Take a bloody holiday: learn to delegate

“You look like you need a holiday,” your mate suggests, as you slouch, puffy-eyed, against the ute. Your response is always the same – “Yeah right, like that will happen” – “Not this year, mate” — “Maybe next summer.”

Let’s be honest, the real barrier between you and a holiday, is the entire trade business lives within your head. Nobody else is in charge of organising jobs, following up payments, or the 289 other tasks.

You never learnt how to delegate, so it all sits on your shoulders. No wonder it can’t thrive without your constant attention.

So, you suffer in silence, with dreams of a better future— but no real plans in place to get there.

The secret is to learn how to delegate

Your staff is great on the tools, but they can be great at your tasks, too. The key is understanding what and how to delegate and breaking the cycle of chaos with systems.

Clearly, this isn’t something you can achieve in an afternoon— it requires planning, staff strength assessment, and training. But once your system is in place, and your ‘to-do’ list starts to shrink, you’ll wonder how you ever got by before.

Start by keeping track of tasks

In order to learn how to delegate, you firstly need to understand the scope of your work.

  • Note down all the activities/tasks/projects. This will help you understand what you do in your day and stop it living just in your brain.
  • Break this into a calendar of events [schedule] to see deadlines and other key information. 
  • Repeat this weekly! Check off tasks as you complete them.

Review your activities/tasks/projects

  • Are all of these tasks worth my time? 
  • Ask yourself “Am I the best person to be doing this?”
  • Ask “Is it cost-effective for me to be doing this, or would it be cheaper if I outsource this?”

Recognise what tasks you need to stop, keep & start.

The tasks you need to stop are those you should be delegating. These might be smaller admin tasks, or bigger things like finance which should sit with a professional.

  • After reviewing all of your work, you should now be able to recognise which activities /tasks /projects you should begin, delegate or outsource, keep on doing, or stop.
  • Train your person in how you want this task to be actioned, so they can do it again in the future and save you time!

The most important thing is to build trust and respect. If you train your team and trust those you outsource the tasks to — life just gets easier. The critical thing to get you there is to invest in yourself. Upskill in the business management side of the business and become a delegating pro with clear systems and processes in place. 
You can effectively achieve your goals and begin to see the lifestyle you’ve been dreaming about can easily become a reality once you learn how to delegate effectively! Want to fast-track it? Book a game plan call with Andy.