The benefits of outsourcing your “To-do” list

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Many women think they can “do it all” but for what cost? Research shows that effectiveness declines when we overtask and our health is also at risk.

Several years ago, I attended a breakfast seminar where a very well regarded female CFO discussed the challenges of rising the ranks as a mother of two. She said that in order to achieve what she had, she made the conscious decision to outsource as many of the unimportant tasks in her life as possible. She knew that if she didn’t something was going to give:

  • Being the mother to her kids that she wanted to be

  • Her marriage

  • Her physical and mental health

  • Her career, if she spread herself too thinly she couldn’t meet the demands of the job and be the leader she aspired to be

  • Her home would be in disarray, it wouldn’t reflect who she was and she wouldn’t be able to relax

She accepted the cost of outsourcing was going to eat into the substantial pay rise she had received but knew that it would give her back time for the most important things in her life, which was worth more to her than buying a flasher car or a house in a more upmarket suburb.

During my years as an executive in the corporate world and observing other busy women what I was seeing was women exhibiting one or many or all of the below:

  • Constantly rushing, with barely a spare moment for oneself

  • Feeling guilty and like they weren’t doing a good enough job at managing it all

  • Always putting others needs ahead of their own

  • Overreliance on caffeine, alcohol or both

  • Medical issues - digestive, insomnia, inability to conceive

  • A desire for more, a bigger house, more clothes, better holidays etc

  • Choosing to ‘opt out’ of their career or not go for bigger roles as the ‘juggle’ had just become too overwhelming.

In her book ‘Rushing Women’s Syndrome’ nutritional biochemist Dr Libby Weaver makes the connections between women’s daily battle to keep up and get to the end of the never ending ‘to-do’ list and the significant impact it is causing to women’s health.

She discusses how our bodies interpret constant rushing as stress and how this can disrupt our nervous systems causing weight gain, sleep disruption, sex-hormone imbalance, sluggish thyroid, bloating and cravings.

So why are so many on this path rather than that of the successful CFO? The following have a part to play:

  • Believing you are not enough or that you don’t have enough. Many women simply believe that they are not good at being organised rather than acknowledging that what they are trying to achieve by themselves is insurmountable.

  • Seeing asking or paying for help as a weakness rather than a strength

  • Overly high standards (driven largely by a fear of judgement) and a reluctance to delegate

  • A lack of boundaries resulting in spare time doing jobs.

So what can you do to get more balance back in your life:

  • Be honest with yourself, your levels of stress and how you feel

  • Identify the beliefs that are stopping you from getting more help to achieve your goals

  • Identify your life priorities and look at them everyday

  • Observe your daily life and those things that are getting in the way of meeting your priorities

  • Identify the available help either from friends and family or from 3rd parties

  • List the things that you are prepared to give up so that you can meet your priorities (this could be buying less or going on cheaper holidays).

Knowing what your priorities and goals are and curating your life around these is the key to a life that you will love where you feel a sense of purpose and passion!