“Employ thy time well, if thou meanest to get leisure,” said Benjamin Franklin. Ben was one for being a “quotable” person. There are over 200 quotes that you can find on the web associated with him. Although he lived during the 18th century, I think this quote has more meaning today than it did almost 300 years ago.
In today’s fast paced lifestyle I am sure you feel like I do - that you never have that extra time to do what you want to do, either by yourself or with your family. The technology of today seems to be always chasing you, whether it is your cell phone, Blackberry, email, instant messenger or pager, carrying demands on your time from business associates, your boss or the “ultimate boss”- your significant other. And your time may be further impacted by having a business or job that requires you to travel a lot, so you are not around the home very much.
With this list of time-consumers it’s not surprising that little time is left for taking care of various services needed around your home for maintenance, or for some other emergency need your home may require. The time crunch gets bigger if you need to maintain a vacation or rental property you own.
A home typically needs a certain number of everyday services performed to keep up with normal maintenance, and an additional number of unplanned services for emergencies. Just as a reference point, the average $300,000 home needs 7 upkeep services and from 3-6 emergency services each year. And this does not include special request items like tree trimming or repairing a lawn sprinkler system.
If you are someone who has the time to do all of this maintenance yourself – awesome! But most people don’t have that luxury, and find they are short on time. You may not be spending enough time with the family or finding enough time for you to relax and enjoy life as Ben suggests. Maybe you also need the comfort of knowing that your spouse has access to a trusted source for any special home maintenance requirement.
One way to get out of that “no time available” rut is to separate yourself from these chores by outsourcing to a home services management company that specializes in managing that list of services for you. One significant advantage of this approach is that you can save yourself the time it would take to contact all of those service companies to get estimates, and then attempting to make the right decision on which is the right company for you for each service. Of course, what happens if they are not the right company is that you now have a challenge on your hands to manage them to your level of service expectation.
With the home management services company approach, all you make is one call and they do the rest. They will work with you to understand your service needs and service level expectations, so they can be your advocate when finding the best solution to your needs and insuring the work is being done to your expectations. Just think of the time you can save with this approach!
Ok, so let’s assume you are now saving time; are you also saving money? That should be true from a couple of perspectives. If you assume “time is money” then you are well on your way to savings. Also, working with a company experienced in finding the right service solution will benefit you by ensuring that the service is done correctly for you the first time. The single billing/payment approach will also save you time and money, as you only have one source to depend upon for this issue.
The real advantage behind this approach is that the home services management company has your best interests in mind, and will make sure that your services are performed as you want them done.
So let me sum it up with one more Ben quote: “Lost time is never found.” Start now and consider an alternative to how you manage services done to your primary home, vacation or rental property. Consider turning to a professional – a place where “one call does all.” This should get you the extra leisure time you want, and on top of that probably provide you comfort and security, knowing that your home service needs are being handled even better that they were before.
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John Tenuta, President, JNL Home Management Services
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