Ready to win back hours of your life? In this episode, productivity experts Brian Nelson-Palmer and Marcey Rader reveal 18 tasks they've successfully outsourced - from hiring a culinary grad to chop vegetables to finding affordable ways to never do laundry again. They break down exactly how to decide what to outsource (including a simple calculator to determine if it's worth it), share hilarious stories like the infamous "single Brussels sprout" delivery, and offer practical tips and examples for both your personal & professional life. Whether you're just starting to explore outsourcing or you’re experienced and looking to level up, this episode packed with actionable strategies shows how you can reclaim your time without breaking the bank.

The Video

The Audio/Podcast

References In This Episode

• Brian's Value of Your Time Calculator

  • Referenced in relation to his TED talk

• Marcey’s TEDx Talk - “Relentless pursuit of more”

• Meal Services:

  • Factor 75

  • Blue Apron

  • Hungry Root

  • Gobble

• Virtual Assistant Services:

  • Fancy Hands (fancyhands.com) - mentioned $18-30/month

  • Fiverr (fiverr.com)

  • FreeUp (freeup.net)

  • Upwork.com

• Home Services:

  • TaskRabbit

  • Thumbtack

  • Chore Relief (now called All Better)

  • Poplin (laundry service)

• Contact Information for Marcey:

  • LinkedIn (mentioned she's only on LinkedIn)

  • helloraderco.com

  • Her new book: "Reclaim Your Workday, Sustainable Productivity Strategies for the New World of Work"

• Photo of Single Brussel Sprout on episode page

Episode Digest

Time is our most precious resource, yet many of us spend countless hours on tasks that could be delegated or outsourced.

In a revealing discussion between productivity experts, a powerful truth emerged: outsourcing isn't just for business owners or the wealthy—it's a strategy anyone can use to reclaim their time and focus on what truly matters.

"There is no prize at the end because YOU did it. The prize is…I got to my outcome, whatever that was, in a way that was smarter."

The Complete List: 18 Game-Changing Tasks to Outsource

Personal Life Tasks

• Gift wrapping (use Amazon’s wrapping service, or hire local students for holiday perfection)

• Food prep and vegetable chopping (professional food prep services)

• House cleaning (regular cleaning service)

• Laundry (wash-and-fold services with pickup/delivery)

• Grocery shopping and errands (delivery services)

• Travel itinerary planning (local experts via Fiverr or AI tools)

• Screen repairs (specialized handyman services)

• Home repairs and maintenance (TaskRabbit or similar)

• TV mounting (skilled technicians)

• Furniture assembly (service providers via apps)

• Cooking/meal prep (meal delivery services)

Professional Tasks

• PowerPoint presentations (design services)

• Bookkeeping (professional accountants)

• LinkedIn/market research (specialized researchers)

• Graphic design (professional designers)

• Software/tool setup (technical specialists)

• Podcast production tasks (virtual assistants)

• General virtual assistant tasks (various administrative support)

How to Decide What to Outsource

The decision to outsource shouldn't be complicated. Here's a practical framework:

1. Calculate your time's value (use a time-value calculator)

2. Compare outsourcing costs against your time's value

3. Consider these key factors:

   • Is it a repetitive task?

   • Does it require specialized skills?

   • Could it be dangerous if done incorrectly?

   • Do you consistently procrastinate on it?

   • Is it a one-time task where learning the process isn't worth the investment?

"Every day that you procrastinate and you move that task forward, ‘I'll clean the gutters tomorrow, I'll clean the gutters tomorrow, I'll clean the gutters tomorrow.’ Every day that just makes you feel like I failed today, I failed again, I failed again, just outsource it."

Three Models of Virtual Assistance

• Pool Services (like Fancy Hands):

  • A pool of people available, like Uber, but for tasks

  • Membership-based ($18-30/month)

  • Best for occasional, varied tasks

  • Perfect for beginners

• Fixed-Price Contracts (like Fiverr):

  • Clear scope and cost upfront

  • No risk of unexpected charges

  • Ideal for specific, defined projects

• Hourly Assistants:

  • More traditional virtual employer/employee relationship

  • Ongoing support for regular tasks

  • Best for consistent, recurring needs

Practical Tips for Getting Started

• Start with Free or Low-Cost Options

  • Try grocery delivery & other errand services (often just $5-10 for delivery)

  • Test basic task services before committing to bigger ones

• Begin with Repetitive Tasks

  • Think about how often you do certain tasks.

  • Think about time spent vs cost to outsource.

• Address Safety and Quality Concerns

  • Use platforms with reviews and background checks

  • Start with low-risk tasks

  • Take safety precautions when someone is coming into your home.

"Think of it as an investment and you will get it back with your time, with your energy. Maybe you will get promoted faster."

Common Objections Addressed

"But they won't do it as well as I do"

Solution: Be prepared for that, you’re still getting some of your time back even if it isn’t perfect it still may be worth it. Remember that perfection isn't always necessary for every task.
Example: For tasks like grocery shopping, order an extra item if there’s a chance they’ll pick one that doesn’t work (like produce) or pick your substitute and have a backup plan in case something is out of stock or they bring the wrong quantity. For the 1 in 10 times they don’t do it right, you’ll be ready.

"My company should pay for this"

Reality Check: Don't limit yourself by waiting for company approval. Consider personal investment in professional development as a path to advancement.

"It's too expensive"

Perspective Shift: Consider the cost of your time, including stress and lost opportunities. Often, the investment pays for itself in reclaimed time and energy.

Real-World Success Strategies

• For grocery delivery: Order 4 items when you need 3 to ensure quality selection

• For house services: Use platforms with reviews rather than random classified ads

• For professional tasks: Start with one-time projects before committing to ongoing services

• For virtual assistants: Audition them first. Begin with a small project to test compatibility

The key to successful outsourcing is to start small and gradually expand as you become more comfortable with the process.

Remember: The goal isn't to outsource everything, but to strategically free up your time for what matters most, whether that's personal joy, family time, career advancement, or personal development.

Every task you successfully outsource is an investment in your most valuable resource: your time.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Outsourcing and Productivity

06:03 Defining Outsourcing: What It Means

12:07 Personal Experiences with Outsourcing

18:07 Outsourcing Food Preparation and Cooking

23:59 Outsourcing Errands and Grocery Shopping

29:35 Leveraging AI for Travel Planning

36:03 Outsourcing Home Repairs and Services

41:10 Professional Outsourcing: Enhancing Productivity

52:50 Starting Your Outsourcing Journey

Today’s Guest

Marcey Rader

Speaker, Coach, & Author on Productivity

Marcey Rader is a speaker, coach, and author who champions health-powered productivity™. Founder of RaderCo, she works with Fortune 500 companies and startups, inspiring global audiences. A multi-award-winning speaker, TEDx presenter, and one of 900 Certified Speaking Professionals®, Marcey’s authored four books and created the Powered Path Program™. Her mission is to help individuals and companies reclaim their workdays and build sustainable habits to work well and play more!

Connect with her at:

marceyrader.com

helloraderco.com

linkedin.com/in/marceyrader

Why Subscribe To The Email List: Brian shares separate hacks, tips, and actionable learning exclusively for his email subscribers. Sign up so you don’t miss out!

About The Creator/Host: I’m Brian. At age 4, I was diagnosed with insulin dependent (type 1) diabetes and told that my life was going to be 10-20 years shorter than everyone else. As a kid I took time for granted, but now as an adult, time is the most precious thing that I have. After spending a career hands-on in the trenches as a leader at all levels, I now help others to level-up through my Productivity Gladiator training. Graduates wield time management & life balance superpowers, activate a laser-guided ability to focus & prioritize, and implement a sniper-precise approach to task & email management. If what you’ve seen here intrigues you, reach out, let’s chat!

Time is the currency of your life, spend it wisely.

Transcript

I'm Brian Nelson Palmer. On this show, I share personal, practical productivity skills. And in this episode, we're talking about the tasks that we've outsourced to save time and never looked back, both personally and professionally. And with me on the show today is Marcy Rader, who's a speaker, coach, and author on productivity. And she's the founder of Rader Co. Marcy, thanks so much for joining me on the show today.

Marcey Rader (00:42.675)

I'm excited to talk about outsourcing because everybody can outsource something and it doesn't matter. Even if it were personal, doesn't matter your position, you can outsource.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (00:54.56)

everything personally, professionally, it's available to everybody. I've been, I did a Ted talk on the value of your time and like this whole concept, it's all baked into there. And I've been so excited to actually do an episode on this. So thanks for doing with this, Marcy. This, I'm excited we're doing this together. And so now talk about your background. So we're to talk about outsourcing and productivity and stuff. talk about how you're relevant to the topic we're talking about today.

Marcey Rader (01:17.911)

So Raderco has been around for 11 years and we are a health powered productivity company. And what that means is that it doesn't matter how many boxes you check off your to-do list, if you're losing sleep to do it. It doesn't matter how fast you respond to your emails, if you are doing it at dinner with your family and it's affecting your relationships. So it's about being productive for the right things, but without sacrificing your health and relationships.

And we work with a lot of companies, both individuals and teams around their email management, email and chat tool management, their meetings, meeting effectiveness, how to manage their task and prioritization. But we are always looking at it with that health aspect. Do people take screen free lunches? Are they working as if they have to always be available, checking their email at night or on the weekends?

And so we are a team that is out to save the world when meeting and email at a time.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (02:23.622)

man, Marcy, you and I are so aligned. It's not even funny. So for anyone who's interested in productivity gladiator, Marcy is like, yes, absolutely. Everything you just said is exactly the kinds of things. And my whole motivation for me is about you. You only have one life.

we're going to make you more productive so that you can have do more of the things that you love so that you can have the memories when you look back at the end are not going to be because you were more productive. So you did more work and like, yes, my gosh, preach.

Marcey Rader (02:57.271)

Can I, I do want to preach for a second on that because you mentioned that you did a Ted talk. I did a TEDx in 2024 called the Relentless Pursuit of More. And it was really about living the first 40 years of my life, I'm 50 years old, being such a high achiever and such a perfectionist that

It seriously affected my health. I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's disease, which I believe that I triggered through that. I didn't have a period for 12 years because I put myself in such stressful situations. And for the men out there, that's serious. That's not, know, it sounds like it'd be a great, you know, great convenience, but it's actually really dangerous for your body.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (03:49.262)

yeah.

Marcey Rader (03:53.745)

And it really affected my marriage. I traveled 48 weeks a year for almost a decade. We're cool now. We're great. But it was part of the reason why I started my company. so, you know, there are goals to chase, but not at the expense of someday. Like someday when I get a promotion, then I'll slow down or

Someday when I make X amount of money, then I'll hire somebody to help clean my house. Someday when I run the marathon, then I'll be home on Saturday mornings. So it's really a reset and rethink of what our goals and priorities are. so if you're trying to do everything yourself, know that there is no prize at the end because you did it.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (04:51.405)

Yes.

Marcey Rader (04:51.827)

And the prize is that I did, the outcome, I got to my outcome, whatever that was, in a way that was smarter. And maybe, and I guess this is a good segue for outsourcing, maybe I hired somebody along the way to help me get to that outcome so that I didn't sacrifice other things that were important to me. And I gave this person a job as well.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (05:17.518)

Mm hmm. Totally. You know, Marcy, on that topic, I'm curious. You you talk about productivity. I talk about productivity. There's a lot of people that talk about productivity. So the one other thing I want to ask you is what do you think makes you different from everybody else out there that's talking about productivity like we

Marcey Rader (05:35.351)

For me, think part of it is the health piece. My degrees are actually in, my bachelors and masters are in exercise science and health promotion, but I worked for 14 years in clinical research in the pharma and biotech world and climbed up the ladder as high as I wanted to go. And so I think having that health background, but also that aspect of being a perfectionist, being a, you

super high achiever and I'm still, you I still have goals. Of course, I still have achievements that I want to do, but it's a, you know, I have put myself in the dumpster, you know, and, I've, and I've been able to get myself out of it. And if I had been someone like 13 years ago, even just 13 years ago, if I had started this business, well, even five years ago, the way I approach things are different.

than I would have 15 years ago, 13 years ago, 10 years ago, because I suffered those things that I did. And it wasn't really until about four years ago that my husband told me how desperately he missed me when I was out, know, jet setting around the country and everything, but he never wanted to tell me because I was the primary earner. And so when I look back, I made a lot of mistakes.

And I definitely have regrets and I don't think regrets are bad. I know some people said no regrets or whatever. Well, I believe in the book, The Power of Regret and regret is where we've where we've learned and earned our lessons because I believe we earn our battle scars. So it's lessons earned and you know.

I got a lot out of that and I think it makes me a much better coach and speaker because I can attest to the things that, you it's not all about getting the most done. Just like, you know, it's like when we die, it's not like the person with the most toys wins. You know, it's the things that really matter.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (07:47.768)

Totally. Well, let's jump into outsourcing then. And one of the things to kind of set the stage, I want to clarify that when I came to this, my thought was I want to clarify when we say outsource, what are we referring to? And in this case, to me, when I thought this, I'm referring to basically the idea that it's no longer going to take my time. So we're going to talk about outsourcing and some of these things you might pay for some of these and some of them might cost more than others, but some of these things are free.

And it's still outsourced because it's not taking my time. So that was my frame of reference. Did you have anything to add on that, Marcy, or is that track?

Marcey Rader (08:23.709)

No, but I'm glad that you clarified it because when I first started my company, this is so hard to believe that 11 years ago, it was considered like, whoa, what? To hire overseas, to outsource to a virtual assistant, or to hire somebody from Fiverr. And so sometimes when I would use the word outsource back then, people would think it was like,

manufacturing, outsourcing product and things like this. And so I'm with you like outsourcing to me means hiring somebody to save me time doing something that I don't want to be doing or maybe I'm just not good at.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (09:07.116)

Yeah, totally. All right. So that's the kind of outsourcing we're talking about. And then I guess I have my frame of reference for how the question is, how do you decide what to outsource? And so for me, I actually have a very methodical approach, which is I have a calculator. So for you listening, if you go to productivity gladiator.com and you scroll down, there is the value of your time calculator and you can find out what your time is.

And so I did, that's the Ted talk that I did that was picked by Ted and it was became an editor's pick and they like promoted it on their website and socials and stuff. And I talk about kind of the frame of reference for the discussion we're going to have now. We're going to talk very practically on what we outsourced, but the decision on when to outsource it or if like where those opportunities are for me, it's a, if I know my time is worth this much and I can pay less than that.

to have somebody else do it, then those are my first opportunities that I'm looking at as opposed to things that are the other way around. So that's my approach to how do you sort of decide. What is it for you, Marcy?

Marcey Rader (10:14.529)

Yeah, before I say that, I'm just gonna, being picked by Ted is a really big deal. So congratulations. Congratulations. Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. And I was so thrown by that, that I need you to ask me the question again.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (10:26.094)

Felt pretty good. You can go for Boston over here. So that's the question is how do you decide, like how do you make the decision on I should outsource this or I shouldn't outsource this?

Marcey Rader (10:37.416)

yes.

Marcey Rader (10:41.963)

Yes, so first of all, that's awesome that you have this calculator and I have determined, like I have a set rate hourly. I don't charge by the hour because I believe in value-based pricing, but in my head, I have an hourly rate and then I have, and I worked this out with my CFO and then I also have another rate that is kind of like the, this is what my time was worth to me.

And so when it's business related. I think about, you know, like, what's my time worth? Is this person's time worth going to cost me less? But also is is this something that I only need to do one time? If so, it's not worth it for me to do it. And an example is I just bought I'm switching scheduling systems, I'm such switching.

from one scheduling tool to another. To set it up, is not a good use of my time to go through all the learning modules and do all the setup. I don't need to know, I don't need to learn how to set it up. I need to learn how to work it once it's set up. So I hired somebody, I outsourced the setup, she'll set it up.

and then she'll just train me how to use it now that it's in place. Because I don't believe in spend. I love learning. am number one learner and strengths finders. If you know what that means. So it's not that I don't believe in the in learning. It's that there are certain like if it's something that I'm going to learn that I'm going to continue to use, then I want to know the ins and outs of it. But I don't need to know how to learn something.

that's only going to happen one time if there's an expert that can do it and save me. So that's that's one way I look at it. I also look at like, do I just hate do I hate doing like, is there something I just don't like doing or I'm so not good at it and I don't care that I'm not good at it and I don't even care about becoming better at it? And that is gift wrapping. When I wrap a gift, my gifts at Christmas.

Marcey Rader (13:02.935)

People know, they know it's my gift under the tree. It looks like a five-year-old wrapped it. Like I don't make the paper long enough. It's so bad. I like half the box will be showing and I'm so frugal that if I make the paper too short, won't like, you know, I won't throw it away. I will just use it. Sometimes I'll make like a patch. It is so, so bad, but I don't care.

But so I have, I know, I know, but I have actually outsourced gift wrapping.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (13:39.352)

to Amazon? I was gonna ask you, you, I always check the box to gift wrap it for me. It was the best, everybody knows it's my gift under the tree because it was wrapped by Amazon. That's just great stuff.

Marcey Rader (13:49.495)

No, I hire somebody. So I have hired a high school student that loves to wrap gifts. And I think I paid her like 50 bucks one year and this girl and she came over and wrapped all my gifts in like, it was like an hour or something. I don't even know if I paid her 50 bucks. It was probably more like 30 bucks. It was so worth it and it was, they were beautiful. know, so, so, so that's also a way that I look at it is

Brian Nelson-Palmer (13:56.856)

Nice.

Marcey Rader (14:18.933)

Do I care about getting better at wrapping gifts? I don't because I only do it once a year. And she loves it and she needed the money. So I look at it that way too.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (14:31.83)

Yeah. So I love what you said about, is it something that you are interested in or like that's, and I talked about it in my Ted talk too. It's like things that are worth your time are like, are you going to learn something? Is it going to be a fond memory that you look back on forever and ever? Then it is worth the time. Like you could, you could hire somebody to paint the house. Or if you do that with your son or your daughter,

and that's gonna be a memory that you have forever and ever and ever, then it doesn't matter how much it costs to have somebody else do it, you should do that. And so those are like, learn something, does it bring you joy? Cause if it brings you joy, my gosh, like every one of the things that we're about to list, every one of the outsourcing opportunities, if it's something that brings you joy, don't outsource that. Do outsource the things that don't bring you joy. That's, I love, yes. So I love your point, man.

Marcey Rader (15:23.483)

That brings up a good point. So in my business, it took me a long time to outsource my bookkeeping because I actually really like that. I like going in and reconciling my account and I do it. I did it every I do every Friday. You know, and I liked it. And after a certain point, I was like, this is not my my time is worth more than that. I should not be doing this. But I held on to it for a while because I just really like it. So.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (15:33.581)

Mm-hmm.

Marcey Rader (15:53.409)

So I agree with you for that. But I thought of one other thing that is another rule for me is, is this dangerous? Because we just put on a new screened in or put a new roof on our screen and porch. And my husband is very handy, but he also knows his limits. Like if it's plumbing, that is a skilled trade that if he messes up, like it could cause a flood or it could be something really bad.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (16:01.934)

I'm

Marcey Rader (16:23.255)

An electrician, he's not gonna mess with that because that is a skilled trade and it's almost like an insult to the skilled trade, but also it could be dangerous. So I also think of those types of things. Could I be doing something that could, if I try to fix something on my car, could it turn around and haunt me later as I'm stuck by the side of the road?

Brian Nelson-Palmer (16:30.242)

Right. Yeah.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (16:46.444)

Yeah. Nice. Yep. I love that the danger point is a really valid one. So let's jump into things that we've outsourced. Let's just start running down. And Marcy, figure you go first, and then I'll share one, and you share one. And let's start with personal stuff that we've outsourced that, my gosh, have been game changers. So you first. Go ahead. What you got?

Marcey Rader (17:09.975)

I already said the gift wrapping, so good. Food prep. So for four years, had a woman until COVID and then, you know, everything changed during that. But she came in every Thursday. I had a produce box delivered on Thursday mornings and she would come in and chop all the vegetables for like a week. You know, like she chopped everything. And she actually had a degree in culinary arts.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (17:11.99)

Nice.

Marcey Rader (17:39.765)

So she chopped really well. Like it looked great. And so I didn't have to, and I really liked to eat healthy, but I'm terrible at food chopping. And so she would chop all my vegetables. I've had somebody that would, after her, that would come in and chop everything. And then she'd also make a couple of meals as well, which was, and you know, so then I would have those to eat throughout the week.

But the first woman, she also did our laundry and she cleaned the house too. But a lot of people have house cleaners. That's not a creative way to outsource. It's an awesome way to outsource, but it's not really creative. But a lot of house cleaners don't do food prep and also your laundry. So we called her, her title was house manager. And this is what she did full time.

She had one house that she went to every day. She came to ours on Thursdays. She would chop vegetables, she'd clean our house, and then she would do our laundry. And this woman folded clothes like the gap. I mean, it was so perfect, so perfect. And I miss her so much. that, when I would tell people that, you know, it's like, I have a house manager. it was amazing.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (18:43.999)

and do the laundry.

Yes. huh.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (19:00.67)

And Marcy, love that I'm going to yes and a couple of things on this. First, the cooking thing. I have totally outsourced cooking for years and years. And the reason I did it is because I'm first of all, it's the it's the worth my time thing and it doesn't bring me joy. I am capable of cooking. I absolutely can do it. And it doesn't bring me joy to be in there and do it. I tend to.

put it off to the last minute or I'm like, I'm hungry now. I'm gonna eat something and then you eat unhealthily because you do that. So for you listening, if you haven't checked it out, there are services like Factor 75, which is a meal prep service where they have a five-star chef make you a meal. It's fresh, never frozen. He cooks it. They put it in a container. They ship it to you in a freezer container. And then it's like a microwave meal that's fresh cooked by a chef. And you can get six meals, eight, 10, 12 meals a week or something like that.

So if you're one of those people that goes out and eats crappy lunches because you're on the go or, hey, we're gonna, I didn't think about lunch. So then you go down and you go to McDonald's or whatever. This is, it's like 10, 12, $14 a meal, something like that. So it's the same as you would spend going to a fast food place, but it's way healthier. You can lose weight this way. So that's the full service option. They also have, if the cooking brings you joy, but.

The actual going to the store part doesn't. They have services that you've probably heard of by now like Blue Apron, Green Apron, Blue Apron and stuff like that where they send you all the ingredients and the recipe and all you have to do is prep it. That's another way to do it. There's the latest one that I haven't tried yet, but my God, Marcy, I'm excited to try it is they have a casserole style one where they send you the casserole.

Marcey Rader (20:30.903)

Blue apron.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (20:49.034)

in a dish and then you just have to put it in the oven to cook it on the day of or something like that. So anyway, I've gone way down the rabbit hole on. Yeah. Yeah.

Marcey Rader (20:57.737)

No, I want to add something to that because this is serious stuff here. I tried all the like blue apron and Hello Fresh, but it's still a lot of work because you have to prep all that stuff. So I for the last like year have been using Hungry Root and Hungry Root is one of those delivery services that you pick your meals like I picked four recipes for the week.

and you can choose between two servings, four servings, six servings, eight servings, I think. But most of the vegetables already come prepped and some of the meat already is cooked and you just have to like heat it or something. So I don't have to pull out the knife very much and I love it because it's all fresh. But most of it, like the peppers are already chopped up or.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (21:46.968)

Yes.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (21:52.717)

Yeah.

Marcey Rader (21:53.099)

You know, the cabbage is already shredded. I'm like, this is the, it's the go between, like between the Hello Fresh, which takes a lot of work and what you get, which is the, you know, just pop it in the microwave. So I'm a, I'm a big hungry root.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (22:05.006)

Yeah.

And by the way, for you listening, I'm going to give you links to all this stuff. It's going to take me a minute to get all these in the episode notes, but I am committed to giving you the link to every single thing that we talk about on this. So check your notes if you want to see all of the stuff that we're talking about, because I'm going to yes and you there, Marcy. The other one that my wife and I found was a service called Gobble. And Gobble was the in-between between your hungry root and my factor where they chop almost everything, but you do still get to chop one vegetable.

So it's like, and they give you all the sauces already pre- and so all you have to do is throw it in a pan and you have to chop what, I don't know how they know, but they just know that if you have to prep too much, it's too much. So we're going to give you one thing to do that exists too. And it-

Marcey Rader (22:55.415)

to do well some recipes I might have to chop a cucumber or something but I'm hungry but I can do that

Brian Nelson-Palmer (23:01.548)

Yes, totally. Well, so it's funny, you brought up house cleaning. That was one of mine. House cleaning and laundry. I haven't done my laundry in 10 years and I don't miss it and I'm very good at it, but it just isn't worth my time. There's a service called poplin that I used for years and it's a wash and fold service and it's like a dollar a pound. So it's the same price as if you went to the laundromat and brought it to them.

but they include pickup and delivery. And it's literally like Uber, but for people who love washing and folding laundry. So you put your laundry outside and the laundry fairy or the Uber, the poplin person comes and picks it up and then they bring it home. And then 24 hours later, they bring it back and it's a dollar a pound that includes the delivery and the pickup. it is the most, it smells wonderful and it's folded immaculately, like you said, because these people just love doing laundry.

And I loved supporting them doing what they loved with this.

Marcey Rader (23:59.617)

Yeah, yeah, yes. I know some people find it very meditative. I'm not one of those people, but yeah, that's awesome. I love that service.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (24:08.206)

You know, and Marcy, the one that I wanted to share is that's different from what you've said already is errands. I outsourced errands. I haven't been to the store in I think 2012 was the last time I went to the store because I get it all delivered. And man, that seriously, I used to go to the store three, four or five times a week. I added it up. It was roughly seven hours of my time. So I talked about my little calculator.

Marcey Rader (24:25.714)

me too.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (24:37.014)

I went online and I found out I right now I value my time at about 30 bucks an hour. It's changed over the years. It's gone from 15 to 30 depending on my financial situation. But there is a number and I know what it is. And so the thing is the air at the delivery for groceries is free depending on what you do or like five dollars or it's something very reasonable. So if I can get an hour that's worth thirty dollars to me back for a five dollar delivery charge.

Then I'm totally in. And the one thing that Marcy, whenever I've had, I do these discussions. have this is this what we're talking about now is one of my keynote speeches that I that I give my presentations, workshops that I do. And whenever I bring this up, the number one thing that you listening might already be saying is, well, they don't pick vegetables as good as they don't pick fruit. I know it's that's the that is the number one objection. It's like, they don't know.

Marcey Rader (25:27.653)

gosh, I hear that.

Marcey Rader (25:35.895)

vegetables.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (25:36.552)

Right? that's, and so here's, here's my, this is my response to that, which is first of all, remember what I said, which is if you love going to the store and if bringing, if picking vegetables brings you more joy than all the other important stuff in your life, then by God, go pick your vegetables. I support you. However, for me, if you think about you go to the store and you're not quite sure how to pick something, you're going to ask somebody who works at the store, what's the good one to pick? And these people all work at the store.

Marcey Rader (26:00.629)

Mm-hmm.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (26:06.348)

They know what the good ones are. And so for every 30 vegetables that I get, maybe one or possibly two are not gonna be as good as the one that I might have picked. But the amount of time that I saved, I'll just, if I need three, I will order four just so that they'll give me their top four and I pick the top three from that. And so it like, you accommodate that risk per se, but.

Man, absolutely, you can, errands are such a time suck. So if you can not run errands, I have so many stories, hilarious stories about not running errands that I love to share, but this is just one that I'm like, I'm so motivated on errands. Don't run errands.

Marcey Rader (26:48.183)

Yeah, well, and with the vegetable thing, I knew you were gonna say it, because I hear that all the time.

Marcey Rader (26:58.081)

groceries either not I don't have them delivered but I go and pick them up and somebody else shops for them and again I would I would shop the same just like you said there has only been like three or four times where I've had to write to the app and say like this wasn't good or whatever and two of those times I had asked for a pound of Brussels sprouts and the person put one Brussels sprout a sprout

Brian Nelson-Palmer (27:25.432)

No!

Marcey Rader (27:29.015)

in a bag, in a bag, wrapped the bag and put it in the cart. And I thought, this person has never eaten a Brussels sprout in their life, because they would know that nobody eats one sprout. So I took a picture of it. But then I also both times cut the, cut the sprout, sauteed it, put a little bit of balsamic over it, put it on a plate and send that to the app company as well. And I said, I'm, I'm eating my single Brussels sprout. Please tray.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (27:29.272)

What?

Brian Nelson-Palmer (27:39.502)

Clearly.

Marcey Rader (27:58.613)

your people better. But yeah, I still have a picture of my Brussels Sprout.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (28:05.302)

And you know, don't stress about every one of these companies that does these grocery deliveries. They build into their whole system. The fact that their people are going to screw one up because they didn't pay attention to whatever the serving size was or whatever. So when you go in to report these things, it's not like a long process where you have to call somebody and then these companies don't even want to talk to you. If there's a problem, you can just go in and say, I got this wrong. And they will just give you the credit back and you.

Marcey Rader (28:16.214)

Yeah.

Marcey Rader (28:26.87)

No!

Marcey Rader (28:32.757)

Immediately. Yep.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (28:33.344)

order another one. There's no conversation. It's an immediate resolution to your problem in like 20 seconds, 30 seconds. So it is not a big thing. So yes, errands. That was my next one. Any, what else comes to mind for you on the personal front?

Marcey Rader (28:40.939)

Yes, yes.

Marcey Rader (28:45.772)

Yes.

Marcey Rader (28:51.285)

Yeah, well, I think now I would use chat GPT for this, at least for part of it. But in the past, I have hired people from Fiverr to create travel itineraries for me in the city where they live. So when we go, yeah, when we go on vacation, example.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (29:08.749)

No.

Marcey Rader (29:14.709)

I find somebody on Fiverr who lives in San Diego who will create a four day itinerary for me. Here's what we like to do. Here's where we're staying. It was very customized for a hundred bucks. And you you can spend hours, hours researching and this person even like, here's a list of gluten-free.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (29:31.979)

Awesome.

many hours, yeah.

Marcey Rader (29:42.325)

restaurants in the area where you're going to be on this day. Don't go here because the seals smell like it was so good. Whereas now I think I would outsource I would outsource to chat GPT. We are going to on a big New Zealand Australia trip in April and I will use chat GPT to help me at least like narrow down or give me ideas.

for me to start with because you can get lost in travel trying to figure out itineraries.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (30:11.982)

So, yes.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (30:19.15)

I want to yes and you there because that's literally one of the examples when I when I do an AI session and we talk about AI for productivity That's one of the examples that we actually use is you've got eight hours Between the time that you're done on your work travel and the time you have to be at the airport So what can I do in these eight hours? So you can feed chat GPT or whatever AI you use Claude or Gemini or whatever one

you go on there and you type in, I'm at this location. I've got to be at the airport in this many hours. What are the top rated tourist things that I could do in this period of time that would be on the way? And it will do all of that for you. And that's, I just, man, you were trendsetter, Marcy, because I didn't even contemplate like getting somebody in Fiverr to do that. That would be.

But when chat GPT came around, was like, this is amazing. Yeah, they can find.

Marcey Rader (31:17.195)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's there's actually an app called Giftstar that uses AI and I've used it. If you put in people like I put in my friend Lisa and my husband and different people and get like say their interests and your price range and all these things, it will come back with gifts for them. But like I always choose experiences and

you put the zip code that they're in and it'll come back with links to experiences in that zip code. So that is a way to outsource too, if you don't wanna just be, know, just trying to fill your holiday shopping that way.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (32:02.222)

Totally, totally man. That's I love love that use. I've got another one for you, which is and you you alluded to this when you talked about the roof or whatever, but when it comes to home repair, there are services like thumbtack or chore relief or boy, there's one more that and I'll put the links in the task rabbit. Yes, that.

Marcey Rader (32:26.199)

Task rabbit. Yeah.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (32:29.516)

they will go, they'll actually come do the chores. So the latest one is that I was using it to find somebody who would come and repair screens. I had a couple of screens that were damaged in the hurricane. And so, you know, it's one of those things where they're just the screens flapping free and I could go buy the screen repair kit and watch the YouTube videos and figure out how to do that. But when you look at how much of my time that's gonna take versus how much it would cost,

I found out in my area, the going rate for somebody to repair a screen, including all the supplies, is 50 bucks. And it was like, sold. I would rather let you, because I don't have the right tools and I don't know how to use them and I could learn, but I'm not passionate about screens. I just want the bugs to not come in. like, was a sort of home repair is definitely, there are websites that are dedicated to helping you find people. And for some of the stuff, like a screen repair,

Marcey Rader (33:08.181)

Yeah, no brainer.

Marcey Rader (33:12.459)

Yeah.

Marcey Rader (33:18.325)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (33:27.916)

You talked about license stuff, so plumbing or electricians where that stuff that requires a license and there's danger and stuff. Some of the stuff is just you don't want to do it. Assembling Ikea furniture is what we're installing TV mounts. There's all the stuff you can do around the house and that you can totally find people to do. And they don't necessarily need a license or some type of some of the stuff, maybe not insurance that you can totally do that.

Marcey Rader (33:55.989)

Yeah, and I wanna, so first of all, if you are single, like I had a friend who outsourced through TaskRabbit, she bought a big screen TV and she's like, I can't carry it up the stairs. I need somebody to mount it. And so, I mean, she helped him because it was so big, like she needed to hold it whatever, but I think she paid like $30 or somebody for the, but she said, I need somebody to do this. And she didn't have any friends that could help her and things.

So that's one thing, but I don't know about the two that you mentioned. I do know about TaskRabbit, so you might want to share. But I like something like that better than Craigslist because TaskRabbit has reviews and you're paying through TaskRabbit and not just some rando on Craigslist. And we have had some randos on Craigslist that are like, yeah, that's not good. That's not good.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (34:40.184)

Yes.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (34:45.867)

Yes.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (34:50.078)

Hahaha!

Marcey Rader (34:54.037)

With TaskRabbit, it has reviews for certain things. are background checks and things. So I would go with that type of thing, especially if you're having somebody come into your house. And just for the fee, you know, if you're female, one thing I do, if I'm by myself and somebody's coming in, in my house to outsource, no matter who they are what they're doing, I will often call somebody

that I know and say like so-and-so or text somebody and say, you know, the cable person is here or whatever. Text me every 20 minutes until I tell you they're gone. You know, and then that's just a safety thing for females. I've even called somebody and just had them listening. Like I just had the phone in my pocket while I was, know, men don't often think, you probably are like, I've never even thought about that before.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (35:43.843)

Nice.

Marcey Rader (35:51.147)

But my girlfriend, Shane, if there is any kind of man coming into the house to do any kind of service work, we always like call, you know, just say like, text me in like 10 minutes or whatever. This turned it from outsourcing to safety in your home.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (35:51.79)

Thanks

Brian Nelson-Palmer (36:03.31)

Totally. I love it.

safety, but all of this is part of it, right? You're dealing with somebody you don't know. So I love that you brought that up because you're right. As a guy, I don't think about that as much. And that's something that for all you ladies that are listening, you should still outsource the stuff that you can. And when you do, this is just how you do it. So Marcy's your pro. I love it, Marcy. That's, that's awesome. Can we, let's shift gears and talk about professional stuff now, things that you've outsourced. So what comes to mind for you professionally?

Marcey Rader (36:10.517)

Yes. Yes.

Marcey Rader (36:31.67)

Yeah.

Marcey Rader (36:36.791)

So a lot of people that work for companies think I can't outsource anything. Wrong answer. So one thing is your PowerPoint presentations. I have seen the most horrible PowerPoint presentations. I used to create the most horrible PowerPoint presentations. People that work in companies and when I worked in companies are notorious for putting books on slides. It's nothing but words.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (36:42.584)

Wrong.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (37:03.623)

God. Yes.

Marcey Rader (37:05.047)

and people end up just reading them, they're terrible slides. And a lot of what you put on a slide is not proprietary. And so you could outsource on Fiverr or Upwork or something like that, give them the information, have somebody put your slides together. And if you did have something, you know, super like a graph that's well, know, proprietary or something like financials or whatever, you can add that later.

but there's so much like little tiny like formatting stuff and lots of time wasted for PowerPoints and you don't need to be doing that. And often if it's something like say that you have to present to your board every quarter and it's always the same slide template and all you're doing is switching numbers in and out or whatever, have somebody do it for you. And then all you're doing is switching stuff out every quarter and you will look like a rock star and who cares that you didn't do it?

because when you were hired, you did not say, I am the best at making PowerPoints that you will ever meet. You know, like I'm going to be number one at PowerPoints. They don't care about that. It's not about you're not. And you're not going to be promoted because of your ability to create the PowerPoint. You're going to be promoted because of the what the outcome of the PowerPoint is, the final product. So that's one of my go tos. Like you don't need to be doing that.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (38:30.764)

Marcy, I want to yes and you on that because the other thing, if you don't know how to do this already, it's time for you to go explore the AI tools and figure out how to have the AI tool make the first draft of PowerPoint slides, that kind of thing. Because I agree with you, if this is going to be a public thing that you're going to present for people that are more than like, we're talking two levels or more above you, I would absolutely get a pro slide. It would be worth it to me.

to spend the $10 on the expense account that you have or whatever, 15, 20, $30 to have a fiver, go in and make that thing really look good because that's gonna be your impression. So it's more than two people or if it's gonna be very public, absolutely the ProHelp is good. But for the everyday slides, if you're not good at it, you can totally copy and paste this whole text of this report and say, I need to give a presentation on this report. Please give me slides for this and AI will create

the slides for you. And if you don't know how to do this, this is one of, know, Marcy and I were talking about Googling and, or something that you're going to do over and over again, that's worth learning. I'm telling you right now for the rest of your work life, this is one that's worth learning. Make sure you know how to do this one, cause it's going to be good.

Marcey Rader (39:46.263)

Yeah. Yes and use AI to say like, this is what's on the slide. These are the different slides, but then hire somebody to make the slides. Cause AI is not going to make it look good on a slide, but you could have somebody then take that information from Gemini, ChatGBT or whatever, and then put it on the slide and make it look good.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (40:11.31)

I think you're right. That's where a lot of the back and forth is going to be, is if you already know what you want to say on the slides, especially to the text, you know exactly the text that each one's going to have and they just need to make the slides and make them pretty. That's going to be way more efficient because most times the back and forth with the people making the slides is going to be, well, I didn't like this on this slide and you said too much on this slide and a lot of it is it's the nitty gritty. So I love that point. Good point, Marcy. And you know, on this one, my

Marcey Rader (40:36.139)

Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (40:40.576)

Well, the one that I was going to share is a virtual assistant. I've had virtual assistants since 2008. have, I love, love, love being able to outsource. And this is for me personally and professionally. I have them do so much stuff that I don't want to, don't want to spend my time doing, or is it worth my time doing? But the thing I want to share that I think is helpful context is when we talk about outsourcing, I want to share the three kinds of virtual assistant setups that you can have.

that are probably helpful for you listening. the first one is, if you've got an, it's almost like, fancyhands.com is the one that I use, but it's, these are, it's a pool of assistants. So I want you to imagine like Uber or Lyft, where you got a bunch of people that are out there that can all do tasks and you put your task in the queue and somebody, whoever's available comes and picks it up and does it. Any of that kind of stuff.

That is a it's a membership. It's a flat rate. So it's like 30 bucks a month or you can even get down as little as $18 a month. If you've never hired a virtual assistant before and you're like, God, Brian and Marcy are talking about this and I've never done it before. If you want to know where to start and you want the shallow end, this is the dip your toe in the pool and don't spend too much money. $18 a month for fancy hands dot com. You can totally do this and try it.

have them put together a trip itinerary, have them do some of the things that you hear. If they can do it by searching the internet or being on the phone, that's your place to start. And this is the, that's the Uber model. So there's three models. That's model number one is the Uber like service. The middle, the next one is, yes.

Marcey Rader (42:19.607)

Wait, Brian, I do one thing from Fancy Hands? Can I say one thing? A company that I worked with about 10 years ago, they had a subscription to Fancy Hands. And for their employee of the month or whoever, they got to use Fancy Hands for that month on anything they wanted. So they could use it for work.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (42:43.278)

So good.

Marcey Rader (42:43.499)

They could use it for work. They could use it to research where to put grandma for her, know, assisted living, which was something somebody did that they didn't care, but they pulled their, their team. was a small company. I think it was like 15 people. And they said, would you rather get a gift certificate somewhere, you know, parking space, or to be able to use fancy hands with this many credits a month. And everybody was like, fancy hands. Isn't that awesome?

Brian Nelson-Palmer (43:11.828)

hands. Yep.

Marcey Rader (43:13.431)

That was such a great use of... I know!

Brian Nelson-Palmer (43:14.734)

Smart, so smart. Yes, so so fancy hands is your first one, right? This is where you got credits and it's a fixed cost each month, so you don't have to worry about budget or blowing it or that kind of thing. So that's option number one. Version number two of virtual assistance is where you have a it's a fixed price contract. So think about it like Fiverr. Fiverr is where you know exactly what they're going to do and exactly how much money it's going to cost.

The same idea is if you're going to have somebody work on your house, you want to get a quote first so that they don't just run up the bill and all of sudden it's going to be a whole bunch of money. This Fiverr and those at fiverr.com is the one that the example that I'll give you. But this is where you know exactly what they're going to do and you know exactly how much it's going to cost. So there's not a risk of running up the bill. So that's your fixed price outsourcing. And then the last one that's worth you knowing, if you weren't already aware of this, is then it's the pay by the hour, almost like an employee thing.

And my favorite resource to start people on for that is called freeup.net. And what they do is they go out and they have interviewed virtual assistants from all over the world and they pick only the top 1 % of the really good ones. And so you go on there and you say, I need somebody who will do this. And it's an ongoing thing you're going to need regularly and you will just pay somebody to do it. You can have them. They'll give you the top two or three people that are really good and you can interview them. And then you just get started.

and it's not an employee, it's not like hiring somebody full time, this is just a really somebody you can outsource to. But that model is one where you pay them for their time. And so that's one where you wanna be clear on what they're doing because they can run up the bill because they're gonna keep working on all the tasks you give them and they're gonna charge you for all the hours that you work. So just wanted to share that.

Marcey Rader (45:06.353)

Yet you have to say spend no more than two hours on this task or something like that.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (45:13.208)

Totally. Absolutely. So virtual assistant is one. And on that same topic for me, actually having someone do setting up the podcast stuff, it's funny. I'm really missing them right now because like I do these. I I host the show. And for the longest time, I had people that would do it's the it's the it's the nuanced stuff that it takes to crank out an episode. You edit. You need to create the Web page. You need the social media post. Make the clips. Do the there's so much of that.

And so I have not, I've been doing it myself for a little bit. And my gosh, in next year, that is one of the first things that I'm doing is I have all of the steps written out. I just need somebody else to do them. So that's one that man, outsourcing tasks like that, which take a ton of time and you could pay someone in overseas, maybe the Philippines or India or something like that. They don't have to be the smartest of the smart person. If you can lay out the steps. gosh, that's a big one for me.

Any other, what else professionally? Anything else that comes to mind for professional outsourcing?

Marcey Rader (46:19.649)

Professionally, something else that I've used was, I've used them for image search for any kind, like for PowerPoints things like that. But also, mean, this is kind of professional, but it's also kind of personal, I guess. I have hired graphic designers to design logos, but also like one of the,

people that worked for me, she had this major faux pas once and we laughed about it. And as her anniversary gift, I had to make a graphic, which then I then put onto a t-shirt. There are quotes that I have that I have had them make and put onto a t-shirt. it's, know, things like that for your business, if you have it, or for your clients.

That is really easy to do as well. just research clients in general. I have used them to comb LinkedIn and find me 50 people in Salt Lake City that are interested in X and work for this size company because I'm going to be going out there.

and I want to be able to network and whatever. So I have used, I have outsourced from a work perspective to do that as well. And so if you, if you're a manager and you have a sales team or maybe you manage, because I worked in clinical research and so we worked with a lot of doctors. mean, that is a way like, use somebody that loves data.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (47:54.158)

Yeah.

Marcey Rader (48:11.751)

And that's all that they love. I mean, I hired this guy that his joy was to comb LinkedIn and find certain people that fit a certain profile. Like he loved it. He felt like a detective. And so, you know, that's what we used him for. He loved it.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (48:20.43)

Fuck.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (48:25.826)

huh.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (48:30.574)

Yes. And you know, when you're, we're talking about professionally, we talked about, if you haven't, like, again, I have the calculator that'll tell you what your work time is worth per hour and what your personal time is worth per hour. It'll give you an estimate, but that number is an easy way to then go to your boss and say, look, boss, my time is worth 50 bucks an hour, 30 bucks an hour, 25, 15, whatever it is. And I found a solution that does that for me that only costs this much money. That's

There's two things in that conversation with the boss. First, show them that it's cheaper for you to get it done somewhere else, so they just need to let you get it done. But the second thing is, remind them of the more valuable thing that you also need to do that you can't do because you got too much on your plate. Remind them of those things that you would rather be doing, so let me outsource this so I can do more of that.

and any of those tasks that contribute to the bottom line or add to the customer experience or things that are going to improve and the long term things that move the business forward that are more valuable, especially if you bring that into that conversation, that conversation with your boss will often go much smoother. And you'll probably get more yeses if you paint that picture on those two things. Any thoughts on that?

Marcey Rader (49:48.379)

Yeah, I think that could work sometimes, but I bet there are, I bet someone out there is thinking like, my boss would never go for that. And here's what I have found in the last 11 years. And this used to be me when I worked for a company. So I'm not dissing anybody out there, cause this was me.

I'm not going to spend my even though it would have saved me time. I couldn't you know, I was making six figures, you know, over 10 years ago working for a company and I was like, I would not pay somebody $20 an hour or I would not pay somebody $50 to do X for me. The company should pay for that. And if the company doesn't pay for it, like you're saying that, well, I'm not going to pay. I shouldn't have to pay for that. But what you're giving up, it's hurting you.

because you're spending that time, you're wasting that time. Maybe what you would get is two hours less work on a Friday or an hour less work every day. And it's interesting to me because business owners and small businesses will hire me and they, know, somebody could be making, you know, seventy thousand dollars a year or one hundred fifty thousand dollars a year or two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year. And the person

who is the business owner making $70,000 a year. They're more likely to hire me and I'm not cheap. Then the person who works for a company making $200,000 or I'm sorry, $250,000 a year because they expect their company to pay for it all the time. And it's just really interesting the mindset of a business owner versus making hardly any money because they see it as an investment.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (51:39.65)

Yes.

Marcey Rader (51:40.159)

And somebody from a company also see almost, you know, they see it as an expense. And if their company's not paying for it, they're not going to. I want you to, if you work for a company, don't think of it that way anymore. Think of it as an investment and you will get it back with your time, with your energy. Maybe you will get promoted faster. And again, this used to be me. Like, you know, I felt like

I'm not going to pay for that conference. My company should pay for that conference. If they're not going to, well then I just won't go. Like it was punishing them. So think about it as an investment in yourself.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (52:20.92)

Totally. You know, I could tell that we would go on and on and on in this one. I want to leave you listening with Marcy and I both, if you or your business or any of this, if this is an area that you think is an opportunity, both of us, Marcy, we could come up with a two pack where they can get both of us to come in and do a session. I'm sure even the different perspectives on just the way she looks at it.

I've gotten so much out of talking with her just because I have my own business and thoughts about this. But man, the different perspectives, hearing different people's opinions often helps move the needle a little bit more when you hear it from more than one person. So I say that because Marcy, let's, I want to start to bring us kind of wrap us here because we've been going and I know we could keep going. What I want to ask you is what Marcy, what would you, what advice would you give to someone who's just

starting out outsourcing who hasn't done a lot of this or any of this. What would you say to them?

Marcey Rader (53:26.647)

If it's from a work perspective, fix something that it's okay if it breaks. And by that I mean, don't outsource something professionally that if somebody screwed it up, it could be disastrous. From a personal perspective, think of one thing that you just procrastinate on all the time and you just don't wanna do it. And instead of,

feeling like a failure every day, because every day that you procrastinate and you move that task forward, I'll clean the gutters tomorrow, I'll clean the gutters tomorrow, I'll clean the gutters tomorrow. Every day that just makes you feel like I failed today, I failed again, I failed again, just outsource it.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (54:12.204)

Yes. Preach. Preach, sister. Yes, I love it. For me, the two, I got three pieces of advice for you if you've never done it. First, start with the free or the inexpensive opportunities. So I talked about errands, how it only costs like $5 to get stuff delivered. Or like, I remember when I used to order pizza and you, it was like $3.50 for delivery, or you could go pick it up. And my younger self was like,

I'm not paying your $3.50. I'm going to go pick it up. And like, my god, it took 45 minutes. And inevitably, there was a line when I got there. like, my god, $3.50. Please try the free or inexpensive options. Experiment.

Marcey Rader (54:54.103)

And you didn't have the heat thing that they drove to your house with the pizza in so by the time you got home it was cold

Brian Nelson-Palmer (54:59.712)

Right? And gold, yes, see? Totally. So that's the first thing is start with free or inexpensive options. And I will say the second thing is there's two, here's my top two indicators for the best opportunities for you. The first one is if it's something that you repeat multiple times, what are the ones that you do so many times?

that's going to be a great place to start. like for me, going to the store was five times per week and that was seven hours. That was a really big opportunity for me. So I started there. That's where I started was figuring that out. And if it's not the repeating things or if the biggest difference in your time's worth versus the cost. So again, we, we go back to the, I mean, store thing again in the store example.

it was free or it was like $5 to get the groceries delivered. Nobody was doing this until COVID happened and now everybody's tipped to the grocery game. But man, I used to pay the $10 to get the delivery charge back in like 2014, but it saved me so much time. Like the difference between how much of my time and how much that was worth versus the groceries, that's a huge opportunity. So look at that one. And my last one, please give yourself grace.

And what I mean by that is the first time you do it, you're gonna screw it up. It might not go as planned. It might not go perfectly. They're gonna bring you the wrong fruit that's not quite ripe. They're gonna do something wrong. They're gonna, man, there's gonna be something that isn't quite right. And give yourself grace in that. Try it two, three, four times before. Don't just, because it didn't work the first time doesn't mean that you can't do it. It just means that you might.

need to learn a little bit more about how it works to get better at it. But stick with it. Please do not give up on it. Marcy, my last question is, what does this mean for you personally? You and I both talk about this and we even we were like, we could do this episode. And you and I both were like, yes, I would love to talk. So what does this mean for you? What does it mean to Marcy?

Marcey Rader (57:13.279)

I just, I hope that you listening will be inspired by one of the things that we've talked about and write to Brian, find me on LinkedIn, write to me and just say, I tried this and maybe it was out of your comfort zone, but just that you tried one thing to either save yourself time

energy, money, your relationship, your health, because all that is more important.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (57:49.87)

So true. You you talked about your story, Marcy, for me personally, I'm passionate about this because I was diagnosed with diabetes at age four. And I remember sitting in the doctor's office and finding out that my life expectancy was 10 to 20 years less than everyone else. So I've always operated with this idea that I'm not going to have this long retirement. So I need to live it up now. So I got really good with the time stuff because I want to live now. I don't want to wait till retirement to do all the good stuff.

I wanna do it now. And so that's the why for me. And so to Marcie's point, try once. Give it one, try one, give it a try, see how it goes. If nothing else, it's gonna be a story. And then you can send this episode to your friends and talk smack and say, you know what? I tried what they said and it didn't work. And then you and your friends can laugh about it. And we still add into your life with some humor if nothing else, because now you got a funny story.

Marcey Rader (58:45.739)

Yeah, cause I have a story of one Brussels sprout.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (58:48.462)

Right? Totally. my God. I really if you have that picture of Marcy, send it to me. I want I want the picture. Check the if you you might have to go to the actual link. I don't know if it'll show up in the episode notes. You can't get pictures in there, but in the actual link on my website, I'm going to give you the one Brussels sprout picture so that you can see this because man, that's that's just funny. I love it. Well, Marcy, here's what I love. I love that you are.

Marcey Rader (58:53.559)

send it to you. I'll send it to you.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (59:15.04)

You've like gone all in and you wrote books and you're all about this topic of like how to be more productive and outsource. And I just love that you are so committed to sharing this stuff and that you're willing to come on the show and just share all the things that we talked about. Man, this is so helpful. So thank you very much for coming and being on the show today. This has been awesome.

Marcey Rader (59:38.135)

This was super fun. I love talking about this. Thanks, Brian.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (59:41.63)

And for those folks who want to keep in touch with you or check in with you later, what's the best way for them to keep in touch?

Marcey Rader (59:47.575)

Well, I'm only on LinkedIn, so they can find me there. My website is helloraderco.com or they can check out my new book, Reclaim Your Workday, Sustainable Productivity Strategies for the New World of Work. And it has eight chapters and they cover email and chat tools, meetings, remote work, vacation and time off, and healthy habits and so on.

But the productivity tips and strategies are actually separated by individual contributor, manager, and C-suite business owner. So they can find the specific level for them and incorporate a new productivity strategy or two.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (01:00:31.01)

Man, and I love that too, because even if you pick up that book now and then you get promoted over the years, like even as you get promoted into manager, you are still an individual contributor. So even if you just start with the first base layer, then when you move up, you're now gonna get the still, the base layer still applies plus the next layer. And then when you get promoted again, because I hope you still keep in touch with Marcy and I when you're some badass C-suite person way later. And like that's, I hope you're still that.

Marcey Rader (01:00:49.089)

Exactly.

Brian Nelson-Palmer (01:00:59.97)

Totally, all the levels, man. So I'll include all those links. Check your episode notes. That'll be in here. But thank you very much. Thanks. I appreciate that, Marcy. And for you tuning in, do you have a friend or colleague who you've talked about the outsourcing thing with, whether it's at work, where you wanted to outsource something and they wouldn't let you, or if it's a coworker, or maybe it's a friend, and you've toyed with grocery store horror story, grocery delivery horror stories.

Would you share the link to this episode specifically with them? Because I know Marcy and I would love to know that our conversation today touched people that are actually facing this right now. So a few texts back and forth with you is even if it's just for a laugh or something is going to mean so much and fill up both of your cups so much if you'll do that. So and I know Marcy and I would just love to know that you shared this and we helped make that happen. So whether

Whether you've joined my membership and you've taken the first step of joining the email list, or even if this is just your very first Productivity Gladiator episode, I love sharing Productivity Gladiator with you because together, these productivity skills are gonna change your life. That's a wrap.