Effective Delegation
Do Less, Achieve More: The Beauty Of Effective Delegation
Are you swamped at work? Here's how to delegate effectively and increase your productivity.
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As company owner, you need to focus only on the items that add the most value to your organization. In general, these are the things that you, and only you, are capable of doing. You should delegate the rest.
Of course, you need a way to determine what the key things are on which you should be spending your time. Consider the Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 rule, which states that 20 percent of one thing (e.g., your customers) yields 80 percent of results (e.g., total company sales). In the case of your focus, the Pareto Principle says that 20 percent of your efforts yield 80 percent of the results you achieve. Therefore, the key is to identify what this 20 percent of your work is and do more of it (and delegate the 80 percent).
Identifying Your Top 20 Percent
The first way to determine which 20 percent of work you do yields 80 percent of the results is to think back. What were the most important projects you completed last year that propelled your company forward? Your answers will include the types of projects that belong in your top 20 percent and which you should continue to do.
The second way to determine your top tasks to perform is to review your to-do list and consider the following questions when reviewing each item:
Does that activity really add value to your company?
Are you really great at performing that task?
Is there somebody else who can do better, as well as, or nearly as well as you at completing the task?
Finally, a great way to determine which tasks are not in your top 20 percent is to keep a running list of low-value tasks. To begin, you cannot be performing tasks that have a low dollar value. For example, you can’t do work yourself that you could hire someone to do for $10 an hour. As you go through your days, write down all tasks you perform
Are you swamped at work? Here's how to delegate effectively and increase your productivity.
________________________________________
As company owner, you need to focus only on the items that add the most value to your organization. In general, these are the things that you, and only you, are capable of doing. You should delegate the rest.
Of course, you need a way to determine what the key things are on which you should be spending your time. Consider the Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 rule, which states that 20 percent of one thing (e.g., your customers) yields 80 percent of results (e.g., total company sales). In the case of your focus, the Pareto Principle says that 20 percent of your efforts yield 80 percent of the results you achieve. Therefore, the key is to identify what this 20 percent of your work is and do more of it (and delegate the 80 percent).
Identifying Your Top 20 Percent
The first way to determine which 20 percent of work you do yields 80 percent of the results is to think back. What were the most important projects you completed last year that propelled your company forward? Your answers will include the types of projects that belong in your top 20 percent and which you should continue to do.
The second way to determine your top tasks to perform is to review your to-do list and consider the following questions when reviewing each item:
Does that activity really add value to your company?
Are you really great at performing that task?
Is there somebody else who can do better, as well as, or nearly as well as you at completing the task?
Finally, a great way to determine which tasks are not in your top 20 percent is to keep a running list of low-value tasks. To begin, you cannot be performing tasks that have a low dollar value. For example, you can’t do work yourself that you could hire someone to do for $10 an hour. As you go through your days, write down all tasks you perform