Not getting everything on your to-do list done? Feel overwhelmed by the amount of work you need to do? Not enough time in your day?

Did you take our challenge last week to use a time log and to identify time wasters you could eliminate, lower priority tasks you could minimize or get done faster, and tasks others could do for you to free up your time?

We want to cover some ideas around delegation as a productivity strategy.

Some people are hesitant to delegate or to outsource tasks. The most common reasons I hear are that “it will never be done the way I would do it” (aka: I like to be in control and worry it won’t be “perfect”), or “its too expensive to pay someone else to do it”, or “in the time it takes me to show someone else how, I could just do it myself.”  To those, I would challenge:

1. Done is almost always better than perfect! When you take time to identify the skills needed to get a task done, find the right person for the job, clarify what needs to be done and the results you expect and assign ownership to the person you’re delegating to, you delegate effectively. Now let go. Don’t micromanage. Feel free to check in along the way once or twice to hear about progress, provide additional direction or clarification if needed, and to celebrate the end result. It may not get done exactly like you would have done it yourself, but if the end result is acheived all the same, then its a win (because you “win” the time you freed up by not doing the task yourself).

2. It is not expensive to pay someone else a task if you can use the time you free up by delegating to bring in more revenue or increase your billable hours in your business. If the revenue you bring in, or your hourly bill rate exceeds what you’re paying to delegate a lower priority or administrative task, then it pays to delegate/outsource.

3. Think about the Return on Investment (ROI). You may invest time in training someone to do a task for your once, but then they will be able to perform that task for you every time it needs to be done, saving you time and money time and time again. Short term investment for a long term gain.

Stay tuned tomorrow for some guidelines and ideas around how and when to outsource or delegate.