Gary North

Feb. 13, 2010

My wife has been painting her office for two weeks. She is slow but sure. Her work is superior to anything a professional painter would provide. He works on a time schedule. She does not. She works on an output standard, not an input standard based on time.

She spends a lot of time in the office. If her surroundings did not meet her standards, this would annoy her. Having saved time by hiring a painter would not compensate her for the reduced quality.

She will complete the job for the price of paint and her time. She does not factor in the cost of her time. She likes projects. I tell her they are kits. She likes to solve puzzles. I don't.

In some areas, do it yourself is best. In others, it isn't. I have never let anyone index my books. I do it. It takes me an hour to do eight to ten pages of a book. I must now hire someone else do this for the newly typeset books in my commentary series: 31 volumes. It would take me well over 1,000 hours. At 10 hours per week, that's two years. I don't have the time to spare. I must spend the time producing on-line videos on each chapter. The cost in time is now too high for the indexing project. I would be trading off indexing for videos. The videos are more important for the success of the series than the indexes are.

Decide what must be done exactly right. Then do it yourself if you are highly skilled. Not everything must be done exactly right. You should pay someone to do that. Your time must be spent on what must be done right. You do not have unlimited time.

For over 200 other tips, click here:

http://www.garynorth.com/public/department54.cfm