Are You Doing Too Much?

As a business owner grows their business it’s only natural that their job duties will continue to evolve.

However, many business owners hang on to certain tasks for far too long out of a misplaced sense of guilt.

The type of tasks that they tend to hang on to varies, but they may be tasks that are:

• Technician or sales based
  • Meeting with any client and not just top-tier clients
  • Being one of the “best” technicians
• Administrative in nature
  • Writing email responses or even sorting emails
  • Completing payroll
  • Answering the phone
• They don’t like or are not particularly good at
  • Tracking or organizing their schedule

The truth is that a business can be designed in many ways. It’s YOUR business. It exists to help you create the life that you want, which includes how you spend your workday. Yet, business owners often feel guilt when they are letting go of certain work. They feel like only they should do that work. Or, they might worry what employees or clients will say if they aren’t doing certain tasks anymore. And they might even feel like they should improve in certain areas.

In the end it boils down to this - the business has work that must be done and there are certain tasks that do need the owner’s guidance, but there are many ways that the work can get done. If the business is getting the result it needs then the business owner shouldn’t feel guilty about not doing it themselves.

Think about all the tasks that you already hire other people to do for your business. Then think about the tasks that you wish you could stop doing. The real question is why can’t you? A great example of this would be having a written vision for your company. Of course, you need to provide direction, but if you don’t like writing or feel that you’re not the best at it, why not hire someone to take your thoughts and turn them into a vision statement? Just make sure that the vision is reflective of what you want, and that it excites you.

What about emails? It was widely accepted for years in the business world that owners and even executives would have assistants that transcribe their words into letters, sort through their mail, and more. Yet, as email has taken over in correspondence it has created a shift where many business leaders feel that they have to not only respond right away, but also be the ones to write every single email. Again, the question is why? Think about your inbox. How many emails in your inbox need to be going to you? How many could be answered by someone else? How many could someone else take off your plate?

It’s okay to delegate these types of tasks. Your time as a business owner is extremely valuable. If you’re using your time to deal with tasks that could be delegated it typically means that either you’re putting in more hours than you may want and/or tasks that your business really needs you to focus on, such as strategic growth, isn’t getting done.

This week we challenge you to let go of the assumption that you should be doing certain tasks. Let go of any guilt. Create a list of tasks that are on your plate and ask “Is that how I want to spend my workday?” If not, it’s time to redesign your business so that the tasks get done, but not by you.