Why Your New Year’s Resolution Should Be To Delegate

The year is coming to a close which is why so many professionals are now thinking about their plans for the coming year. Perhaps there are some changes you want to introduce at your job that could make the environment better or your strategy stronger.

If that is the case, then you should definitely consider delegating/outsourcing. Delegating is by far one of the best ways to breathe new life into your own work and your team’s work. Hence, here’s why your New Year’s resolution should be to delegate.

Why Should You Delegate?

First and foremost, you need to understand why you should delegate. Delegating can include anything from finding a virtual assistant to help you with your personal tasks to outsourcing certain tasks to third parties. Because delegating can involve so many different approaches, you need to decide which one you will be using. Yet, at the end of the day, the main purpose of delegating is always the same: to help reduce the amount of work you need to do.

Leaders in various positions can benefit a lot from delegating. In most cases, you can’t do every single thing yourself. In fact, you probably shouldn’t. When you try to take on too many responsibilities, you will not only complete them incorrectly or poorly, but you will also end up with burnout.

This is why delegating can help you and your team find a balance between all the tasks that need to be done. Moreover, with the help of delegating, you can make the job easier for your employees which will help you build trust, nurture loyalty, and even empower your team members. As a leader, you will learn to identify the best people for each task and to organize the activities of your team.

Because your team members will now have more time and energy for other things, they will get the unique opportunity to develop and grow more professionally. You can even let them work on passion projects they may have where they can get creative and take on new challenges. Without delegation, they might not have had enough time to even consider such projects in the first place.

When Should You Delegate?

Though it may sound like it’s easy to jump right into it and start delegating, you still need to consider some factors. Dwayne Marin, an expert from the writing services reviews site Best Writers Online, says, “You need to learn to identify both what you should delegate and when. If you choose the wrong time for it, you could end up doing more harm than good.”

There are several main reasons why managers and leaders in different positions fail to delegate tasks successfully:

• They assume that delegating simply means making someone else do your work for you (or for your team).
• They feel anxious about letting someone else do the job which leads them to try and control the process too much.
• They believe that nobody can do the task better than they can, so they choose not to delegate in the first place.

If you are certain that you want to delegate and you are ready to accept all the challenges that you could encounter, then the next step is to determine when you should delegate. To do this, consider such factors as:

• The scale of your tasks (small tasks like scheduling meetings are easier to delegate)
• The repetitiveness of your tasks (mundane or tedious tasks like filling out Excel spreadsheets can be delegated)
• The timeframe of your tasks (longer projects or time-consuming tasks can be broken down into smaller tasks and partially delegated)
• The nature of your tasks (if you can teach someone else to do it, then delegate; if you don’t know how to do something or you are bad at it, then delegate)
• The urgency of your tasks (urgent or time-sensitive tasks can be partially delegated)
• The necessity of your tasks (if you moved into a new leadership position recently, there may be tasks that are no longer a part of your job)

The main point to keep in mind when determining the time for delegating is that this will help you do your job better. In some cases, delegating helps to complete a project before the deadline while in others it simply gives you some room to breathe and focus on other tasks. Take into account that delegating could be beneficial not just for you but for your team too.

What Can/Can’t You Delegate?

So, what exactly can you delegate? Some points listed above about determining when to delegate can be helpful for you to decide what to delegate. In theory, you could delegate almost anything, starting from outsourcing video editing and ending with virtual assistance during meeting scheduling. However, there are still some limitations when it comes to delegating.

Firstly, you can’t outsource tasks that require you or your team to work with private or confidential information. Such tasks and projects should only be managed within your company and not by a third party. No matter how reliable that third party is, you don’t want to risk having an information leak, for example.

Secondly, you can’t delegate tasks only you can do. As a leader, you will have certain responsibilities that only you can perform. Moreover, some things can’t be delegated simply because it could affect your image negatively. You want to be an example for your team and have to maintain a particular reputation.

Thirdly, if you mostly rely on outsourcing for your delegation, you can only go so far with it. You might not have a very big budget for such things which is why you won’t be able to outsource particularly difficult tasks that will need to be paid for. Always keep in mind your resources when planning your delegating strategy.

How Can You Delegate?

Last but not least, how exactly can you delegate? Samantha Rush, an expert from the custom writing reviews site Writing Judge, explains, “Delegating can be done in a variety of ways and different people approach it with their own methods and beliefs. There is no universal right or wrong way to delegate, but you should still try to stick to the most common practices and avoid making rookie mistakes.”

Here are some tips to follow when you start delegating:

1. 1. Make A List of Tasks and Responsibilities: To start off on the right note, you will need to plan out your delegating activities as much as possible. This is why your first step should be making a list of tasks and responsibilities (either your own or your team’s). Even if there are some tasks you are certain you won’t delegate, it’s still worth putting them on your list. This will give you a complete picture of your current work so that you don’t forget anything important. You can break up the list into categories by time (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly), urgency, complexity, and so on. Definitely break up long-term tasks into smaller ones.
   2. Decide What to Delegate (and What Not To): Now that you have a list of tasks, you will need to decide which of them you will (and which you won’t) delegate. A good way to do this is by assigning the level of authority required to complete each task. For instance, tasks that can only be completed by you will immediately be out of the picture once you assign them their level of authority. After you have the levels noted, you can better understand which tasks are fit to be delegated. If you don’t have much experience delegating, choose a few tasks now. You can start delegating more once you have more experience with it.
   3. Choose the Person to Delegate To: This is by far the most important step of all as you will be deciding who will complete the tasks. These can be your team members, your virtual assistant, a third-party service provider, or someone else entirely. Depending on the level of authority required for the tasks you chose and the resources you possess, you can make a calculated choice of people who will work on the said tasks. When choosing the right person, think about their skills, knowledge, and experience as well as whether or not they have time to complete the assigned task.
   4. Start Delegating (and Assessing Results): Once the tasks are assigned, you can start actively delegating and monitoring how the tasks are completed. Keep in mind that the main point of delegating is that you don’t have to do these tasks anymore which means you shouldn’t be too controlling over the way they are being completed. Nevertheless, you should still assess the results and see if you made the right choices along the way. Take note of any issues that arose and keep them in mind when you delegate in the future.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, delegating tasks successfully doesn’t only require you to be a good leader. It also requires you to be a great decision-maker. Use the information in this article to help you make the right choices when delegating and start increasing efficiency at work.

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Author:

Lafond Wanda is a professional content writer, copywriter, content strategist, and communications consultant. She started young with her writing career from being a high school writer to a university editor, and now she is a writer in professional writing platforms— her years of expertise have honed her skills to create compelling and results-driven content every single time.