When I took over the management of the company, the beginning was tough - working six days a week, long hours. I was frustrated and tired, and began to think about how much time I could gain in a week by returning certain tasks - inherited from previous leaders - to their real owners. Or if I look at it from a controlling perspective, what are the tasks that, under normal circumstances, would be a loss to do with my hourly wage?
This was the first thing I started to investigate. I went through the list of the routine tasks one by one to figure out what I should delegate to whom in an ideal world, and what I needed to do to enable them to manage these tasks.
For example, access to reports was needed, learning what is behind each KPIs, how to calculate them, and how to communicate, if the results are not too shiny. It required time and patience because at first, we did the task together, if needed, two or three times. I explained what I normally do and why, why I ask and expect the task in a certain specific way.
Then came the phase of "do it, and before you send it, I want to have a look". Sometimes this took several rounds, if there was time, I sent it back and had it corrected 5-6 times, until we reached the desired state, and in the meantime, we learned together, and developed a shared way of thinking. If there wasn't time, after the second round I finished it myself, and we discussed the details later. It meant quite a bit of work at the beginning, but it quickly paid off in free time. Not to mention that those who took over the tasks felt they had learned something, they had grown and I trusted them more, which simultaneously boosts self-esteem, the general mood, and performance.
With consistency and perseverance, the sixth workday slowly began to get shorter, I started to feel that it made sense to dedicate time to a well-planned handover of tasks.
If you think about it, is there a task on your list, which would give you back twenty minutes every week? Maybe two such tasks?"
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