Productivity at Work Tip #1: Delegate

This tip is part of our "Productivity at Work" series and is provided by Donald W. Mitchell, chairman of Mitchell and Company and founder of the 400 Year Project.

Everyone knows that if you can delegate a task to someone else, savings follow.  Yet, if you're like most busy managers, you find yourself torn because you feel that you're too busy to give the needed instructions to someone else.  If it will take longer to train someone than to do it yourself, you simply won’t delegate.  That’s usually a mistake.

Instead, ask yourself how much time you will spend doing the task over the next year.  If it’s only 15 minutes a week, that’s still 13 hours a year.  If someone else can be trained to perform the task in 3 hours, that’s a clear time saving within 4 months and over many months thereafter.  Even if the person leaves the organization, that person can train his or her replacement.

Delegating might enhance other parts of your work as well.  One example, a busy CFO used to spend 40 days a year negotiating budgets.  After he delegated that task to his controller, he saved 37 days a year, and he had more influence with operating executives, because he hadn’t used up all of his credibility with them during budgeting.

Schedule 2 hours a week to delegate tasks that will save the most time, and then just keep delegating!  After just a few months, more hours can be allocated to starting new delegations, so take advantage of that.

Donald W. Mitchell is chairman of Mitchell and Company and the founder of the 400 Year Project to increase the rate of making improvements by 20 times while spending no more effort, hours, or money.  You can read more about the 400 Year Project at FastForward400.com.  Donald is also co-author of The 2,000 Percent Solution describing how to be much more productive.

Flickr image from nkeppol