Do It Yourself and Lose!

if there is one notion that really gets me hot, it’s the idea that doing something yourself automatically saves money. ok — i get it — the hard costs may be less in the short-term. the problem is, there are plenty of other “costs” that are higher because of you. let me name three. quality suffers. if you pass on a pro to do something you don’t know how to do, then you cut corners and produce a lesser product. there’s no way around that. time is lost. because you don’t know what you’re doing, or are at least less efficient than a pro, it takes you longer to do a project. the fact that you’re even involved takes up your time – whereas the pro could do it on their time while you’re free to do whatever you should be doing. maybe you have nothing to do and don’t value time, which is how this all got started. the environment takes a hit. every time you waste materials, more needs to be produced – wood, paper, ink, whatever you’re expending at a less than professional pace. i know – you’ll be dead when the $hit really hits the fan so why should you care, right? weak.