Outsourcing Your Life: The Experiment Ends

JACKSONVILLE, FL -- Corporate giants are doing it more than ever -- outsourcing jobs to other companies and other countries. Most say it saves time and money. So could you apply that to your life? Turns out you can.

For an entire day, I outsourced my life.

Six a.m. -- It's time for breakfast. Now, I like to cook, but I'm not great at it, so I called Chef Tasha Peters with Big Mouth Personal Chef Service.

Chef Tasha prepared and packaged four custom, gourmet meals in my kitchen. There was no mess, no fuss.

Chef Tasha says her business is growing fast, and her client list stretches beyond the super rich.

"Mostly they're just upper middle class who just work a lot and have no time to do anything, so having somebody like me to do the shopping, do the cleaning, that'll give you an average of 12 hours in your week," she said.

Nine a.m. -- My boss asked me to watch her dog for a few hours. Jack isn't bad. He's obedient, he smells okay. But I'm not really a dog person, so, of course, I outsourced dog-sitting.

Becky Eberly owns Dog Days and Cat Naps. Her team picks up the slack for busy pet lovers all over the First Coast.

"They love their animals. They just don't want them to stay at home alone all day. [We] give them a good potty break and give them some attention and some exercise."

The most popular part of the business is taking the dogs out to do their business.

"That's the fun part of the job," Eberly said.

"Always gotta pick up the poop."

10 a.m. -- I'd planned to read to a class at RL Brown Elementary, and I usually like to take a gift along. Sounds like I need a personal shopper.

Sandra McClamb owns Sim-ply Elegant, a personal shopping service.

"I love to shop and I'm good at it. There's a market for it and I started doing it," she explained.

11 a.m. -- The morning's almost gone and I have a lot left to do, so I called Jay Morris with East Coast Concierge.

"One thing that we do for our client is anything that they don't have time to do or anything they don't want to do," he said.

And you know, I've always wanted to meet my neighbors, but I've never had time.

So Jay did it for me.

"My name is Jay Morris and I'm a personal concierge for Victor Blackwell. Have a great day."

High noon -- I try to give back to the First Coast community -- you know, do my part. So, I sent Jay to a second grade class at RL Brown Elementary.

"I'm a personal representative of Victor Blackwell," he told the kids.

"I'm here to read you a story on his behalf. I'm sure some of you have seen him on the news from time to time."

Apparently, I did pretty well -- and the toys were a hit.

All done here. It's one o'clock, and it's time for lunch -- so I sent Jay to meet my friend and colleague Kennie Berg. Although I'm not actually having lunch with her, I want to know what I missed. Jay took careful notes.

It's two o'clock, and time to head to the station. I really need Jay to come through on this one.

"I was wondering if he could get December 27th and 28th off?" he asked my bosses.

"That's still denied? Is there a possibility that I can follow up with you at a later time?"

Nice try, Jay...nice try.

Maybe the story pitch meeting will go a little better. Jay pitched a story for me.

It's his first time working for a journalist. He spends a lot of time helping out busy families.

"Mother and father working two different jobs. The kids are at school, playing sports. The house has to be taken care of and the vendors have to be looked after. I'm like central command for the household -- for a busy household," he explained.

No matter the type of service, if you're considering outsourcing a responsibility or chore, ask yourself one question.

"What is your time worth? We like to provide clients time back to them," Jay said.

And after my day of outsourcing, it's worth it.