Offshore Labor for Administrative Tasks

Many people have heard of Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek, or at least the concepts: most of the “work” people do is administrative, so outsource/offshore it to focus on what you do best. Well, much of that applies to entrepreneurs who are trying to squeeze more hours out of the week. An executive assistant is often too expensive for early stage entrepreneurs so they end up doing many administrative tasks by hand. Outsourced/offshore labor is great for freeing up time and doing tasks that seem simple but can be burdensome.

Here are some example administrative tasks for offshore labor:

• Build lists of information you want (e.g. say a site has a directory of 1,000 companies listed on it and you want to call them all — put up a job on oDesk.com for $50 for someone to build a Google Spreadsheet by hand of those 1,000 companies including contact information, company size, city, state, etc)
• Research the best flight and hotel options for a tradeshow
• Perform online research projects

I like to remind people that 50 cents an hour is a middle class wage in many countries. Entrepreneurs, even ones bootstrapping with little resources, will do well to start learning how to maximize their time and offload administrative tasks to other people that have a comparative advantage.

What else? What are your experiences using offshore labor for administrative tasks?