The Hidden Cost of ‘I’ll Just Do It Myself - Delegation

What if the habit of doing everything yourself is the very thing keeping you overwhelmed and stuck, and learning how to delegate the right way is actually the key to reclaiming your time, scaling your impact, and finally creating the freedom you’ve been working so hard for? 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Are you ready to finally break free from overwhelm, procrastination, and burnout? If you're ready to focus on what truly matters and create momentum to reach and exceed your goals in business and in life, then this podcast is for you. Welcome to the Efficiency Advantage, the podcast where clarity meets action and purpose that fuels your progress. So here's world-class productivity expert and your host, Coach Julie.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Welcome back to the Efficiency Advantage podcast. I'm Julie Shulam, and I have a great topic today. I know I say that every time, but I really do. So the question for you to start out with. How many times a day do you think about delegating a task to someone else? And how many times do you end up thinking, I'm just going to do this myself? It's faster. But is it really? Sometimes it may be faster in the short term, but not long term. Consider the opportunity to teach someone a skill so that you can rely on them in the future to take on that task again. The extra time put in on the front end will pay dividends by saving you that time over and over again in the future. This week I'm going to dive into the fine art of delegation. And I think you're going to get a lot of great information out of this one. So if you own a business or you run a team, chances are that you delegate at least some tasks to someone else. Maybe you have someone check your email or prepare spreadsheets for you. Maybe you have someone who manages your website or handles your bookkeeping. Then again, maybe you do everything 100% yourself. But you shouldn't. So being a serial entrepreneur, let me remind you that there is no prize for the business owner who does the most tasks. If you want to get more done and have any hope of life work balance, you need to let go of some tasks. So when I first started my first couple of companies, I was also raising two little children. And school just didn't last long enough. I'm sure several of you can relate. I had very few hours when both of my children were either sleeping or at school to do my work. And I didn't want to waste time at all, you know, for one minute doing chores or tasks that someone else could do, freeing me up for the time-consuming tasks that only I could do. So I hired people. But I certainly didn't need to do that. And I had teenagers that I hired that could come and do some simple tasks for me in my office. And as my business grew, I hired professionals to take over things as well. And since I was the queen of organizing and system creation, I had a way to make everything easier and automated as much as possible. That also saved me time. So streamlining can also be one of your best assets. Now, at this stage of my game, my life and my company, I have many people that do work for me. No one is on staff per se. They are people that I hire that are contract labor, basically, or independent contractors. I have someone who manages my website. I have a VA. I have a stockbroker. I have a housekeeper. I have yarn maintenance provided and a marketing expert. All who do things that they either do it a little better than I do, or they give me back time for me to do the things that I am uniquely qualified to do. And I know that list was kind of random. Some are personal, some are business, but it's all my time and I need it back. So I hire people to do the things that I am best not to do. How's that first sentence? So I was working with an individual who realized that he needed more time for client work and he wanted to give his staff more to do. But they didn't know how to do everything that he wanted them to be able to do. So what he did is he started training them. He had lunch and learns at his office, and he brought lunch, and then he taught his staff how to do some of the more special things that he really felt that they could do, and he wanted to be able to delegate those things to them more regularly. So he started training, and this way they were more useful to him. So he realized that once he did this, they actually were thrilled. It was a huge success. And these people shared with him that they felt more valued, and they loved that they were being given more important tasks to do and things that they liked, and they enjoyed having something new and different to do as well. So they they loved it, and he was thrilled because he got his time back, and now he was able to build more hours and do more of the work that only he was able to do. So here's the reality: people don't like sitting around feeling like they're not valued or aren't having impact. They don't always know what exactly they can do for you until you ask them. And you may not realize the breadth of their talent and skill set unless you do ask. So start by asking who can do some of the tasks you need help with? Is there a deficit of knowledge or skills? If there is, then take time to teach them. If you teach people how to do tasks you wish to delegate, the time you spend training will come back many times over, as from that point on, you have a competent person to take care of things for you. So here are some tips. I'm going to give you seven simple steps on how to delegate effectively. Number one, make sure that the instructions of what you need done are clear. Clarify that your expectations are understood by the other person. Let the person know who you're delegating to, what the timeline and deadlines are. Ask straight up, is there anything that would prevent you from making this deadline? Let them give you the answer and really think about it so that if there is something that may become a complication, you both can address it right then, before things get started, and then end up becoming late. You can confirm by asking again another question: When do you plan to start on this? Another important question is or the statement and and plan is to create benchmark check-ins. And you want to let the other person know that you're going to do this in advance by just saying, I plan on checking to see how progress is on this day in time. Will that work? This way, you have let them know that you're going to be, you know, keeping track of progress because I have seen way too many times when someone does not check in between the start date and the deadline, things can end up going off track, and then it's sometimes too late to fix it and get caught up. So you want to definitely have some benchmark check-in times. Now you want to schedule those in your calendar promptly and consider both parties doing this at the same time, and you can communicate that by simply saying, hey, let's both schedule those dates in our calendars now so we don't forget. This will feel less like you're helicoptering or micromanaging if you're both holding yourselves accountable in the same way. And then make sure to ask if they have any questions. So before you conclude the information conversation, ask, do you have any questions at all around this? And then lastly, make sure you let the person know that if they do have any questions at all that arise, to please get in touch with you right away so that the project doesn't get unnecessarily delayed. Smile while you say this so it's heartfelt and the person feels comfortable coming to you in the future. Because here's the truth. If people are afraid to ask questions, they'll guess. And when people guess, mistakes happen. And when mistakes happen, you think to yourself, see, I should have just done this for myself. And that is the cycle that keeps you stuck. So let's talk about what really gets in the way of delegation. Because this isn't just about process, it's about mindset. People don't struggle with delegation because they don't know how, they struggle because they think either it's just faster if I do it myself, or no one is going to do it as well as I will. Or I don't have time to train someone. Oh my goodness. Hopefully, you figure it out that if you help someone learn to do something, the long-term benefits are there. Or you might just think, well, it's just easier the way I'm doing it. I'll just stick with what I'm doing. And while those may feel true in the moment, they're costing you time, energy, and growth long term. Now, delegation is not about giving tasks away, it's about building capacity. Every time you don't delegate, you reinforce that everything depends on you. You end up becoming the bottleneck again, and your business or your household, your life, whatever it is, isn't going to grow beyond your personal bandwidth. Delegation is how you scale you. So here's the shift I want you to make. Stop asking yourself, what can I get done today? And start asking, what can I teach once that will get done for me repeatedly? This one shift changes everything. Now let's refine your delegation process just a bit further. You already have excellent steps. I'm going to add a few layers that make delegation actually stick. First, define what done looks like. Don't assume alignment. Be explicit. What does success look like around this project or task that you're delegating? What should it include? What should it not include? Again, clarity up front prevents reworking the whole thing later on. Next, match the task to the person. Not just who's available, but not everyone is wired or talented or skilled for every kind of task. So ask yourself: does this person have the skill? Are they even interested? Yeah, would this be something they'd really get a kick out of doing? And do they have the attention to detail that's required for this kind of task? Good delegation is strategic, not convenient. Don't just, you know, flippantly decide, oh, I'm just gonna ask so-and-so to do this, you know, get it off your plate. That may come back to bite you. And next, allow for a learning curve. The first time is probably gonna take longer than the next time, and it will get faster and faster each time the person does this task again. So give them some leeway to learn how to do it well and quickly. If you expect perfection immediately, you'll abandon delegation probably pretty quickly. And that really isn't fair to anybody. And sometimes not everything has to be perfect anyway, right? So be clear on what you will accept and retrain if necessary along the way. Next, don't take that task back too quickly. This is where a lot of people kind of fall backwards on this. Something isn't done exactly how you want it, and then you swoop in and take over. This basically is teaching the other person that you don't trust them, and why should they even bother trying? Instead, coach them, don't rescue them, coach them on how to do it, and by that I mean ask them good questions, not yes or no questions, that's a closed-ended question. Ask them a good question. What do you think the next step should be? Or how are you thinking of doing this? Get them to think and then refine the process and the task expectations. Next, acknowledge and reinforce when someone does something well, even if they do part of it well, say something. People repeat what gets recognized. Praise goes a really long way. You can say something like, That was exactly what I was looking for, or I appreciate how you handled that. Good job. This builds confidence and consistency. I tell leaders all the time, catch people doing good and tell them. And by the way, this applies to children, works wonders. So let me bring this back to you. If you are overwhelmed, if you're feeling like everything depends on you, if your list never seems to shrink, delegation is not optional. It is a skill and a decision and will probably be one of the best things you learn to do. So your challenge this week, I don't want you to delegate everything. I want you to identify just one task, something that you do repeatedly that someone else could learn, and something that's not the best use of your time. And I want you to begin the process, even if it's not perfect, even if it takes longer the first time, because that one decision is how you begin to buy back your time. So I'm gonna leave you with this one thought there is no award for doing everything yourself, but there is a cost. And the question is, are you willing to keep paying it? I hope you have some great takeaways from this episode of the Efficiency Advantage podcast. And remember, please, to subscribe and share this with everyone you know because you never know who might just need to hear the content shared here to make their life better. Thank you for listening. I'm Julie Shulam, and I wish you a very productive day.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

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