Top tips for delegating to maximize your productivity

pexels-photo-52608So, 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:

  1. You are spending your time on tasks that are not as important as others that need your immediate attention.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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

  1. Set your ego and pride aside and prepare to ask for help.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. Trust those that you are delegating to.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. Train them adequately and effectively the first time around.
  8. 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.
  9. 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?
  10. 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

Productivity apps that could help you work simply

In our last blog we promised that we would provide you with some productivity apps to help you optimise the physical conditions to minimise distractions, regain focus and hit reboot.hands-coffee-cup-apple

Here are our top 10:

Omnifocus:

omnifocus

Although a bit pricey, this application allows you to make sense of all the tasks and projects floating around in your head and drop them in an ‘inbox’. You can categorise things you have to do, defer and delegate tasks and group certain tasks into projects to complete at a later stage. You can even set locations tasks with corresponding reminders such as having to purchase a new glue stick for your child the next time you pass a grocery store. This application is compatible with Mac, iPhone, iPad and the Apple watch

Streaks:

streaks

A goal-setting tool that allows you to choose up to 6 tasks you want to complete on a daily basis. Each time you complete these tasks, the streak is extended and you stay motivated to create habits out of these tasks by not wanting to break your streak! There may be tasks you don’t want to complete every day, in which case, you can even set certain days to complete certain tasks. This application is available for iPhone, Apple Watch and will soon be available for android download.

Cold turkey:

cold-turkey-2

This is a Windows-based application, which allows you to block distractions by preventing access to certain websites at any time of the day. It is a fully customisable application and makes it incredibly difficult for the user to by-pass the block on the distraction. For example, if you don’t want to be distracted by Facebook between 9am and 12pm, you can block access to this site and prevent distractions.

Freedom:

freedom
This application is very similar to Cold Turkey but is available as an application and gives you the ability to block certain applications as well – not just websites.

Rescue time:

rescue-time
We told you in our last blog to keep track of where you are spending your time. RescueTime is an app that runs in the background of your mobile device and desktop to keep track of where you are spending most of your time so that you can implement better time management to increase productivity and minimise distracters (such as Facebook) using other tools such as Cold Turkey or Freedom.

Headspace:

headspace

This is the perfect application to clear your mind and hit restart. The application takes a modern approach to meditation with educational animations that provide simple explanations of meditation techniques and how to maximise effectiveness. There are 10 free levels, each of which includes 10 minutes of guided meditation.

Checkmark:

checkmark

Remember we spoke about positive procrastination a few blogs ago? This application allows you to create a checklist of what you want to achieve for the day. You can mark off what you’ve completed and receive reminders of what you still need to do. You can review which tasks you’ve managed to complete and which need to roll over to the next day.

Priorities:

priorities

Similar to Omnifocus, this application allows you to prioritise your tasks, share tasks with others, integrate activities with your calendar, email your tasks and intuitively categorise all the different projects and tasks that need to be completed. The only difference between this application and Omnifocus is the interface and this application is a fraction of the cost.

Day one:

day-one

This application won’t contribute towards your productivity but for those weeks where you feel like you haven’t accomplished much, this application is perfect. Once you’ve learnt how to free up space in your day, use some of this free time to jot down what you’ve accomplished for the day and how you felt. That way, when the week is over and you’ve lost track of what you’ve done you can look back at your journal, pat yourself on the back and start again.

Breath2Relax:

b2r

Although not the prettiest looking application, this is a stress management tool that provides breathing exercises to help you manage anxiety, anger and stabilise your mood.