Outsourcing drudgery is a common recommendation from productivity experts and leading entrepreneurs. Tim Ferriss recommended leveraging human virtual assistants as a key strategy to unlock The 4-Hour Workweek. Cal Newport and Laura Vanderkam have sung the praises of outsourcing various chores to enable parents to be both highly productive and live a well-balanced life.
Despite all these endorsements from thought leaders that I respect and follow, I have always felt a bit uncomfortable with outsourcing my own life. I am also influenced by people like The Minimalists and Mr. Money Mustache who advocate instead to simplify life and do more yourself.
I worry that if I slide too far into maximizing life for time value, I will miss what it actually means to be living it. Managing the chores of life yourself supports a foundation of discipline that is a requirement for a deep and fulfilling life.
I realize that my objection to outsourcing is more psychological than logical. This is where AI comes in as a potential bridge for people like me. While logically no different, handing over the keys to my inbox and calendar to an AI assistant as opposed to a person in the same role “feels” very different to me. Logically there can be similar concerns about privacy, mistakes, and security. But from a philosophical perspective, an AI assistant feels like a tool I control that allows me to still manage the drudgery myself, just with much more efficiency. I hope AI enables us to benefit from the best of both camps as we become more and more empowered to outsource with a feeling of DIY ownership.