Which work should you delegate?

Delegation: it’s a chore. 

Don’t you sometimes wish you could delegate the task of delegating? After all, it takes just as much time to have to explain something as it does to do it yourself. 

Here’s a trick to make delegation easier and last longer:

Don’t delegate tasks: delegate responsibility. 

Start by deciding what you should delegate. Here are four rules. 

Delegate what brings a low return

Do you know which of your activities is costing you money? 

Start by knowing what your time is worth: what is your hourly rate, or how can you determine the value of your time?

If the return that the work brings you, is less than your cost to do it, then find somebody who can do it with less time or effort. It doesn’t mean the task is unimportant or not valuable, it just means it is not the right use of your time.

Avoid doing work that costs you more money than it makes you. 

Delegate what is high risk

That’s where expertise plays a role. 

Your clients hire you to avoid DIYing your service because you are the expert in it and they are not. 

What should you be delegating to experts?

Two typical areas for high-risk delegation are:

• Your contracts: hire an attorney
• Your financial reporting: hire a CPA

If these are done incorrectly it can cost your business money, time, and a whole lot more. Delegating the tasks of writing contracts, compiling reports, and generally managing high-risk areas will minimize that risk for your business. 

Delegate what you do badly

Hey, you are great at many things. But none of us can do everything well. 

Knowing your strengths means also understanding your weaknesses, and those are areas you want to delegate. 

Be honest with yourself: what do you do badly? Which tasks or work do you know could be improved? 

One such task I run into often is calendar management: people who struggle to manage their time, keep calendars up to date, schedule appropriately, send reminders, and more. This is a simple task that you can outsource to somebody better at it than you are. 

Delegate what you don’t like doing

We all have to do things we would rather not do. 

The problem is that the less we like doing something, the more likely we are to do it badly or not do it at all. 

What is the day-to-day work that you keep putting off? What do you wish would take you less time? 

Find what you don’t enjoy, and delegate that area of business. 

Do what you do best

And delegate the rest.