TIME STEWARDSHIP PART TWO – THE IRREPLACEABLE POWER OF DELEGATION

The ability to work hard is one huge key to success, but the ability to leverage your time while working hard is irreplaceable. Having a strong support team gives you the reach to achieving your goals and multiplying their value. Fostering healthy, mutually beneficial relationships with those who assist you – sooner, rather than later – is something you won’t regret.

However, before you begin delegating tasks, there are 4 key factors you should consider first:

1. KNOW HOW MUCH YOUR HOUR IS WORTH

Establishing a number for how much an hour of your time is “worth” can save a lot of headaches when it comes to deciding how to spend your time. I find most people short-sale what their time is worth and spend time on things that are low-value uses of their time. They aren’t willing to spend money to help them get better at leveraging their time to accomplish more.

You can calculate what your time is worth in several ways – how much you’re capable of making in a year divided by the hours it takes to earn that; or, you can simply start with the value you place on your time. When you’re considering spending time investing in important relationships in your life, it’s difficult to put a dollar value on that, but it can be priceless.  When you do, there will be times you discover that spending that hour working is not worth what you missed spending time with your family and others.

2. KNOW WHERE YOUR TIME IS GOING

For a couple of decades, I did something that may seem crazy to some: I used an Excel spreadsheet to track where every single one of my hours went. You can see an example of this in the handouts titled Monthly Time Summary. It only took me three minutes each day to log my hours, and at the end of the year I logged those hours on to my Annual Time Summary. When I wanted to see how my time was spent during any given time period I was interested in, I was able to look at the report and compare those numbers to my values. If I said that my marriage was one of the most important things in my life, I could look at these numbers and face the facts: what percentage of my time was spent with my wife? How much time was I spending working, volunteering, or investing in family relationships? I encourage you to take on this practice, even if it’s just for a limited amount of time. If you’ve already calculated what your hour is “worth”, you’re then able to look at where the hours were “spent” and make sure you’re on track to meeting your personal and professional goals.

3. PRIORITIZE. PRIORITIZE. PRIORITIZE

Beware the “tyranny of the urgent.” It can be easy to waste half a day on something that seems urgent but isn’t a top priority. In business, make sure you’ve built prioritization into your routine and you’re spending time on the most important items first. Ensure anyone else who is supporting and assisting you is equipped to do the same. Take some time to determine if a project list software such as Notion would be a good investment to train yourself and your team on in order to make sure you’re always on the same page about what’s most important. Neglecting this is a huge risk when it comes to the valuable resource of time.

4. DON’T DO THINGS OTHERS CAN DO

If somebody else can do it, don’t do it. 

Successful people value hard work, but really successful people realize that they can’t do it all themselves. Trying to maintain 100% control will burn you out quickly, not to mention the detriment it will have on your team.  Don’t expect them to be you but help them be the best they can be to serve your common mission.  

Consider bringing on an assistant earlier than you think is necessary – it will be a lot easier than you think to move things off your plate and free you up to move in the direction you’re trying to go.

Focus on only doing the jobs you are best at or those that nobody else can do. Your team would rather you do something yourself because they believe you can do it better, but that’s a trap. Strong leadership in business knows what, where, when, and who to delegate to.  Take a look my five steps to effective delegating below.

 

5 STEPS TO EFFECTIVE DELEGATING

 

1. Remember that delegation does not shift the responsibility

Just because you’re delegating something doesn’t mean that you’re no longer responsible for the outcome. Don’t delegate your most important items – stay focused on those you can’t afford to take your eye off, even when that task might be filled with boring minutiae. If it creates sizeable risks for your company, it’s not worth delegating. Only delegate the items that lie outside the critical risk area. Do not delegate if a big mistake will hurt you. Maintain checks and balances to make sure you are satisfied that the people you’re delegating to are doing their jobs well.

2. Hire great people

Hire great people, and don’t just utilize them for what their job description is. Always be thinking ahead – “What’s on my plate today that someone else can take?” Hire to that level, not just to the job. Meet with them often and hire more than you think you will need so that there’s space to offload items into their world.

3. Hire for the future

You may have to work hard to teach, educate, and invest in someone else over a period of time. This can be discouraging at first – your intention in hiring that person was to ease your workload, and now you are investing even more work to train them. But if you spend a little extra to hire a great person, pay them well, and make yourself available for training, the person has a much greater chance of wanting to stay long-term. If you can make this work, it will pay incredible dividends. If you’re not willing to spend a little more and hire a great person, you can miss out on a great return. Be willing to “give a little” here and there to support those who support you.

4. Adjust your expectations

It’s better to have someone else do 80% of the job the way you would do it than to have to complete the job 100% yourself. Don’t forget that time is your most precious commodity. You may have to reset your expectations and remind yourself of the added value of not having to spend the time yourself, versus the job being completed somewhat less than you could do it. This is difficult, and it requires a good deal of letting go. There’s no room for perfectionism in every aspect of your business if you want to be successful. Remind yourself that you’ve hired people you can trust for a reason – lead them, don’t just manage them. Model hard work instead of mandating it. It’s likely that you will have to fight the desire to make sure the job is done perfect, but you will rarely regret delegating. Remember: providing clear expectations and deadlines are some of the greatest gifts you can give to your team.

Another advantage is growth. When you delegate, use the opportunity to teach and grow the person; this better prepares them for the next thing you delegate to them. Reviewing and discussing work done allows them to learn and in turn you are afforded the opportunity to delegate even more significant things in the future. What I get to delegate to someone I’ve worked with for five years versus one or two years is substantially different. Investing in my team has provided me huge returns and I’m able to move a lot faster and further.

5. Don’t neglect the power of prioritization

Sometimes it’s very simple principles that keep you and your team from pouring extra time where it shouldn’t go. One of these is ranking priorities. Meet with your support staff regularly to ensure that you’re all on the same page about what’s an “A” priority vs. what’s a “B or C” priority. Be cautious of making assumptions that others have read your mind about which items are the most critical. You could lose days or weeks of progress if you neglect to check in.

ACTION STEPS:

+ Calculate how much your hour is “worth” based on a method that makes sense to you.

+ Make a list of items you routinely take care of that someone else could realistically do. Next to those items, write some ideas for who could take those things off your plate.

+ As you look at your business or personal goals, think ahead to needs you’ll want to delegate in the future. Start thinking about a plan to delegate when it comes up.

This post is the second of a three-part series on time stewardship. The first post covered why time stewardship is important, and I’ll share some simple tips and tricks to greater time stewardship in the final installment.