Things you don’t have to do yourself anymore

Take a look at the ins and outs behind the online community marketplace sensation; Airtasker. Courtesy Airtasker.

For five bucks this guy will sing you a song. Photo: Fiverr Source: Supplied

FORGET spending hours labouring over a task you hate — these days there's hardly anything you can't outsource online. Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of modern efficiency.

Love letters

Whether you want to drop a witty one-liner to someone you're eyeing off online or you want to score brownie points with your partner, there's no need to risk an average Romeo effort — just hire a professional letter writer to spin your words. Glenn Alperin is one such wordsmith who writes professional and personal letters for those who can't string a stylish sentence together.

Poor granny, she thinks you wrote the letter yourself! Source: ThinkStock

"It's remarkably easy for such letters to come across in a very tacky manner," he says. "A love letter has to be able to capture the emotions of the person wanting me to write the letter in a way that sounds appropriate to them." He'll get his clients to brief him by phone or email, then get to work. "Mostly I have written the flirting variety that lets somebody know that the other is interested," he says. "These are fun although I would love to write a marriage proposal letter."

Cost: Roughly $33 per page plus editing costs.

Wedding speech writing

Don't be so swift to congratulate that groom or father-of-the-bride on their captivating speech — a new breed of wedding speechmakers are outsourcing their speechwriting to professionals.

"I've written speeches for grooms, best men and fathers of the bride," says speechwriter John Reynolds, who has also penned speeches for prime ministers and premiers. You might think this seems to lack heart, but John says it's actually pretty logical. "Some people will spend a day trying to write a speech and get nowhere," he says.

The bride can't believe how heartfelt her dad's speech was. It was so unlike him! Source: Getty Images

"In the lead-up to the wedding, you have so much going on — they only need to speak to me for an hour and it will come back pretty much done. I ask them questions to learn about their experiences and how they phrase things so it ends up sounding like them."

Cost: $160

Searching for love

If you've ever lamented that scrolling through dating sites and apps is too time-consuming, then perhaps you should consider outsourcing the job. Layla Roberts, from Concierge Connections has done just that for a client. "I would find and sign her up to speed dating events, arrange appointments with elite introductory agencies, search RSVP for men I thought she might like and check out the men who sent her kisses/emails, before deciding if I think she would be interested in them," she says.

"I can look at the men's profiles with fresh, objective eyes as I am not emotionally involved." While her client is yet to find "The One", Layla says she's been on a lot of dates. "Even if you outsource it, love is still partly a numbers game," she says.

Cost: $65 per hour.

Scoring a celebrity signature

There's no need to miss out on a celebrity signature just because you can't get to the red carpet. Take a leaf out of Chris Norris' book who found someone on AirTasker to line up for soccer star Tim Cahill's signature in Sydney last month.

Don't have time to get a celebrity signature? Get someone else to do it! Source: Supplied

"I was occupied at work at the same time, and a woman by the name of Sarah took the job," he says. Chris instructed her to purchase a jersey from the store Cahill was at, then line up, obtain the signature and post it to him. "I wanted the signature as I'm a big football fan," he says.

Cost: $250

Buy cigarettes

After a few too many beers for driving and a hankering for a cigarette, Michelle Cummings, 36, put a post on Airtasker to find a fellow Sydneysider who would happily bring her a packet.

"Sydney is a 24-hour city and I was amazed that even at 10pm on a Saturday night, there was someone available to help," she says. As for trust and safety, Cummings says she looks at past reviews before assigning a job. "I don't pay until the person has done the job," she says. "Also I did the exchange of cash for cigarettes at the doorstep and I didn't invite the runner in."

Michelle has also paid someone to sort her CD rack into alphabetical order and to sell clothes that don't fit her anymore.

Cost: $15 + cost of cigarettes

Weight loss

Having a live-in chef and personal trainer is not just the domain of celebrities. It might cost more than a Weight Watchers membership, but Australian expat Lloyd Ernst is paying for a couple of nurses to work split shifts monitoring his health from 6am to 11pm while he runs a business in the Philippines. He told news.com.au that local government laws required him to hire nurses for his 500-person team, so he decided to add two more to the roster to outsource the monitoring of his diet and exercise.

Lloyd Ernest with his weight loss nurses. Source: Supplied

"They prepare meals, count calories and order food for me at restaurants," he says. "I'm limited to 2000 calories a day. I never appreciated portion size until now, but I am never hungry. They keep turning up with food automatically." One month in, Lloyd says he is 5.5kg lighter. "The only time it is annoying is when they tell me we should take the steps and not the elevator," he says.

Cost: $500 a month

Personalised birthday videos

Stuck for a birthday gift for your best mate or mum? Head to Fiverr where you can pay pocket change for videos of people singing happy birthday in all manner of kooky ways — think naked, from the top of a coconut tree or written in the sand of a Jamaican beach — all recorded for your special someone.

This guy. Photo: Fiverr Source: Supplied

Brandon Cowen, 21, from Sydney did just this for his dad — getting a man covered in vegetables to sing his dad Happy Birthday. "When I first saw the video, I laughed so hard I cried," he says.

Cost: $5

Song mash-ups

When Alison Lynch's father-in-law Gus was on his deathbed, she took to freelancer.com to prepare a heartfelt surprise. As professional singers, her husband Izzy and his dad Gus had both recorded versions of a favourite song from the 1930s called "Where Are You?" so Alison found a sound technician who could edit the two songs together within an hour for Gus to listen to right before he passed away.

A sound technician edited together a song sung by Izzy and Gus. Source: Supplied

"Izzy has a lung disease so couldn't travel to see him," Alison says. "The song came out perfectly and when it was played to Gus, he managed a smile and gave a thumb's up then passed a few hours later."

Cost: $65

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