ViPlus.BlogSpot.Com: Tasks

Scott Gerber is the founder of the Young Entrepreneur Council, a nonprofit organization that promotes youth entrepreneurship as a solution to unemployment and underemployment. Follow him @askgerber.

Naturally, entrepreneurs have an innate urge to want to tackle every part of every project themselves, but by trying to do so they can get tied up in tasks that limit their productivity and creativity. Especially when it comes to technical matters, outsourcing some of the work may not only be the best thing for the business owner, but it can also be the best thing for the business.

SEE ALSO: 12 Ways Businesses Can Prepare for Mobile Commerce

Of course, small-business owners shouldn’t outsource every tech-related item. To prevent miscommunication, lost time, and wasted investments, certain technical projects should remain in-house and become a new hire’s full-time gig.

I asked a panel of successful young entrepreneurs for their advice about delegating various tech jobs, including software development, apps, and website design. Here’s what they suggested about what to outsource and what to keep in-house.

Keeping as many competencies as possible in-house gives us better quality and cost control, and allows us to be very nimble. For example, updates to our website, product photos, and layouts for our catalogs and advertisements are all done in-house. We call on outside specialists only for certain big projects, like a redesign of the website or complete software creation.

- Vanessa Nornberg, Metal Mafia

For more established businesses, beware of outsourcing all your web-development projects, especially because the code can be messy to work with later. Instead, only outsource small projects. This means that you limit your reliance on an outside firm, and you make sure that you can optimize resources so your own tech team isn’t overwhelmed with having to do every little thing.

- Danny Wong, Blank Label Group, Inc.

If a mobile app is not a core part of your business but only a feature you’d like to provide to your customers, it’s an ideal tech job to outsource. Because of the breadth of platforms (iOS, Android, etc.) and the concrete, repeatable milestones of app development, reputable third-party providers have sprung up. These mobile-app development shops have the expertise to be successful in this type of arrangement.

- Doreen Bloch, Poshly Inc.

You can outsource any tech work, if you’ve got excellent project specs and you set clear expectations for documentation and other details. But be aware that outsourcing may be more work than you expect. You need to create the documents to make sure that all your development work meets set expectations and follows similar style guidelines so that you don’t go crazy down the road trying to work with old code.

- Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting

Outsourcing website design is very safe if you provide detailed instructions. We internally will develop a comprehensive treatment, which includes the emotional look and feel we want to convey, as well as the homepage content. We then have the designer go in phases, page by page. This provides great quality control and ensures timely deliverables.

- Raoul Davis, Ascendant Group

By hiring one or two employees, website design and digital could stay in-house. Motion media is something you usually need more frequently, so it’s better to outsource. We outsourced to Chimaeric and quickly learned that outsourcing motion media not only provides higher quality, but expands the capabilities of what you can do.

- John Hall, Digital Talent Agents

If the job does not involve a core competency of your business, outsource it. If it is a core competency, hire excellent people and pay them what they’re worth.

Your priorities should always be treated as the contractor’s priorities. Make it worth everyone’s while.

- Brent Beshore, AdVentures

As a rule, we outsource jobs that are straightforward, because they don’t need intense supervision. Also, if the jobs are repetitive, they only need to be explained once.

Plus, if it is just a one-off project, we don’t want to bring someone onboard specifically to complete it.

- Nicolas Gremion, Paradise Publishers

Almost anything can be outsourced. However, don’t fall into the trap of hiring someone who says he/she can do some or all of the tasks you throw at them. If you need a PHP programmer, hire one. If you need a person to create a .PSD design for your website, hire a professional who’s done excellent site templates in that format. Always try to find a specialist, not a jack of all trades.

- Juha Liikala, webVehicle Oy

Outsource to get the best, not to save money. Find the digital partner who brings the most value to the table and invest in a longstanding relationship. In addition to amazing design and technology, the best digital firms will add value to your business by providing big ideas. Don’t underestimate the worth of fresh, expert eyes that are invested in your success.

- David Gardner, ColorJar

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Thomas_EyeDesign

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I’m an athlete (triathlete and running marathons) and I have a pretty regular schedule of workouts I do on a weekly basis. However, certain exercises are more irritating than others.

On Tuesdays, I have my hardest exercise of the week – 1km (0.6 mile) sprint runs. In that exercise, I run one kilometer (or 0.6 miles) as fast as I can and then I have a brief recovery session, until I do the same thing again (5 sprints altogether).

I never liked this particular exercise because it is physically very demanding. Still, no matter how irritating this weekly exercise is, I want to do it to improve my running results. At some point, I started to figure out if there was a way to overcome the feelings related to this exercise somehow. I stressed myself about it and even started a dialog inside my head - trying to find ways for not doing the drill (luckily this hasn’t happened).

After pondering about this topic, I found six different ways to tackle this situation. These tips can be used to other irritating or boring tasks as well, not just sprint runs. However, in order to illustrate the use of them, I wanted to share my experiences and how I have applied these principles into a real situation.

Don’t think about it that much
One way to deal with the task is to put your mind elsewhere and not think about it that much. I have noticed, that especially if I’m busy with my other tasks, my mind is not focusing on the annoying task that much.

In my situation, my exercise happens on Tuesday afternoons. Before the drill I’m at work, so I’m focused on my tasks or communicating with my colleagues, before going home and putting my sports gear on.

I try not to think actively about the exercise before it actually happens for two reasons. First, I want to be present at work and second, I’m wasting my energy on to something, that I don’t need to focus on right then.
Find alternative ways to do it
Another great way of tackling the task is to find alternative ways to do it. For example, if you hate cleaning your home, you may want to think different ways of handling the task – like cleaning it room-by-room, cleaning it by starting from a living room first (if you have started from a kitchen normally) and so on.

This way you may think about that irritating task bit differently and starting the task may not be that difficult.

This is what I have done when it comes to my hardest exercise of the week – the way I do it varies (the location might be different) and this keeps motivation alive – instead of just doing the exercise the same way, over and over again.
Do it as soon as you can
I have realized that as soon as you get the irritating task done, the better. Once it’s off your mind, you can put your focus and your energy to other things instead.

I have my exercise on Tuesdays – at the beginning of each week. Once I get past the exercise, I feel good about myself and the exercise is not on my mind anymore.
Break the task into small pieces
In order to make the level of entry lower and prevent procrastination on that task, break it into smaller pieces. I used this example in tip # 2 above (cleaning your home – room-by-room), but obviously you can apply it to other situations as well.

For example, if you have to write a report, you could make a decision to write 3 pages of that report every day. Alternatively you can decide that you will work on the task at least 1 hour per day. By this way, you are not overwhelming yourself with the task, since it’s broken down into manageable pieces.

When I’m having my hardest exercise of the week, I do it at once (in fact that is the only way to do it). However, the exercise itself is broken into 5 pieces (or sprint runs), so that helps me to prepare for the task much better.

Praise yourself for starting the task
Remember, as soon as you get started with your tedious task, you have already done something that most people are not willing to do.

Starting is the hardest part – especially when a boring or irritating task is concerned. However, as soon as you get started, it may be difficult to stop working, since you got the momentum going.

For example, you could decide to work 5-10 minutes on a task. After you have worked that amount of time, see if you are still willing to stop doing the task or would you like to keep going.

Every time I start my hardest exercise of the week, I feel like a winner. I know that the situation cannot get any “worse” and since I’m doing the workout already, it gets done soon.
Remember your past experiences
Everyone has tackled tedious tasks before, but do you remember, how you have felt afterwards? I don’t know about you, but almost every time, I have felt very good about myself for completing the task.

When a boring or irritating task arises, focus on the good feeling you have had before – when you did complete the task. That good feeling helps you to get started with the task and pull it through easily.

Every time I start my exercise, I remember the good feeling I get after finishing it. Especially after getting back home, taking a shower and eating a bit, I feel just awesome!

In fact, when writing this post, I did the hardest exercise of the week just couple of hours before and I feel superb!

The tedious exercise is now done and I can focus on other tasks instead.