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Delegate It!
By Dr. Donald E. Wetmore
Learn how to more effectively delegate and improve your productivity and
add more free time to your schedule. This article presents 5 tips for
delegating.
“I wish I had a 48 hour day!” many have said to me during the last twenty
years as a professional speaker. “I’d be able to get so much more done!”
Of course we can’t get more than 24 hours out of each day (assuming we don’t
take time to sleep) but we can get the equivalent through delegation when we
plug into someone else’s time stream when we don’t have the time or the
expertise, thereby multiplying our results.
Here are five ways to Delegate It!
STAFF
If you are fortunate to have staff, utilize this resource. You don’t have to
do it all yourself. People around you tend to rise to your level of expectation
for them. Elevate them, that’s how you grew and got to your level. And if YOU
are the staff with no one to delegate to, to share the workload and increase
your results, think of ways to get a staff. Many high school and college intern
programs offer eager assistants, often at no cost. For example, our local high
school will provide a student to most any legitimate for profit or non-profit
organization for up to 15 hours per week during the school year to help with the
filing, running errands, photocopying, etc., to free you from those tasks to do
more productive things with your time.
REVERSE DELEGATION
Often during my week, co-workers, my students, friends, and even family
members will come to me and ask for my help. I’m flattered when that happens,
that they would think enough of my opinion to ask. The problem though is I
sometimes get all caught up in their problem and don’t have time to get the
things done I need to get done. For example, my office manager, Kathy, came to
me one afternoon, all in a tizzy because she had two clients requesting that I
conduct our time management seminar for the same dates. Before I get all caught
up in this problem I asked, “What do you think we ought to do?” I don’t mind
taking my share of the load, but much of the time the person bringing me the
problem is just as well equipped to solve it as I am. By the way, Kathy came up
with two ways to resolve her situation so the problem was solved, she did it,
and I was free to focus on other matters.
YOUR INNER CIRCLE
Your family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers are the people who are
closest to you, they love and care for you the most and they will help you, if
you’ll ask. Neighbors can pool errand running. Children can do laundry.
Co-workers will give a willing hand. But remember the adage, “To have a friend,
be a friend.” Don’t exploit. Offer to help others first and when you need their
help, they’ll be there for you.
COLLEGE ASSISTANTS
Each of us have 10-20 hours per week of minutia to attend to. We have to go
grocery shopping, dust and vacuum, mow the lawn, go to the pharmacy and the
cleaners, wash the car, and on and on. Certainly these are important tasks that
are necessary to make our lives work and there’s nothing wrong with performing
them ourselves. All I’m suggesting is if on the one hand you feel you do not
have enough time each week to accomplish what you really need to do, to realize
your important dreams and goals, and on the other hand, you’re spending 10-20
hours per week doing these lower level tasks, you may have an alternative and
that is to consider hiring a college assistant for 10-20 hours per week,
delegate all these little chores to him/her and literally buy an extra 10-20
hours per week to use more effectively.
HIRED HELP
This is similar to the college assistant idea above, only the next level up.
It’s hiring people who have specific expertise. For example, I don’t know if it
makes good sense to give up a whole weekend every April to figure out the latest
changes in the tax code to file our tax return. Maybe it makes better sense to
go to a tax specialist, let them prepare the return, and free up your time to
those things that are more important and lacking in your life. (I’m real good at
spending your money, eh?)
Copyright 2010
Dr. Donald E. Wetmore-Professional Speaker
Productivity Institute
Time Management Seminars
(203) 386-8062 (800) 969-3773
Email: ctsem@msn.com
Visit Our Time Management Supersite:
http://www.balancetime.com
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