Delegate the Things You Can’t or Won’t Do
Tips to identify things you really shouldn’t do yourself.
A friend of mine writes:
(@#*$#! I have to do quarterly tax stuff today, and I don’t have time to do quarterly tax stuff today.
Well, I reply, isn’t it tragic? It seems as if there’s always stuff to do that isn’t fun. And that’s true! There always is—as long as you let it be that way.
Avoid the Productivity Trap
You’re falling into a common productivity trap: spending time on stuff you don’t enjoy or that you aren’t good at. If you don’t enjoy something, such as doing your taxes, you won’t wake up saying, “Gee! The world is a beautiful place. The sun is shining, birds are chirping, what a great day to do taxes!” Instead, you’ll put them off to the last minute (or beyond) and then suffer through every minute. Of course, then you can buy yourself an ice cream to celebrate … and a gym membership to work it off. For the same price, you could have hired a bookkeeper in the first place.
Why Delegating is Important
We have this great theory that says, “if you want to succeed, work to overcome your weaknesses.” Unh-uh. That doesn’t cut it. It turns out that the most successful people concentrate on their strengths and passions, and do everything possible to delegate their weaknesses to someone else. That’s why we have administrative assistants. Pair up someone who loves organizing a creative, scattered, I-don’t-do-details type, and they’ll do far more than if the scattered person tries to develop his own organizing skills. Trust me; I speak from personal experience.
How to Delegate
If you need something done, find someone to help. Tax troubles? Use a tax preparer. Reclaim your life and read Harry Potter while your tax preparer happily slaves away over form 892-stroke-J. Do you hate filing? Take out a Craigslist ad and hire a local student for a couple of hours each week. That’s what I’m doing. In fact, there are so many colleges near my apartment, I’m hiring an assistant to prepare and post the job descriptions for the student job boards. Yes, I’m that lazy.
How to Delegate at Work
And if you work in a corporation, don’t think you can’t do this, too. For some reason, employees seem to think they can’t hire help that isn’t provided by their company. You can! You can hire a virtual assistant who can give you admin support that your company is too cheap to provide. You pay VAs hourly, and it’s so much nicer to pay a VA $40 than to waste a day each month filling out your expense reports. Of course, your company may have policies against outsourcing work related to the company, so do double-check with your boss before you try this at home.
How to Figure Out What to Delegate
So ask yourself what you do that you don’t enjoy or don’t enjoy. Figure out how to get someone else to do it. Hire someone. If that’s too expensive, trade favors with a friend. Or consider family members. It just might be time for your 85-year-old live-in grandmother to start earning her keep. Or if you have kids, just remember: you’re not breaking any child labor laws if you don’t pay them. So don’t bother having them clean their room; have them clean your room. You’ll enjoy it better.
Which brings us back to the question at hand. Unbury yourself from quarterly paperwork and just hire a bookkeeper! It took me 10 years to use my first tax preparer, and another 10 to hire a bookkeeper. Don’t make my mistake. Yes, it’s a new expense. But it’s hard to convey how free I feel. Remember Maria in The Sound of Music, dancing around the Swiss Alps, her skirt swirling in the wind? I feel like that, only in pants. It was well-worth the money, and the time I used to spend counting receipts and poring over Quicken can now be spent writing about The Sound of Music. Windows or Julie Andrews? The choice is clear.
Start Delegating Today
Start small. My first-ever outsourcing was having a cleaning service visit once a month. Then, it was tax preparation followed by bookkeeping and website maintenance. More recently, a plumber now installs our faucets, so I don’t flood the kitchen while proving my manhood by installing a new faucet. Who knows what’s next, there’s a culinary school just across the street, and I’m sure students would welcome the opportunity to practice their gourmet skills while bringing joy to a hungry podcaster. Hmm. [[AdMiddle]
Please send your comments, questions, and anything you’d like me to address in a future episode. Until then, work less, do more, and have a great life.
Resources
Virtual assistants: Visit the website AssistU
General classifieds: Visit the website Craigs list
Subcontractors for professional projects (writing, presentations, etc.) https://www.eLance.com
Home repair, services, etc.: Visit the website Angies List
P.S. Speaking of delegating your misery…i found a great service that allows you to outsource your personal assistant needs to India for $15/hour! www.getfriday.com
Image courtesy of Shutterstock
About the Author
Stever Robbins was the host of the podcast Get-it-Done Guy from 2007 to 2019. He is a graduate of W. Edward Deming’s Total Quality Management training program and a Certified Master Trainer Elite of NLP. He holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a BS in Computer Sciences from MIT.
