Top tips for delegating to maximize your productivity
So, you’ve downloaded the apps, tried to work more simply and you’re still drowning under mountains of work. Perhaps you need to start delegating?
To delegate means to transfer accountability and responsibility to others. If you are a control freak, you may find this idea terrifying but with some practice and faith in others, it will become easier to let go and do less.
Delegating can take many forms. As a parent, you may ask your teenager to start prepping dinner before you get home from work, ask a friend to help with lift clubs or hire a tutor to help your child with homework. If you’re managing a business, you may find that outsourcing other professionals to help you is just what you need. This doesn’t mean outsourcing someone to take over your job.
You could delegate various small tasks to others such as:
- Bookkeeping: an accountant
- Creating innovative PowerPoint presentations: a graphic designer
- Filing reports and other documents: a personal assistant (who could also fetch the kids occasionally, if required)
- Managing your company’s social media accounts: a social media expert
- Deliveries and collections (and maybe some grocery shopping): a driver
- Bringing in new business: a sales person
A few of these professionals may need some additional training in order for you to confidently delegate these tasks but a few hours of training could buy you so much more productivity.
Signs that you need to start delegating:
- You are spending your time on tasks that are not as important as others that need your immediate attention.
- You are spending time on tasks that don’t require your expertise, in other words, someone else could easily perform these tasks on your behalf.
- You are spending time on tasks that are mundane for you but someone else may find them interesting and may present an opportunity for them to grow and learn.
- You are spending time on routine tasks.
Only delegate tasks once you can make the time to delegate effectively and when you are positive that you won’t be missing important insight by delegating the task. For example, you need analytics reports in order to continue your work effectively. By delegating the retrieval and dissemination of these reports, you will miss a vital opportunity to assess statistics and data that could contribute to the long-term success of your company or division. You can, however delegate the compilation of various reports into one document to save you the time of having to search multiple databases to find these reports.
How to delegate effectively
- Set your ego and pride aside and prepare to ask for help.
- Be proactive about delegation, determine who you need and find them instead of waiting for them to come to you. We all know that one person that complains about washing dishes every night – desperately hoping someone will volunteer… Don’t be that person.
- Don’t feel bad or useless about asking others for help. Be confident in knowing that it’s because you are so successful that you now need a few extra helping hands.
- Trust those that you are delegating to.
- Delegate directly and ask for exactly what you need. Beating around the bush will frustrate the person you are asking and show them you’re not even sure what assistance you need.
- Don’t delegate the process. Instead, delegate the objective and performance criteria so they know what they need to achieve and they can do so on their own terms without you micromanaging them.
- Train them adequately and effectively the first time around.
- Provide them with the correct resources so that they don’t need to keep asking you to provide them. For example make sure you can give your bookkeeper all that they need upfront to ensure smooth running.
- Understand the limitations of the person helping you, this will help avoid frustration and overloading the person – you wouldn’t want them to end up in the position you’re in right now, would you?
- Practice patience.
If there’s one thing you take from this blog entry, let it be this; a quote from The Mindfulness Journal:“Practice not-doing and everything will fall into place” – Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching