Delegating is probably one of the most under-used human resources available to us. If you are anything like me, I have spent years doing everything myself because I either don’t have the time to show someone how to do it or I just get on and do it myself because then I know it is done properly. But I have found that as the years go on and I take on more responsibility the same old problem remains – Time. There are never enough hours in a day or days in a week or weeks in a month. I just keep wishing for more time.
This is exactly what delegating does, it gives you more time. The freedom to focus on what you need to be doing and allowing others get the rest done. Let’s name this: Operation create a work force. Your work force will become your anchor. A space where you delegate tasks, ideas, meetings, projects with the sole purpose of making sure that everyone is contributing to making the pie. The problem we find ourselves in when we try to make the pie entirely by ourselves is that we end up with a dozen pies that are not entirely cooked through because we have spread ourselves thin and tried to give at least 80% to everything and 100% to nothing.
I was reminded lately that you need to learn to trust the process, pick a team, trust this team and begin moving your ship forward.
So where does one start?
Firstly you need to assess what you need help with, instead of making a to do list – make a what not to do list. This will help you realise what you will you be delegating – what these tasks look like and what their focus area is – administration, sales, marketing, projects, operations, finance/accounting, etc. By knowing what your focus area or areas are, this will allow you to know who you are looking for and what you are looking for in a candidate.
Secondly you need to hire a virtual assistant. This will allow you the flexibility to work at your own pace, and without the added pressure of office space. Your VA will be able to be molded to carry out tasks the way you like, follow policies and procedures that are in place, and be only a phone call away.
There are 7 tools and applications available to you that will make delegating easier
Todoist allows you to keep track of your own tasks (personal and business related) as well as assign tasks to your team. Todoist also allows integration with Gmail that will allow you to assign a specific email to an individual.
Asana allows you to manage your team, projects, workflow and processes all in one space. You can easily find out the status of a project, view setbacks and closed tasks, no matter where you are.
Kantree allows you to assign tasks, leave comments, track progress, and easily create reports.
Zapier allows you to create connections/integrations between 300 different applications. You will be able to assign ‘zaps’ automatically from one platform to any of the others, for example if you receive a social media alert in Gmail, you will be able to send a response immediately from Gmail, should you receive a new lead, you will be able to respond to that lead or assign it to another team member.
For those that would rather not have to train someone because it would take too much of our time initially without realizing that in the future it could save us hours, stepshot is here for you. Stepshot allows one to record the steps to be completed in a process or how to perform a specific action and then share this recording with your teammates. This app will save you training time as the team member will always have a reference to revert back to, if required, and can easily be used when onboarding.
Slack is a communication tool that will allow you to have group chats, individual chats and keep private notes, all in one application. One of the biggest advantages is that Slack allows you to create multiple channels that can be specific to a task, a project, a discussion, etc. and the ability to only have specific member assigned to various channels. This will allow decisions to be made quicker, to get information out faster and allow swifter turnaround time.
Allows you to setup shared mailboxes within Gmail which will allow you to easily assign emails to teammates, track the team member and the status of response, meaning that your company will never miss an email or an opportunity again.
Not only will delegation free up your time but any one of these applications will be beneficial to the process. Remember delegation is key and if done right you can build a strong and successful team around you.
