Outsourcing: What Our Family + Business Delegate to the Pros

Plus: How to Outsource on a Budget, and What to Do When You’re Too Overwhelmed to Delegate

Just a few of our cookbook crew!

Hello from the heart of Maycember.

I know you’re busy right now. I am too (see: winding down school and multiple photoshoots for The Simplified Cookbook on top of, you know, wading through everyday life).

(Also, there was a hole in my actual fingernail because I have neglected to give my nails a break from gels, and I feel like this is a metaphor for my life??)

IT’S FINE, EVERYTHING IS FINE.

We knew this busy time would come. Yet even with preparation, being in the middle of the Maycember storm can feel a bit . . . like weathering hurricane. 🙃

A few weeks ago, on a Friday, I was looking at my planner for the upcoming week and just about had an actual panic attack. It was the end of the school year, the Simplified Tent Sale was coming up, and I had an *enormous* photoshoot I was hosting at my house for the cookbook. It was one of those math equations that just didn’t make sense. There was no way I (alone) was going to get #allthethings on my list done to do all three of those things WELL. So I laid my pride aside, got out my phone (and credit card LOL) and started calling reinforcements. (And listen, it is an enormous privelege I haven’t always had to be able to outsource like this. But a hail mary to a number of people in order to get these things done well was an investment I was ready to make… to be honest, I had to or I was going to crumble under the weight of it all).

To get through this list, I called my longtime editor who’s gone freelance to get her help with the cookbook manuscript sub-edits; I called a food stylist we worked with on the Nashville shoot to get her help with the shoot; I called our amazing housekeeper for a one-time kitchen deep clean [for shoot prep]; I called our dry cleaner for a one-time pick-up [for shoot clothes]; and I called

Jane

to get her help with kid school pick-up.

This got me thinking… why do we shy away from sharing all the things we outsource (either in trade, as favors, or in a paid capacity)? I’d love to know what others outsource (in all these ways) when they know their limited time is best spent on other things either for a short time or a season?

In that spirit… here’s everything my family (and business) outsources! And how we’ve done it in seasons of plenty and few (dollars)…