The concept of outsourcing can go beyond using virtual assistants, web designers and programmers. By outsourcing chores, you can remove the stressful things in your life, and as a result, have more time to do the things you love.

Deciding What to Outsource

Web workers often do many tasks that go beyond their areas of expertise. It may be worth investigating the possibility of having someone else take on those energy-sapping chores. How do you decide if you should outsource chores, and which ones? Here are some factors to look at:

• Take an honest look at your life. Is your mind constantly racing because you have too much going on? Do you miss important events or milestones of friends and loved ones? Are you losing touch with friends and family due to an overloaded schedule? Do you keep thinking about work when you’re not working? What’s the point of earning money if you’re not going to make the most out of your life?
• Evaluate the time and cost. Figure out how long it takes you to complete the chore. Then, calculate how much you would earn if you drop the chore for more income-producing work. Use that number to help you determine how much you would pay someone to do the chore.
• Account for possible training time. Some chores may require initial training. To shorten the training time, document the process. Even though the freelancer might do this type of work on a regular basis, the process may not be identical for all clients.
• Review spending habits. You may find areas where you can buy fewer things and invest that into outsourcing to gain more time. It’s a sacrifice, but the extra time can be worth it.
• Consider chores you despise. These exhausting chores interfere with your emotional state and energy levels, which affect work and personal activities. Hiring someone else to take on hated chores could give you extra energy and time to do the things you enjoy.

Available Outsourcing Sites and Services

You can enter your zip code or city on many of the following web sites to receive a list of services in your area. Other web sites ask you to answer a series of questions and serve up a handful of matches. However, in researching sites that provide these services, I have seen some serious complaints. As with everything else online, do your due diligence.

For live advice, try LivePerson, a marketplace for chatting live with experts in many topics ranging from health issues to spirituality. Browse for the service you need for a list of experts along with their bios, their cost per minute and whether they’re currently available.

You can enter chore requests in DoMyStuff and RunMyErrand. RunMyErrand is limited to Boston, but other cities have similar services. TaskUs not only lists administrative and sales and marketing services, but also personal services such as event planning, selling stuff and travel help. Then there’s craigslist.

Another option is to use a search engine. If you have a specific job in mind such as a chef preparing meals or a dry cleaning service that picks up and drops off dry cleaning, a search engine can help you find local resources. For example, enter “dry cleaning delivery service” to see a list of local services that provide delivery. Some search results include ratings and reviews. If you’re traveling and in need of a suit pressing, use your laptop or cell phone to search for a local delivery service to take care of it for you.

What chores do you outsource or want to outsource? How do you find and evaluate the contractor?

Photo by stock.xchng user Sanja Gjenero

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This is where a new site called YourLi.st comes into play.  With YourList, you enter in a title and summary of the task, then set up whether the event needs has recurrence.  In my testing, setting up a reminder generates an initial e-mail confirming the reminder.

On their front page, the site pledges to not re-use or sell your email address, but I’d recommend using a disposable email address if you are concerned with getting spammed by the new service.

Also, check out the bookmarklet if you want to quickly create reminders easily in your browser.

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Manage incoming shipping with TrackMyShipments
First off, have you ever had to track shipments from multiple shippers? For example, you have a computer coming from UPS, office supplies that are coming via USPS, and some supplies for a client that happen to be coming from DHL. To keep track of all these shipments, you’d have to keep tabs on each confirmation email from the shipper with the tracking number, copy and paste that tracking number into each shipper’s website, and then you can see roughly where your packages are and when they’ll arrive. This seems like a tedious way to manage this information.

Enter TrackMyShipments. This handy utility will keep track of all your shipments, regardless of which shipper you’re working with or where the packages are coming from. Here’s how it works: simply forward them the shipping confirmation email that contains the tracking number to track@trackmyshipments.com. Then, the utility identifies your email address, the shipping address, and the tracking number. Simply log into the website and see all your shipments in one window. Simple and easy. See the screenshot below of what you’re shipping map will look like.

Convert documents with KoolWire

I love the Adobe’s PDF file format. With it, we can universally share documents and have the formatting look exactly how we expect it to. However, creating a PDF can be expensive (full Adobe Acrobat is hundreds of dollars) and can create a slight hassle. WebWare recently pointed us to a great utility that can ease making file conversions to PDF and a few others.

To get started, simply take a Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or Excel document and enclose it in an email to pdf@koolwire.com. Within minutes you’ll receive an email back with the PDF associated with the file you sent. With a few trials, I found it to be a slick and easy way to convert documents for sharing. If on the other hand you have a PDF that you want to convert to a word document, enclose an email go doc@koolwire.com.

Additionally, you can convert to and from wav to mp3, for audio purposes. To convert a wav file to mp3, enclose a file to mp3@koolwire.com and vice versa, to go from mp3 to wav, enclose a file to wav@koolwire.com.

Koolwire will have added value if you are a web worker who uses an email service with a high storage quota such as Gmail or Yahoo! Mail. If you fall in this category, you can use Koolwire to convert and store documents that you may want to keep around for storage reasons, or to have on hand to share with people by forwarding a quick email.

Instantly collaborate with ChatMaker

Ever have some colleagues or teammates that you want to chat with all at the same time, whether it be to collaborate on a project idea or simply plan where you’re going for dinner that night? This problem might be confounded if you all already use Instant Messaging, but are all on different networks.

ChatMaker gives you instant access to a simple chat room by visiting their website and entering in a title for your chat room. You are then provided a URL to share with whomever you want to provide it to that will allow them to join the chat.

Keep in mind that these chats are not encrypted and are not all that secure, so we wouldn’t recommend talking about company financials, but it’s a quick and easy tool to have a group conversation over chat. It’s reminiscent of IRC, but only requires a web browser to get started.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
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• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks