Summer is a hectic time for businesses, entrepreneurs, and families alike. The days are longer and the nights shorter, but that doesn’t mean we have more time to accomplish what matters most. It means we have more hours of daylight to cram tasks, projects, and activities into while sacrificing our sleep, rest, and self-care. That’s because we tend to over commit to activities that don’t bring us closer to our goals and vision of success. We fill up our time then complain that we have no time. It’s an annoying paradox we bring upon ourselves.

One of the most effective ways to reclaim time is to eliminate tasks and activities by delegating them. Leveraging people is a win-win situation. It frees up your time for the areas of your business on which only you can work, the life activities you want to enjoy, and empowers others to work within their wheelhouses, most often for pay.

If you’re not already delegating tasks and activities, what’s holding you back? Do you believe you can do it better than anyone else? Do you think it would take longer to teach someone else than to do it yourself? Perhaps, you think it’s less expensive to tackle on your own?

If you divide your monthly income by the hours you work, you might determine you make an average of $60 per hour. That means when you take on the task of inputting receipts into Quickbooks, you are paying yourself $60 per hour when you could be paying someone else perhaps $15 per hour. That’s a loss of $45 per hour! And, you thought you were saving money…

Completing tasks yourself can also be less cost-effective because you should consider not only the monetary cost, but the opportunity cost. According to author, Jeff Shore, “Too many business owners impede their revenue growth doing everything just to save a few bucks.” If you hadn’t spent an hour booking flight arrangements this afternoon, how else could you have used that time? Making sales calls? Writing marketing content? Following up with leads? Brainstorming business growth ideas? Every minute you spend on activities you need not be doing is a minute you could put toward achieving your vision of success.

For you to invest your best time into your best activities, you must invest your time, energy, and finances into others. It empowers them, and it empowers you to spend your time on activities and tasks where you’ll see bigger returns. One of my clients, Heather Nunez, said her motto for delegating is “Move it from my To-Do List to their To-Learn List.” Brilliant! Even if you think you’re the only person qualified to do the work, you could teach someone else. It might take two hours to train them on a task that only takes you 30 minutes. But, once they know how to do it, you’ll start reaping endless financial benefits and the benefit of reclaimed time after they’ve completed the task only four times.

Deciding what to delegate is as easy as recognizing the activities that are not maximizing your success. Stop committing to and engaging in those activities. Instead, start delegating them!

Delegating tasks empowers others and gives them chances to learn. Tasks that feel like burdens to you could even feel like blessings to them. What you’re delegating may not be your best activities but may be theirs. Let’s say you know you don’t lead meetings efficiently. You struggle to start and end meetings on time and have a hard time keeping them focused. Your greatest contribution to meetings may be your expertise and experience alone. Delegate someone else to facilitate meetings if that is their strength. By minimizing your weaknesses, you’ll have the time and energy to capitalize on your strengths.

Even if you’re more than capable of handling certain tasks, quite often you should delegate them anyway. Time is a finite resource and yours should be spent accomplishing your highest value tasks that only you could ever do. If you are kept busy by routine tasks and one-off projects that are not bringing you closer to achieving your goals, you should delegate them. Most delegable tasks fall into two categories: Specialized and Unskilled.

Specialized Tasks
Specialized tasks require education-based knowledge or involve a unique skill set such as branding, bookkeeping, graphic design, website design, copywriting, blog editing, video editing, marketing, sales conversations, and accounting.

Unskilled Tasks
Unskilled tasks such as filing, copying, ordering supplies, database cleanup, booking flight arrangements, and running errands can generally be completed by anyone for a low wage.

Engaging in activities and tasks that can be completed effectively by others wastes valuable time. Decide what to delegate so you can focus your time and energy on your highest value activities that generate income. Delegating is an essential part of improving your productivity and getting closer to your vision of success.

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This article originally appeared in the Summer 2018 issue of CHOICES Magazine