by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Aug 10, 2016 | Delegation, Executive Administration, Time Management
There will come a time in your business when you feel overwhelmed with the day to day operations. There is simply too much for one person to achieve while remaining efficient and effective.
As an entrepreneur, the CEO of your company, you have a limited number of hours to work both IN and ON your business. Constantly flipping your hats not only takes time, but a shift in focus, a reorganization of your priorities and it disrupts your workflow. It probably makes you a little crazy or insane. You may end up overlooking important business details or even client needs because you are buried in the trenches instead of running the front line.
There’s just not nearly enough time to get everything done and still operate your business. It is this realization, the “Ah ha” moment, that you recognize delegating these projects and tasks to an assistant will make your life and your business, much more productive.
Delegation is an advantageous productivity tool we frequently hear about— one that will transform your businesses in terms of greater income and more free time for you! And who doesn’t love both of these?
BUT, many are timid about beginning the process for fear of relinquishing control of parts of our business processes and procedures. Mine! Mine! Mine!
It’s time to give up this thought process and embrace a growth mentality for your business.
Focus on the high payoff activities that model your organization’s vision, foundation, and core competencies.
Effective delegation for entrepreneurs is essential! When you outsource your tasks and projects, you are able to focus on more important responsibilities that only you can do to cultivate your business and generate revenue. The art of delegation is an indispensable part of establishing your growing business.
When you delegate properly and use software to help you delegate, you’ll find that your company runs more efficiently, productivity levels rise, people are happier at work, and your quality of work improves immensely. Amara Pope – timedoctor.com
You know you need to start delegating if:
- You spend 7-10+ hours online, curating, scheduling and managing your social media and it takes away from time with clients, colleagues, partners etc.
- You need to implement some systems to streamline your business processes
- You have wished for a like-minded brainstorming partner
- You are ready to scale, but don’t have enough hours in the day.
- You find it hard to concentrate and stay focused because there is too much for one person to do.
- You have some projects or platforms that are barely started or only half-finished.
- You lay awake at night wondering how you will manage everything.
What stops people from delegating:
- They feel they are too disorganized to illustrate what needs to be done.
- They believe they don’t have the financial means. (It is actually more cost-effective to partner with a Virtual Assistant as you only pay for project time).
- They feel their schedules are too hectic to take the time to delegate. (If you are this busy, your time restraints will only increase without delegation).
- They feel someone else won’t do it the same way or be as efficient (A virtual assistant is a solopreneur like yourself: efficiency, productivity, and industry expertise IS our business. We know of different tools and tips to professionally manage your projects in a proficient, resourceful manner).
Each of the above objections emphasizes the necessity to delegate. As long as you continue to clutch the tasks that stop you from growing your business, you will feel exasperated, overwhelmed, and unproductive.
Delegating will free up your time. It enables you to eliminate low-priority tasks while allowing you to concentrate your efforts on those business systems that enhance your productivity and your profit margin. Your time and energy should be committed to creating new products or services, networking, consulting with clients and prospects, forming strategic alliances, expanding into new markets, business development, social media engagement and so forth. These are tasks that only YOU can do. They are your CORE GENIUS.
Ask yourself:
- Is delegating a logical next step to help grow my business?
- How much time am I spending on tasks that impede my progress and waste my time?
- What are my most pressing issues or pain points that eat up most of my time?
- Have I been able to accomplish ALL of my daily To Do list items?
- If I delegated tasks, how would I use an additional 5-8 hours per week?
- How would I feel if I only worked on income generating tasks and outsourced the rest?
Delegation is the perfect low cost, high impact tool to help expand and develop your business without having to increase responsibilities or sacrifice your personal time with your family.
The bottom line is that effective delegation is the sensible alternative to help you scale your business and get more done.
It takes courage, intelligence, and humility to delegate in ways that actually drive productivity, engagement, and success throughout an entire organization. But every leader should aim for that high standard, rather than shrink from the risks it entails. Baird Brightman
Do you have a minute? Please share in the comments below your thoughts on:
What has been your greatest success or disappointment from delegating tasks/projects?
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Jun 28, 2016 | Delegation, Leadership, Productivity, Virtual Assistant
Stop Controlling and Allow Your Business to Grow
How to master the art of letting go
Many entrepreneurs face an ongoing internal battle when it comes to letting go and delegating certain tasks and projects to others. If you find yourself keeping a five finger death grip on every decision and project, you’re probably your own worst enemy.
When you first launched your startup, you needed to have your hands in everything that went on. But if your ultimate goal involves scaling your business beyond startup and into a full-fledged company, you need to master the art of letting go.
Mindfulness Over Multitasking – The Key to Success
By now, you’ve probably heard or read about the harmful effects of multitasking on just about, well, everything – including the health of your business. Multitasking doesn’t help you get more done. In reality, it causes you to scatter your focus and constantly shift mental gears. In effect, you’re working harder, certainly not smarter.
In contrast to the disaster of multitasking, mindfulness involves taking on one task, one thought, one action at a time. Not only will you perform at a higher level and make better decisions, but mindfulness can also improve your capacity to cope with change and manage stress.
But, in order to practice mindfulness in your work life, you’ve got to let go and delegate.
Why Is Letting Go so Hard?
Let go. Delegate. Why is it so hard for small business owners like you? A couple of reasons come to mind.
- Control seems to somehow give you peace of mind.
- When you’re in control, you feel free. When you relinquish control feelings of frustration and even anger may emerge.
- Control gives you a feeling of security.
Chances are, if you’re a control freak at work, you probably exhibit the same behaviors in your personal life. It all comes down to fear – fear of what might happen if you give some of the control over to another person. After all, your business is like your baby, and no one can love and nurture your baby the way you can. Wrong. It’s hard to face it, but it’s the truth.
Now that you’ve faced the cold, hard truth, it’s time to get to work at not working so much.
Kill Your Inner Control Freak to Awaken the Slumbering Leader
As your business grows, daily tasks to support operations increase as well. You take on what seems like an ever-increasing number of projects and tasks. The scope of your responsibilities widens so much; keeping up with it all becomes impossible. This can lead to overwhelm, longer hours, tightening that grip on control even more.
At this point, something has to change or you, and your baby (business), will crash and burn.
Five ways to empower yourself and others by letting go:
- Face your fear. Know that when you begin delegating, not everything will get done exactly the way you would have done it. That’s ok. In fact, by allowing others to find new ways to do things, you empower them to perform better for you and your business.
- Take an honest inventory of things only you can do. Ask yourself if someone else could complete this project with acceptable results. Ask yourself if all of your new responsibilities keep you from performing the critical, high-value activities of a business owner.
- Defer to others as often as possible. Think of deferring, as delegating is a close cousin. When you delegate, you hand off responsibilities already on your radar. Deferring involves passing tasks and work off to appropriate parties before they ever get on your to-do list. Outsourcing social media, executive administrative duties, travel planning, and similar responsibilities to a virtual assistant represent one example of smart deferral.
- Develop a reliable follow-up system. When you delegate duties that directly impact how others perceive you or your brand — such as a presentation or social media marketing campaign — it’s critical that you receive status reports on progress. You might use project management software so that you can view progress and get notified at certain milestones. Or, you could simply use a shared Google Drive task list.
- Just say no to taking back control. Paradoxically, letting go of control actually gives you better, more consistent control. You may start wavering if a final project result simply doesn’t meet your standards. You may experience frustration, anger, and the fear that makes you want to get your death-grip working again. Resist the urge. Instead, investigate what went wrong and help those who worked on the project understand what went wrong.
There’s an easy way and a hard way to everything in life. If you make yourself busier than necessary, you run the risk of trading a meaningful life for a barren existence of busy-ness. Smash the control freak and lead by delegating, instead.
“No person will make a great business who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit.” ~Andrew Carnegie
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | May 17, 2016 | Delegation, Virtual Assistant
Entrepreneurs are accustomed to doing it all from changing printer ink, uploading tweets, proofing blog posts, and ordering supplies to curating content, creating images, travel planning, retweeting, and sharing content, and testing the latest social media apps. Owning and operating a scalable business takes a team to fortify the back end, the daily routines, the foundational systems, and processes. It’s not a solo act to grow your business.
My client’s advice to other business owners and start-ups: “Cultivate the business mindset for growth and profit. You don’t have to go it alone, nor should you”.
When you keep yourself buried in the day to day minutia, this is time you are not working ON your business. If you aren’t, then who is? With only one person at the helm, there is only so far that you can scale. While it isn’t easy to relinquish some of your daily demands, it is a tremendous benefit to free up your valuable time and avoid burnout.
Entrepreneurs have great talents but many times they think they can do it all. That can really stall the growth of the business. By outsourcing the day to day back-office tasks, the business owner has more time to focus on generating income. Laura Lee Sparks
Identify the essential and eliminate the unnecessary
Delegating will help you to:
- Focus on your core genius: Do what you must do: the tasks and projects that ONLY you can and should be doing. The mainstay of your company.
- Increase your productivity: You can work on more high-level business operations instead of the routine and mundane day to day necessities.
- Eliminate distractions: There are many daily tasks that don’t require your immediate attention. Moving those off of your plate diminishes notifications and multi-tasking.
- Be client/company-centric: You have more time to dedicate to building your business structures and relationships.
- Reduce your stress: You’ve got a vested partner working behind the scenes to ensure that everything is efficient, successful, and administered in a timely fashion.
- Bolster your work-life balance: The more you are able to move off of your desk, the more time you gain for your personal life. Nix the nights and weekends.
Effective Steps to Delegating
DETERMINE WHAT YOU CAN OUTSOURCE
Typically, at Ace Concierge, LLC we assess the type of tasks associated with your business functions and daily management. They might fall under two categories: highly repetitive tasks, such as data entry, social media management, and blogging; or more specialized knowledge, such as accounts payable or web design. To help determine your delegation list ask yourself the three questions below.
- What are THE most important core business activities that I should be doing?
- What generates revenue?
- What leverage points produce the greatest results?
CREATE A PLAN AND EXPECTATIONS
Clearly plan, understand, and outline for accountability and outcomes, keeping all lines of communication open. We try to stress the importance of a strategy to ensure that all needs and requirements are met or exceeded. It is often difficult enough to give up what you have always done so it’s vital to create a solid foundation with dialog, expectations, and feedback.
RELINQUISH CONTROL
The hardest step business owners tend to have is relinquishing control and letting the person or business you’ve hired do their job. Remember, you’re outsourcing for a reason. You need to focus your time and energy on other more important, high payoff activities relative to your business. It doesn’t make sense to outsource a project or task and then micromanage it. Trust and release.
For some entrepreneurs partnering with a virtual assistant is unfamiliar territory and you may not fully comprehend the wide scope of work that can be efficiently outsourced to help free up your time. You may create mental roadblocks or perceived hurdles to prevent yourself from seeking assistance with your business. These alleged barriers can be easily overcome with a little in-depth thought and evaluation to conquer your objections.
A greater fear to consider is how much are you actually holding on to that is stopping you from focusing on the core of your business? What isn’t getting done? What is being shuffled under the rug?
Embrace delegation, don’t run from it. It is a low-cost high payoff tool to help you scale your company and focus on the core of your business – what ONLY YOU can do.
Delegating is a key management strategy that will benefit you and your company.
In order to grow a successful business, it’s important to let go of some perfectionism and delegate certain tasks so you can focus on your strengths. Diana Adams
Are you ready to grow? Contact your Ace today to start the dialog.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Feb 24, 2016 | Productivity, Small Business
Productivity isn’t rocket science by any means but it does require a little bit of discipline and commitment. If you run your day by the seat of your pants, without any planning or strategy, then your end results may suffer. In keeping with the KISS principle, this brief post (very brief) will hopefully ignite a spark to think where you could make a few changes.
You have 1440 minutes/day or 168 hrs/week; they are priceless bytes of time
- Establish and stick to priorities; you’ll get ahead much faster
- Time block your day
- Create your daily and weekly goals; add action steps and be fully accountable
- Understand your core genius; embrace it; value it
- Focus on income producing work
- Engage in the most vital structures of your business; delegate the rest
- Forget mindless busy work
- Don’t waste your time; it’s too precious
- Construct systems and processes; they add value to your day and your business
- Understand your personal energy rhythms: use them to your advantage
- Turn off distractions and notifications
- Don’t get sucked into the social media abyss. It kills brain cells
- Invest in a timer; stay focused on task
- Pledge to read more; challenge your knowledge and brain power
- Don’t stagnate: plan for personal growth; spiritually, physically and emotionally
- Nature heals; turn off the TV and devices – GO outside
- Schedule appointments with yourself
- Set boundaries for work life balance (or fit)
- Exercise every day: a fit body is a fit mind
- Never skimp on nutrition: eat crap – feel like crap. This ruins your day
Yup, that’s it. There’s no more to this post! Now it’s up to you to evaluate your day, your business and your potential based upon how you operate and tackle each moment.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Jan 19, 2016 | Productivity, Time Management
Training at the gym and running your company have more in common than you may realize. If you want to build muscle, then key in on focus, determination and single-tasking. You’re not going to be able to press 845 pounds if you’re busy scoping out the gym members, checking text messages or admiring your pump in the mirror. You have to connect with the body part you’re training, concentrate on the muscle group, the weights and that single moment because one wrong move and you’re looking into the eyes of an EMT.
“You’ve got to block out all distractions when you train. Your focus has to be 100% into the rep. You’ve got to get into a zone. You know you’re in the zone when guys in the gym look you in the eye and then quickly turn away ’cause they see the fire. You’ve got to be all business.” – Mike Matarazzo
One task. One thought. One action.
It seems so simple and uncomplicated but as you know, once your alarm detonates the early morning calm, it’s time to roll up your sleeves and make business explode. From the time you grab your first coffee and swipe open your phone or computer, the potential chaos can ensue and your day begins: eyes darting, fingers clicking, brain processing: emails, text messages, children, spouses, news and total data overload and you haven’t even begun to tackle your To Do list.
The problem with multi-tasking is that when you jump from task to task, you aren’t really getting more done. You are actually scattering your focus a little thinner and forcing your brain to consistently shift gears and work harder at a lower level of priority, “ability” and concentration. It’s a brain drain.
Multi-tasking is costly
- Increases your stress hormone cortisol
- Can reduce your effective IQ by 10 points
- Causes information to go to the wrong part of the brain
- Burns up oxygenated glucose (the fuel to help keep you on task)
- May increase bad decision-making
- Reduces focus
- Projects may be incomplete or not top quality
- Reduces productivity
- It actually takes MORE time to complete projects
- Amount of errors are increased by 50%
CHECK- IN:
Pause right now and ask yourself “How many things am I doing at this very moment?”
The American Psychological Association on Multi-Tasking:
- Psychologists who study what happens to cognition (mental processes) when people try to perform more than one task at a time have found that the mind and brain were not designed for heavy-duty multitasking. Psychologists tend to liken the job to choreography or air-traffic control, noting that in these operations, as in others, mental overload can result in catastrophe.
- Multi-tasking may seem efficient on the surface but may actually take more time in the end and involve more error. Meyer has said that even brief mental blocks created by shifting between tasks can cost as much as 40 percent of someone’s productive time.
It is clear that multi-tasking is not conducive to enhanced productivity, superb cognitive function or excellency in efficiency. We are a distracted nation, living within technology and not paying attention to being present in the moment, at a single task.
It’s time to bring back your focus, your energy and productivity. If you’re ready here’s a few action steps you can take right now.
13 tips to stop multi-tasking and get more done
- Turn off notifications and sounds: the more you have going on at any one time, the less you are able to concentrate on what is in front of you
- Set a timer to do focused work for a distraction free zone: a timer enables your brain to dedicate thought and action to one task
- Time block your day: assign specific tasks to specific times during the day. It helps to reduce procrastination while maintaining productivity
- Batch process emails at most 4 times per day: stopping to read/respond to every email throughout the day is counterproductive
- Prioritize and do important things first: this simple tip sets the tone for the rest of your project list. Everything else seems easy and more manageable
- Give your brain a break and disconnect from technology at set intervals: reduce data overload and consumption.
- Don’t check email first thing in the morning: email can wait. Develop new healthy habits like meditation, yoga, or mindful breathing
- Delegate admin and low pay off activities: low payoff activities do not represent the greatest value of your time. Delegate to do more
- Break up large projects into small increments with action steps: outlining your complex projects into smaller achievable tasks ensures a greater likelihood of completion and timely delivery
- Understand it’s okay to say NO and not take on new projects: more isn’t better. You’re plate is full enough.
- Give up busyness and think productivity: being productive is results oriented – Actions. Busyness is well, just taking up your time and not much to show at the end of the day.
- Generate some white space in your day: white space is just that, white space without the daily assaults on your brain. Go for a walk, listen to soothing music, journal, go “inward” and just BE.
- Commit to change
Developing your new productivity plan of action interrupts crisis mode and chaos, allowing the natural flow for enhanced productivity, less distractions and better time management. What tips will you implement today to “single-task” and get more done?
