If you want your car to last as long as possible and run at its best, you should be investing in regular maintenance. At certain mileage milestones, you can expect to replace certain parts. But while you may take it in to a certified mechanic for a coolant flush or to replace your brakes, it might be an unnecessary waste of money to pay for someone to change your wiper blades.
That’s simple enough and you can do it yourself.
When it comes to your home, the same kind of approach applies too. There are certain things that need to be done around the house. If your heating system is completely on the fritz and you have no idea why it’s not working, it’s probably best to hire a professional. Conversely, it probably doesn’t make sense to pay someone $85 an hour, plus travel expenses, to come all the way out to house to change a light bulb.
You can probably do that yourself.
But just because you can do it yourself doesn’t mean that you should.
Somehow, I get the burning suspicion that someone like Bill Gates or Warren Buffett doesn’t go around changing wipers and light bulbs. I could be wrong, but I imagine their time is better spent working on other projects. You could say the same for yourself when it comes to your own business ventures. Just because you can do it yourself doesn’t mean that you should.
Just because you can try to concoct your own blog theme doesn’t mean you should. Unless you already have a strong background in design and development, you’ll need to invest untold hours into learning how all of that works… and even then, the end result that you produce will probably pale in comparison to what an established professional will be able to make for you.
And in less time.
So much less time.
“But I can get a free theme to tinker with,” you might say. “But I can watch all these video tutorials on YouTube,” you might add. “I can access this free support forum and read through thousands of threads with mountains of posts each.” That’s true. It’s also true that these resources are only free if your time is worthless.
If you’re interested in learning for your own sake, that’s one thing. If you’re learning only to make this one thing, you’re better off leaving it to the pros. Or, as John once put it, “If you want something done right, let Michael Kwan do it.”
And you know the old adage that you get what you pay for? There really is something to that. You may have seen this viral video makes it way through your social feed at some point. If you’re willing to pay for a professional to spend a little more time on your project, you’ll probably end up with a better result.
I mean, you could decide to sketch your own Spider-man picture. But if you’re anything like me and my atrocious drawing skills, you might end up spending hours and hours only to end up with something that’s even worse than what this guy is able to do in 10 seconds. Doing it yourself, in this context, really is a waste of time. And that’s time that you could be spending much more wisely on what you’re actually good at and what you actually enjoy doing.
At the end of the day, particularly in the context of business where you are so much more concerned about the bottom line, spending money saves you time and earns you more money. There’s value in doing something for yourself, but that isn’t always the best course of action.