like your personal finances
4. Buying gifts for your colleagues

The most important thing to note is that you’re not being lazy.

If you acknowledge that some people are better at some things, and others are better at others, then you’re actually giving people the work they might be better at.

And you have more time to do the work that you’re good at.

1 talk

Sometimes you need to get lazier at not doing the things you hate doing, so that you can do more of the things that you love.

1 tip

Want to get a personal assistant? A simple one starts as simple as $100 a month.

Just get it from my friend Tanya. And no, I don’t get a fee from recommending her.

But the more important thing is to realise that this teaches you an important skill.

How to be clear about what you can do, and what you hate doing. And how to manage people doing this work that you hate doing.

When you’re in your early 20s, few would give you the chance to manage. This might perhaps be the fastest way.

Try it.

It saved my life from overworking.

I can’t say I understand how you feel, but I can only ask you to trust me when I tell you I’ve been there.

4 months ago, every day, I would wake up and think,

I’m so tired. When will this ever end?

I went into the office, and every time I got an email from a manager, I hated it. I was filled with so much resentment towards them that I thought,

why don’t they stop?

Don’t they know how much I’m already doing?

I hated them.

I would see messages from clients, and immediately close my WhatsApp.

I would procrastinate on trying to reply them. It got so bad that I would lie in bed, not being able to sleep well, and then wake up, not having the motivation to get out of bed.

It was that bad.

When I finally outsourced some of my work, it became a life saver for me.

If you hate your job now, it’s not because you hate clients.

It’s because you hate the other work that prevents you from properly counselling them, helping them in the best way you know how.

Don’t let admin work destroy your life.

There are people who actually like doing it.

John

Live Young, Live Well - Work Your Love

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