How to push work down

Are you doing work that someone else could be doing?

Your business is your baby. You got it off the ground. You nurtured it to where it is today. You know every nut and bolt that holds it together.

And it’s extremely easy to lose perspective. 

The critical question you need to ask yourself: are you spending too much time working in your business, and not enough time working on your business?

If you’re spending your time on functions/roles that someone else could do, you’re taking away time from doing more important things – like thinking about the business strategically.

Here’s a quick and easy process to get out of the trap.

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1. Acknowledge you can’t do it all.

And even if you could do it all, you shouldn’t. You need a new mindset. A paradigm shift – where you give up some control to gain time.

Because, after all, you’re responsible for the big picture. 

2. Identify & evaluate your activities. 

You probably do far more than you realize. That’s why your first step is to make a list of all the tasks you do every day, every week, and every month. 

Then use a simple 2x2 matrix to categorize each one, like this:

Once you’ve placed all your tasks in this grid, you probably have a pretty good idea of what comes next.

Take action like this: 

It’s a slight tweak on the Eisenhower Matrix, which uses the axes Urgent–Not Urgent and Important–Not Important.

But using the Hate–Love axis has a bonus: you likely love doing the things that best align with your talents. So you get effectiveness thrown in for free.

To move forward with delegation, start with the high-impact tasks that you hate the most, and then…

3. Build some Standard Operating Procedures

Make a list of all the tasks in your “Delegate or Tolerate” and “Delegate or Quit” quadrants.

Then find the highest-impact task that can reasonably be done by somebody else, and document the process.

You want to cover the whole task, as well as the expected resolution, in as much detail as possible. Don’t forget to include any key information someone might need, and where to find it. 

Loom videos work great for this!

For a detailed walkthrough, check out my playbook on how to make great SOPs!

4. Identify who could take over this task/process.

Is this something that someone in-house could handle, or do you need to hire new talent to perform this task?

If you chose an in-house person, set aside time to walk them through it. If you need external help, determine what sort of hire would best suit your needs. It could be an external professional, a fractional executive, a full-time hire, or a more junior person who just needs to put in the elbow grease.

5. Train the new person on the process. 

Whoever you choose, bring them up to speed on their new responsibilities.

 Follow the “see one, do one, teach one” method:

You could even assign the new person to create the documentation while you walk them through it. Then you can review and correct as necessary.

6. Trust but verify.

It’s an adjustment to hand off any task. But to truly reduce your own workload, you need to trust them and empower them to make decisions for their new role. 

Be available to answer any questions or to offer advice when needed.

Set occasional times to check in on the execution of the task, to make sure things are being done correctly.

6. Use your newfound time strategically… by delegating the next task!

Over time, you will re-align your role from day-to-day repetitive tasks to a more strategic role in the business. The faster you’re growing the more often this will need to be done.

Highly effective CEOs actually make very few decisions — because they boil it down to only the most important things. 

You should be feeling lighter already!