To delegate means to entrust a task or responsibility to another person. We talked about the importance of delegation as seen in the Eisenhower Matrix in this article and this article.

To recap, the Eisenhower Matrix is one of the productivity tools often used to improve focus and prioritization. The ‘matrix’ is a square that is split into four quadrants.

Label the quadrants like so:

Take a look at your to-do list and decide whether they are urgent, not urgent, important, not very important. Your urgent and important tasks will fall under the “do” quadrant. Your important but not urgent tasks will fall under the “decide” quadrant. Other tasks will fall under the “delegate” quadrant (who else can do it?) and the “delete” quadrant (these tasks are the ones you can ditch altogether).

Those tasks that fall under the ‘do’ and ‘decide’ quadrant are tasks that you can accomplish yourself. However, in order to make sure that you are efficiently making use of your time – it is also important to know when you have to delegate or pass the baton to someone else. A recipe for burnout is to try to do everything by yourself. You have to trust other people enough that you delegate tasks to them. This shows respect in their abilities to get things done and respect for yourself so that you can focus on doing things that you are good at and will turn out to be a more productive use of your time.

Delegation is not just about passing off work. You will have to use discernment in order to ascertain if the task is suitable for the person or if the person is up to par for the task. This isn’t just applicable in the corporate setting but at home as well. For example, an overwhelmed mom can ‘delegate’ gift wrapping of holiday gifts to the children. It will be a fun activity and might as well be a good learning opportunity for creativity and dexterity.

Here’s a guide to know which of your tasks could be delegated:

1. Tiny: delegate tiny tasks or tasks that are redundant but only take a small amount of time to accomplish. Examples are: deleting spam email, booking flights, taking out the trash, wiping counter tops, etc.
2. Tedious: delegate tedious tasks or tasks that require little skill but can be time consuming such as copy-pasting information into a spreadsheet.
3. Terrible at: listen, if you have ZERO design skills – don’t force it. Delegate that task to someone who has the knowledge and expertise to do it. You can be sure that they will do a better job and that will be a more productive use of both your times, instead of trying to figure it out yourself.
4. Teachable: Are there any tasks that you can easily teach someone? Delegate those to someone else. They could very well do a good or even better job at it than you can.

What tasks do you delegate? Share them with us in the comments. Remember to work smart and be a blessing to someone today. Stay safe and healthy!

Written by Jaie O. TheHelp