Delegate your busy work
September 16, 2008 by Becky Scott
(myorganizedbiz.com) – I’ve been thinking a lot about administrative tasks. The busy work that none of us really like to do, but must do anyway. And for solopreneurs, we don’t have much of a choice, especially when we’re building our businesses. If we want it done, we have to do it ourselves.
And we get used to doing it ourselves. As we grow, we add more tasks and suddenly we’re working all hours of the day, spending precious little time with our family and friends. Now what?
It’s time to delegate. There are several ways you can effectively delegate. Are you a parent? Do you have older children who are capable of simple tasks? Maybe they could open and sort your mail, or run things through the shredder (I have a feeling there are many boys out there that would actually love shredding things), or maybe even file things or scan receipts for you. Strangely enough, I would have gladly helped someone out when I was a tween/teen.
If you live in a college town you could think about hiring an intern. Check with the campus career center and see what they can recommend. Some college students can be flakey, but if you can find a reliable, smart, motivated student it will really help you out.
And there are always virtual assistants. There are several companies online, as well as solopreneurs, who can help you. While their services will be more expensive than the other two alternatives, you’ll get a responsive professional helping you.
The next challenge is figuring out what tasks to hand off. While many times it’s easier – in the beginning – to do things yourself, resist the urge. Train your intern/assistant. Take the time to get them familiar with what you need. And then give them things to do. By all means, start with small things as confidence-builders. But if you don’t learn to delegate you will stagnate your business.
And we all want to grow our incomes, right? Get rid of the smaller tasks so you can concentrate on ways to make more money or improve your quality of life. Both of those are worth it in the end, aren’t they?
Are you a delegator? Are you afraid to delegate? What’s stopping you?