Get 52 Hours of Your Life Back With This Technique

It’s 5pm and you just finished your fourth meeting, and you still have hours of work to get done. It’s obvious you’re beyond your capacity.

You get messages from your team letting you know they’re logging off for the day and wishing each other a good night.

You look at your list and wish they could just take things off your plate, but you don’t think they can handle it.

They get a free night. You get an all-nighter. Is this what leadership has become?

It’s obvious you need to delegate, and your resistance to it is costing you:

• You work long hours that frustrate your family and friends
• You have difficulty focusing on high leverage items, frustrating your business stakeholders

The worst part: you’re missing out on 52 hours minimum of freed up time to focus on higher leverage items.

Sounds terrible. This was my life for a decade. 

Good news: I learned how to delegate ANYTHING, and so can you.

I’ll walk you through a simple 5 step process to delegate anything, but first let's talk about the potential.

How Delegation Frees Up 52 Hours (Minimum)

Let's say you have a 1 hour task you do every week that is critical to your business. You’ve thought about delegating it but are afraid to given the risk of someone else doing it wrong.

“It’s just one hour” you tell yourself, so you do it again this week.

And next week.

And the week after.

In a year, that’s 52 hours you’ve given to this task. 52 hours you could have given to LITERALLY anything else.

“But it’s only 1 hour a week, how could I leverage that?”

Cue Uncle James. 

James Clear, in his seminal work "Atomic Habits"¹, illuminated the power of small improvements over a long time horizon. Freeing up 1 hour a week gives you the stage for small improvements, every week, indefinitely. 

If you’re a Time Boss, that’s 1 more discrete task a week you can calendar during your Weekly Planning Meeting (If you're not a Time Boss, it's free, and you become one in the next 90 minutes). What if you spent that hour investing in your family or friends, or 1 additional networking lunch, or 1 more hour of sales calls, or 1 more hour of LinkedIn engagement, etc. What would be the compounding effect of doing this week over week?

And that’s just from delegating a single 1 hour weekly task. Imagine if it was 5 hours a week, or 10 hours a week. Once you learn how to delegate well, there's no limit. The potential time freed up for you is staggering.

You see the value of delegating, now let's get into how to delegate anything, even the scary tasks.

How to Delegate Anything (Even the Scary Tasks)

The model below was developed by leadership guru John Maxwell to develop leaders, and it works perfectly for any portion of your life you need to hand off to others.  The model is based in high quality repetitions as part of the hand-off, as you'll do the task with your team member at least 4 times, giving you multiple opportunities to coach them through the process. In addition, it requires your team members to take ownership of the task to be successful, increasing your confidence as a leader to actually let go of the task and free you up to focus elsewhere.  

One note: the model below is outlined as steps, however each step can be done as many times as needed ensure the team member is ready for the task. This becomes particularly important in more for more nuanced work such as sales, partnerships, and strategic planning, where more process-oriented tasks can be delegated more quickly.

Step #1 :: I Do It, You Watch
You are simply bringing the team member along for the ride. For more nuanced work, this might simply be inviting the team member with you to meetings to watch you work. For computer-based work, this can be as simple as recording a video (using a simple tool like Loom) and send to your team member to review.

Step #2 :: I Do It, You Help
Now that your team member has seen the task, you’re asking them to help. Give them pieces of the task they can do themselves such as research, then incorporate their work into your work. Again, you are continuing to own the task, they are getting another solid rep including participation.

Step #3 :: You Do It, I Help
Think of this like training wheels. Your team member is taking the lead on the task, and you’re there to support them. Your focus here should be coaching them to fill in any gaps as they head towards doing the task themselves.

Step #4 :: You Do It, I Watch
Moment of truth. The team member is taking the lead on the task, and you are simply watching to verify they are ready to handle it on their own.

Step #5 :: You Do It, I Check Results
Your temptation at this point is to stop paying attention, however as a COO, I strongly recommend you maintain a method to check results and verify quality. This might be you doing a spot check from time to time, or setting up a measurable that you can check regularly such as customer satisfaction scores.

Start Now

The beauty of this framework is you don’t have prep anything to start.

Invite your teammate into Step #1 (I Do It, You Watch). You have to do the task anyway, so you might as well get started.

I Freed Up My Time, Now What?

If you’re delegating items to simply get back to working within your actual capacity, I salute you. Treat your time like a strategic constraint moving forward, and continue to delegate (or defer, digitize, downsize or delete) to honor that constraint. Not sure how to do that? Check out the FREE Time Boss Weekly Operating Masterclass for a step-by-step guide how to do so (pay close attention to “Decide What to Do With What Doesn’t Fit” step).

If you get excited about delegating and find yourself with extra time week to week, use it wisely! A common pitfall for leaders is freeing up time via delegation, then squandering it on time wasting activities like email. Again, the Time Boss Weekly Operating Masterclass teaches you habits to prioritize the highest leverage work to make your priorities happen, and it’s free.

Real talk: changing your habits related to time is hard work. You’ve lived into your current habits over decades, and you’ll have to live your way out. It won’t be easy, and if you need help you’re not alone. The Time Boss 6 Week Coaching Cohort is like bootcamp for changing your relationship with time. You’ll join 4 to 6 other leaders just like you, looking to make massive change in their relationship with time. Full details here, and if curious I’d suggest setting up a discovery call with me to learn more.

¹ If you haven't read "Atomic Habits", delegate something as quick as you can, and use the time you freed up to go read it. This should be required reading for all humans.