How to Get More Done: Stop Letting These Two Excuses Hold You Back
Why is delegation one of the most challenging skills for leaders to master? There are two critical components of effective delegation: a competent delegatee you trust and a documented process. Getting these two parts in place can sometimes feel like moving mountains, but what if a mindset shift is all it takes to make this happen quickly and painlessly?
Delegating is impossible if you don’t have someone you trust to carry out the task, and it will be much harder to hand something off if the process for how that task is done lives in your head. If you want to improve the results of delegation, you must address these foundational elements first and foremost.
If you have been telling yourself you are too busy and overwhelmed to add the job of hiring and onboarding a virtual assistant to your already insane schedule you are not alone. Whether you are a business owner or an executive, you may be experiencing what feels like the weight of the world on your shoulders, and even the act of getting help is a heavy lift.
Relate much?
Read on to reset your mindset and make these two excuses the very reasons you become a master of delegation and accomplish exponentially more every single day.
Excuse #1: I Don’t Have Time to Find and Hire a Trustworthy Assistant
Often, leaders know they need to hire an assistant to take some of the admin work off their plates, but they get stuck before they ever take action. Even the thought of how much work goes into finding, vetting, hiring, and onboarding a qualified virtual assistant can be the mental hurdle keeping you in this vicious cycle of overwhelm and burnout. If you know you have too much on your plate, remember your “why” and invest in yourself.
Ultimately, there’s one investment that supersedes all others: Invest in yourself. Nobody can take away what you’ve got in yourself, and everybody has potential they haven’t used yet.
~ Warren Buffett
If you are stuck on step zero, start your delegation journey by delegating the recruiting and vetting processes to a reputable agency.
Working with a virtual assistant agency is the quickest way to move past this mental mountain and stop telling yourself that you “don’t even have time to hire someone.” Asking an expert for help is the first step toward becoming a better delegator.
You probably don’t have time to find and hire a great match for your needs! And that’s okay. Just don’t let this be the excuse for not getting the help you desperately need.
Excuse #2: It’s Faster if I do it Myself Because the Process is in My Head
If I had a nickel dollar (edited for inflation) every time a business leader said, “it’s such a small thing; it’s just faster if I do it myself,” I’d retire early. We all think this about something we are doing that we totally know is below our pay grade, but we make this excuse to help us feel like we’re doing the right thing by keeping it for ourselves.
The reason you keep saying this to yourself is really that you haven’t documented the process, and the only person that knows how it should be done is you.
Of course, it’s faster if you do it yourself! But just like excuse number one, a mindset shift can help you see that it doesn’t have to stay that way.
Trusty Oak is proud to announce a strategic partnership with Beyond the Chaos™, a Texas-based firm founded by Susan Fennema, offering operations consultants and done-for-you project management. Together, we are offering a special plan, including process development, for leaders who want some extra help preparing for delegation to a virtual assistant. A dedicated professional operations consultant will help you get the process out of your head and transferred to dependable, experienced virtual assistants who will take tasks off your plate for good.
With clear and easily obtainable options to delegate the work of documenting processes and bringing on a rockstar VA, your excuses lose their power over you. Now you have the two key components of a successful delegation system locked down and you have just created an off-ramp for tasks that you never want to do again!
And the ramp never closes. As trust increases with your virtual assistant, that ramp widens, and your ability to go faster and farther increases. Turns out, the only thing that has been stopping you from getting more done was a couple of weak excuses disguised as insurmountable obstacles in the road.
Change your mindset about delegation, continue to invest in yourself, and watch burnout take that exit ramp, too.
Take the first step by booking a free delegation strategy call with a Trusty Oak client success coordinator to get started. You’ve got this!
Before founding Trusty Oak, Amber spent five years at a rapidly growing digital agency based in Austin, TX. Four of those years, she was responsible for hiring and leading both local and virtual teams while working closely with clients ranging from CEOs to bestselling authors to build their brand online. As VP of Operations, Amber helped lead the company’s growth to #15 on Austin Business Journal’s Fast50 List in 2014.
As a female founder and leader of a company that has quickly established a recognizably special culture within a non-traditional workforce, Amber has energized and empowered women from diverse professional and personal backgrounds to go against the grain of historically standard female roles in business, technology, and leadership. Trusty Oak provides an opportunity for experienced admin and marketing professionals to work independently as freelancers, but with a supportive internal network consisting of other ambitious and resourceful remote workers.