Big ideas, human limitations, and the empty promises of automation and outsourcing

Could this be the end of my "boss babe" era?

Hi there! You’re reading a free post on my Substack publication, The Tea’s Made. If you like what you see, I’d love if you’d consider subscribing.

Last weekend, I found myself as a rather sudden and unexpected first-time AirBNB host. After getting married last month, it made sense for the kids and I to move from our (smaller) house into Eric’s larger one. But there’s a lot we’d need to do to get our old home ready to list, and we’ve grown attached to the house and land it’s on (which still houses our chickens, my office/studio, and a shop full of Eric’s tools.)

Maybe, we thought, we could try short-term rentals for the season while we figure out what we want to do next. I tossed the house up on AirBNB, and within a few days, I had multiple bookings.

That’s when I realized that I actually have no idea how to be a “professional” AirBNB host - the kind that use multiple apps to manage calendars and coordinate with cleaners and communicate with guests - and I definitely didn’t have enough time to figure out how to use all those apps, automations, and outsourcing options before our first guests arrived.

What I do know how to do, however, is host people in my home (and clean like a maniac just before they come), so that’s where I decided to start. Which means that Eric and I turned over the property three times in the first week while he was also busy finishing renovations on one of the bathrooms.

This is not what a “boss babe” would do, friends, at least not the sort I’ve found myself studying over the past two decades. Outsource, delegate, automate: that’s the message I’ve absorbed over and over and internalized, even when it’s gone against my deep-down, scrappy DIY nature. No, a “smarter not harder” modern-day entrepreneur would hire the whole thing out, automate the process, grow to ten or fifteen properties, create an app, publish a successful ebook, and make passive bank…at scale.

not what a boss babe would do.

Turning over the property ourselves, on the other hand, wasn’t at all efficient. But you know what? It was surprisingly satisfying. I found myself walking from room to room, putting myself in the guests’ shoes and thinking about where I might want to find the towels or what spices I might like to have in the pantry. I placed a bowl of eggs from our hens in the fridge, put together a guest book full of local recommendations, placed a welcoming note with a bottle of wine and sparking juice, engaged in a sweaty wrestling match with the fitted sheets, and did many loads of laundry. And while it was a lot of work, I felt good knowing about exactly what the guests would see when they first walked into the home.

What I wasn’t doing while I was turning over the rental, of course, included working on any of the other Big Ideas that are constantly rattling around in my head. So even while I was enjoying the hands-on, tactile experience of turning over the property, in the back of my mind, I had this nagging feeling that I “should” be using my time more wisely, more efficiently, more…well, Boss-Babe-y.

There’s no doubt that I could hire out most of the stuff I have been doing in the AirBNB. Or perhaps, automating my media business or leaning in on AI would make it possible for those other ideas to keep churning away and producing while I’m busy fluffing pillows.

But friends, this constant push to figure out ways to free up time and space in my life just to fill with more production is exhausting. (And expensive. The “software and subscriptions” expense line-item on my taxes keeps getting longer, and I’m not even sure what half of these services are doing for me at this point.)

For at least a decade I’ve marinated in a business mindset that gave me the idea that if I learned to “work smarter” and automate/outsource/delegate more, I could bring ALL my ideas to life - a seductive thought for a self-confessed idea hoarder like me. And that can create a lot of tail-chasing, confusion and weariness.

Because it’s not just about putting more stuff out there in the world, is it? For me, there’s a real relationship between effort expended and the experience it yields. We’ve all experienced the difference between a hand-written note and a form letter, a warm, homemade chocolate-chip cookie and a mass-produced one out of a box. Higher input tends to result in higher impact.

And relationship between input and impact isn’t just true for the receiver; it’s often true for the creator, too. The personal touch (and personal effort) that make an experience special to receive is exactly the same personal input that makes it more satisfying to create. For myself, the further away any particular idea gets from my personal execution of it, the more diluted it seems to get and the less satisfaction I feel in having brought it to life.

Photo by Food Photographer | Jennifer Pallian on Unsplash

We’ve all experienced the difference between…a warm, homemade chocolate-chip cookie and a mass-produced one out of a box. Higher input tends to result in higher impact.

Last week I wrote about the “yeah-buts” that led me from an idealistic young person, ready to chuck off all the trappings and expectations of our consumerist, capitalist society and live in an off-grid yurt…to a very average 45-year-old with a mortgage, credit-card debt, and some big questions about how I got here. Now I find myself asking the question: When I say I want to live more “simply” what do I even mean?

Maybe just this: after a decade or more of seeking more and more time-saving solutions so I can do a lot of things, I’m finding myself drawn to putting a lot of effort into just doing a small handful of things at a time, and letting my own personal limitations guide how much I take on. Which necessarily means accepting that I have limitations, no matter how many AI-powered tools I invest in.

This is a huge departure from the life-and-business mindset I’ve been marinating in for the past decade-plus, but it feels like a necessary about-face in our current culture. Outsourcing, automating, and delegating aren’t inherently bad, but sometimes they can “help” us do things we really don’t need to do in the first place. To what end?

Are you tired, too, friends, in that vague sort of way where you can’t even tell where the exhaustion is coming from? Maybe we’re all tired of being told that yet another new tool is the answer to simplifying our workloads and lives, when what we need is a stronger connection to the work that matters, and less of the work that doesn’t.

I spent my 30s learning to accept that I couldn’t do it all without help, and looking for solutions that would help me do it all and keep adding more.

In my mid-40s, I’m finally starting to learn that I can’t do it all…period.

And if I can just quiet the part of my brain that says “you should try” for a moment, I may realize I don’t even want to.

I’m not quite wise and aware enough yet to embrace my limitations. Sometimes I don’t even really recognize them through the blurry lens of “possibility.”

For now, all I can do is try to wrap my arms around my own limitations, to feel for their fuzzy edges. And one way to start is to limit the technological “helpers” that make it seem more possible to do things I don’t even necessarily want or need to do anyway.

I’ve got a long list, friends, and my red pen is ready.