The Art Of Delegation
Get out of the weeds and delegate everything you can.
Tiago Forte asked 242 business leaders about their biggest challenges.1
The #2 answer was ‘founder bottlenecks.’
‘As all entrepreneurs know, you live and die by your ability to prioritise. You must focus on the most important, mission-critical tasks each day and night, and then share, delegate, delay, or skip the rest.’
Jessica Jackley
My earlier article Irreplaceable? Yeah Nah dealt with Tiago’s #1 challenge and, conviently, prepares the ground for #2. Because at the core, no founder truly believes that anyone can do a task as well as they can (they = founder, in case my sentence reads clumsy).
Two conflicting memes jump to mind
Meme #1: ‘If you want it done well, give it to a busy person.’
Meme #2: ‘If you want it done well, do it yourself.’
The outcome:
Founder’s mindset: ‘I’m so busy but I want it done well, so I’ll find time to do it myself.’
End result: Nothing of importance gets done until the founder (or manager, or whoever’s in charge) gets around to it.
Think about it. Is Zuckerberg the best coder in Meta? No, but he may have been in the early days. Does Musk bolt bits onto Teslas? Probably not, but he knows how they go together.
These, and millions of other business leaders, have figured out how to maintain oversight of their business and, at the same time, delegate effectively. They use their time for more valuable endeavours, things appropriate to their CEO/ thought leader status.
And why should I care?
This article, then, is a plea for every founder and business owner to get good at delegating.
Even if you’re a sole trader. Because, if you stick it out and get good at whatever you’re doing, you will have employees. Or service providers. Or virtual assistants. When they know how you want things done, they will do it because that’s their job (and their continued employment depends on them doing their job well).
So take out the guesswork. Start by defining your processes to exactly match your business needs. Think it through. Then define, document and enforce those few crucial standard operating procedures (SOPs).
This is how mundane tasks get delegated or outsourced, yet still done the way you want. Without you having to do them.
68%
One survey2 estimates 68% of a founder’s time is spent on low-value administrative tasks, working ‘in’ the business and not ‘on’ the business. In a 40 hour week (ha!) that’s 27 hours. Could you do something more valuable (like strategy, planning, and business development) with those freed-up 27 hours?
Imagine, dear founder, what you could achieve with 68% of your time returned to you?
This information came from one of Tiago’s emails dated 29/9/25. If you’ve not come across Tiago before, he’s the ‘Second Brain’ guy. His website is https://fortelabs.com.
Time Management: New Survey Reveals How Biz Owners Are Spending Their Time—And How They’d Rather Spend It. https://www.agilitypr.com/pr-news/uncategorized/time-management-new-survey-reveals-biz-owners-spending-time-theyd-rather-spend/. Retrieved 3/10/25.