At some point in time, you will have to delegate tasks and responsibilities in order to become more effective. You only have so much time during the day, and if you are in charge of doing everything, the limiting factor of how much gets done is you. You are the bottleneck.
I first noticed this when reading Tim Ferris’s “The 4-Hour Workweek.” He talks of the D-E-A-L strategy, which is summed up by deligating tasks/responsibilities that someone else can do (even if they can only do it 80% as well as you can), eliminating tasks/activities that either don’t matter or are unproductive uses of your/someone else’s time, and automating repetitive low-skill tasks that you do frequently and should not be eliminated (don’t waste your brain power or time thinking about these). Once you do those three things, it liberates you to work on the projects that give you the most joy, are in your wheelhouse, and that only you can do. You’ll have more time, energy, and, if you optimized the first three steps, money to allocate to anything else of your choosing.
The quicker you can begin delegating tasks/responsibilities, the quicker you can grow. Don’t expect it to be perfect though. Other people are imperfect (just like you) and have their own way of doing things. If you don’t provide the proper training and instructions (as well as explaining the reason why you want things done), expect worse results. Even if you do provide adequate standard operating procedures, there will still be bumps along the way. But you have to take the good with the bad. And, ultimately, as long as you delegated power to the right person, you will be able to move forward faster than if you took on everything yourself.
