Ask most business owners what’s on their plate and you’ll get the big stuff first.
Strategy. Decisions. Clients. The next launch. The thing they’re trying to grow.
But scratch a bit, and there’s usually a second list underneath, admin tasks that could be delegated.
Booking things in. Chasing an invoice. Formatting the same newsletter every fortnight. Updating the CRM. Sending the follow-up. Answering the same questions. Checking that somebody else has done the thing they said they’d do.
None of it’s particularly difficult, and that’s the problem.
Each individual job feels too small to do anything about, so it stays exactly where it’s always been. With you, the business owner.
The second list is bigger than you think
A lot of this stuff doesn’t even make it onto the official to-do list. You just know it needs doing.
You know that invoice needs chasing. You know the newsletter needs scheduling on Thursday. You know which client needs a reminder. You know where that document lives. You know that if nobody’s replied by Wednesday, you need to give them a nudge.
And because you know all of it, the business works.
Which is great.
Until you realise quite how much you’re holding in your head just to keep everything moving.
Ten minutes here. Fifteen minutes there. “I’ll quickly do that while I’m here.”
Individually, they’re nothing. But add them up over a week and they’re probably considerably more than nothing.
So why are you still doing it?
Usually, there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.
It’s quicker to do it yourself. And it probably is. Today.
By the time you’ve explained where something is, how you do it, what happens if X happens and why that particular client needs something done slightly differently, you could have finished the bloody thing yourself.
The problem is you’ve also said that the last 37 times you’ve done it. It’s too small to delegate. It’s only a ten-minute job. But you’ve got twelve ten-minute jobs. And six five-minute jobs. And that one that’s supposedly fifteen minutes but somehow takes 45 every single time.
We’re not looking at one tiny task anymore. Nobody else knows it needs doing. This is a big one. There’s no process. No recurring task. No trigger that makes it happen.
You just remember. Which means the process is currently… you remembering. I reckon that needs changing.
What handing it over actually looks like
I know you’re not going to run out into a field and start twirling bit you can if you want!
Delegation isn’t just chucking a task at someone and hoping for the best.
Someone needs to know what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, where everything lives and what “done properly” looks like.
For us, it’s usually something along the lines of:
Train it. Test it. Hand it over.
Do it together. Let them have a go. Check anything that needs tweaking. Then – importantly – let them actually own it.
Like, properly own it.
Because if you’ve delegated the task but you’re still remembering when it needs doing, reminding the person to do it, checking whether they’ve done it and stepping in when they haven’t… congratulations. You’ve somehow managed to delegate the task and keep the mental load. 😂
This is where my VA team often come in
It’s not necessarily the glamorous stuff. It’s Inbox triage. CRM updates. Newsletter scheduling. Client follow-ups. Reporting. Keeping information up to date. Making sure the thing that needs to happen every month actually happens every month.
The stuff that doesn’t need your brain. It just needs somebody capable to own it and do it properly. And sometimes that’s five hours of support a month. Sometimes it’s twenty. Sometimes we look at the task and decide you absolutely should keep doing it.
The point isn’t to delegate everything you possibly can. It’s to make a conscious decision about what actually needs you.
Have a look at your second list
Here’s something useful to do this week.
Every time you find yourself saying:
“I’ll quickly…”
“I just need to…”
“I’d better remember to…”
“It’s easier if I…”
…write down what comes next.
Don’t do anything clever with the list yet. Just keep it for a week. Then have a look.
Does this actually need me?
If it does – great. Keep it.
If it doesn’t, ask the next question:
What would need to be in place for somebody else to own this properly?
Maybe that’s a process, a template, or someone needs access to something. Maybe you need to spend half an hour showing somebody what you’ve been doing. Or maybe you simply need another pair of hands.
Because the goal isn’t to become a business owner who does absolutely nothing.
It’s to stop spending your time doing things that don’t actually need you.
And if you get to the end of your second list and think, “Right. I know I shouldn’t be doing half of this, but I haven’t got a bloody clue what to do with it instead” – get in touch.
That’s exactly the sort of thing we can sit down, have a cuppa and sort out together.
