The “Personal” In Personal Assistant: Why Hire a Personal Assistant for Home Life Tasks?

More Personal Assistant Tips from The Middle

 
 

You’re heads down on a high-stakes business proposal, focusing intently on strategy that will affect whether this project is a success or not, when: ding! A reminder pops up on your screen: “Make dentist appointment!”

Right… you made that reminder last week after putting off the appointment for months. Okay. That’s fine. You’ll just stop what you’re doing (of course it’s the worst time) and make it right now. No more excuses.

Except…that means you also need to check those travel dates you have next month. And shoot, did you ever actually book that car rental? And of course your dentist doesn’t have online scheduling, so you can’t even see when they have availability… ugh. Sorry, teeth. You’re just going to have to set a new reminder for next week… again.

Sound familiar?

You might agree that it’s common to hire an assistant for business for email, scheduling, or data entry, but outsourcing “life admin” can actually be the best place to start– for your business and your sanity. Personal tasks often carry heavier mental weight because they are emotionally nagging and ever present– life will always go on on top of work. By clearing your personal to-dos, many of which can be easily delegated (like running errands, calling customer service, grocery shopping), work to-dos become less of a burden because they are no longer getting in the way of handling your personal life.

“Life Admin” as an Additional Job + Decision Fatigue

Every decision you make, from “what’s for dinner?” to “which flight do I book?” drains the same battery used for strategic business decisions. Daily personal life admin ends up amounting to a whole other job, and trying to switch modes between your profession and your personal life kills workflows and momentum. Unfinished personal tasks like renewing an expiring car registration or racing against a narrowing return window create background anxiety that unfinished business tasks often don’t. Let the life admin be someone else’s job: literally! That’s what a personal assistant is for, and they’re happy to do routine tasks and make your life easier. 

The Expense of Outsourcing vs. Your "Life" Hourly Rate

What is your time worth? If you earn $200k/year, your time is worth about $100/hour. Compare that to the rate of a personal assistant at, generally, $25-45/hr. Why are you paying yourself $100/hr to sit on hold with your cellphone company, when you could outsource it to a personal assistant for a third of the price? It’s not a luxury; it’s you “buying back your time” so you can put it towards where you earn the most money. If you could dedicate more time to your business or profession, could you earn even more? You may be leaving money on the table if you don’t give yourself the latitude to focus on professional development.

The Most Common Task Categories to Hand Off

  • Category 1: Household Management:

    • Scheduling repairs/maintenance

    • Shopping for groceries or ordering meal prep services

    • Researching and booking house cleaners or landscapers

    • Organizing closets, home offices and storage

    • Returning packages and dropping off dry cleaning

  • Category 2: Family & Social Logistics:

    • Buying and shipping birthday gifts

    • Researching summer camps or extracurriculars for kids

    • Making dinner reservations for date nights

    • Creating family calendars (color-coded!)

    • Planning vacations and travel

    • Supporting with small events like dinner, holiday, and birthday parties

  • Category 3: Personal Bureaucracy:

    • Dealing with insurance claims

    • Booking medical appointments

    • Renewing licenses or passports

    • Managing subscriptions and updating new credit cards for autopay

    • Compiling receipts for taxes or accounting

    • Managing car maintenance and registrations

 

Reviews From Our Clients

 

You don’t need to do it all yourself.

You’re a hard worker and you take pride in your capabilities, as you should! Maybe, if you’re like many people, hiring a personal assistant makes you feel guilty or lazy for having someone else drop off your dry cleaning or buy your mom’s birthday gift. But with a simple reframing, you can realize there is absolutely no shame in having support. A doctor has a doctor; a lawyer has an attorney, and you can have another you. Shift your mindset from “I can do it myself” to “I am the only one who can do certain specific work, and I want to allow myself the time and bandwidth to succeed in that.” Can you make your own dentist appointment? Of course! Is that your time best spent? Maybe not. Will you actually make the appointment… every six months? Well. Not without a few (dozen) reminders to yourself.

How to Onboard an Assistant for Your Life

So start small: what’s your current bottleneck? An upcoming vacation? A registration deadline? An appointment that must get scheduled by next month? These are all great places to start to delegate. If you’re considering hiring a personal assistant, I’d encourage you to do a quick life audit and track personal to-dos for a week to build a job description. You’ll quickly realize how many little things are sucking hours from your week, every week. These can become the core responsibilities of your personal assistant.

 
 

Picture a Saturday morning where the household chores are done, the fridge is stocked, your bills are paid, and you didn’t lift a finger. You completed your big work project, and you have energy going into the new week to tackle the next step. A clear mind is a productive mind and that is possible when you work with a personal assistant.

Identify three “life admin” tasks nagging you right now. If you’re ready to clear those from your plate, we’re ready to match you with your personal assistant!

Now if only your assistant could go to the dentist for you…. (but at least the appointment’s made.)

 
 

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