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What’s the Easiest Way to Free Up Hours Each Week Through Delegation?
Learn practical steps to delegate and automate your workload so you can focus on high‑value tasks, increase your earning potential, and reclaim more time for the work and life you care about. A clear, actionable guide designed for entrepreneurs, creators, and professionals ready to work smarter.
Ready to free up hours each week and focus on the work that actually matters? Keep reading to learn how to put these steps into practice and build a system that supports your best work.
Here are five steps to start freeing up your time—so you can maximize your contribution, impact, and fulfillment.
Step 1: Establish the Why
Handing off work can be a pain. Therefore, you must have activities you can reinvest in to massively outweigh that pain. One such type of activity is high-flow work. When was the last time you lost track of time while working? Maybe it was designing a product, solving a complex problem, or crafting a compelling presentation. These tasks aren’t easy but oddly energizing. More time in flow leads to greater enjoyment and impact, as it rapidly improves skills and enables you to produce remarkable work. When you delegate routine tasks, you create space for more flow. You also create more time for your highest-earning activities.
Less than 20% of your work week is spent on activities that generate 80% of your income. Maybe it’s speaking to clients, making strategic decisions, or refining your core product. Delegate or automate everything else, and you’ll make the same money in less time—freeing you up for long weekend trips with friends, afternoons playing games with your kids, or deep conversations over coffee with people who inspire you.
Step 2: Spot the Waste
- Set an alarm for every work hour this week. When it goes off, ask: What did I just do that wasn’t high-flow or high-earning work?
- Jot down at least one task in a note on your phone, then proceed with your day.
- At week’s end, look at your list and flag any repeat offenders—things you did several times that you felt obligated to do, but weren’t the best use of your time.
- Interrogate each repeat offender by asking: “Can I automate or delegate 80% of this?”
Trying to hand off an entire task requires immense courage, but handing off the middle 80% is often much more doable. You could apply the 80% mindset to emails starting today. When you reply to an important email, quickly list the points you want to make, and have ChatGPT do 80% of the work by drafting a complete response. Review it and make a few changes. Then, make a few final tweaks so it sounds like you, and send. Essentially, spend 5% getting started, 10% providing feedback, and 5% finalizing (the 5-10-5 approach).
Step 3: Do the Math
- If you want to build an automation system or train a junior employee: If you can teach someone or set up software to handle a 5-minute task in under 150 minutes (30 x 5 = 150), it’s typically worth the investment.
- If you’re self-employed: Take your annual income and divide by 2,000 working hours (50 weeks × 40 hours). If you earn $100,000 a year, your rate is $50/hour. Now see if you can delegate important tasks at 80% of that rate. For example, if you can get a great video editor at $40/hour to do 80% of your video editing? Then hire them!
- If you’re just starting your entrepreneurial journey: Estimate what you’ll realistically make in one year to calculate your hourly rate and delegate against that rate. As Naval Ravikant says: “You will never be worth more than you think you’re worth.”
Step 4: Get Clear
Simply record a video of yourself doing a task using screen recording software like Camtasia or Loom, or your phone mounted on a tripod. Hit record and walk through the task without worrying about pausing or rambling— you can edit the video later. Bonus benefit: I find that recording myself often helps me refine and simplify tasks I’ve been doing for years.
Make at least two additional recordings to capture subtle differences that can help the person you’re hiring better understand the process. Then generate a procedure document by uploading the best video version to a transcription service like Rev.com and convert it into text. Next, use an AI tool like ChatGPT to turn the transcript into a well-organized procedure document with clear headers, logical steps, and detailed instructions (include screenshots from your video if needed). Lastly, create a checklist at the end of the procedure document to ensure quality control. Together, the video, procedure document, and checklist form a playbook that anyone can use to complete the task without your constant input.
Step 5: Shrink to Start
When delegating, it’s tempting to throw someone a playbook and hope for perfect results. But that’s a mistake. Instead of telling someone to “Write three blog posts” and only checking their final versions, have them submit an outline for the first post, spend a minute telling them what you like, and then a minute removing points and suggesting different examples. Do the same for the first and second drafts. In The New One Minute Manager, author Kenneth Blanchard calls these “One-Minute Praises” and “One-Minute Redirects.”
Delegation is about earning trust incrementally. Start with little trust, but as they hit your standards, pull back gradually and allow for more freedom and longer intervals between reviews. This approach prevents costly mistakes while building both confidence and competence.