How to delegate for people who hate delegating

Turn Here is a guest column on Wednesdays by Caitlin McCabe who blogs over at Smile Like You Mean It and is into architecture, social media, and irreverence.

Something that not a lot of my online network knows is that I have fake nails.  Everyone in my face-to-face life has an opinion about it. For example, my mom hates them and tells me that it’s ridiculous.  My friend’s husband is enthralled with how much money I spend on them and lots of people think it’s wasteful and/or too much time to have them.  Some people like the fact that I paint them weird (I say stylish) colors.

Really, it’s none of those things.  Instead, my nails were lesson 1 for me in delegating.

Good grooming is important in business and so are your hands.   I hate the idea of presenting an idea with gross, chewed up nails so I started doing them myself.  Keeping up with this generally meant spending two hours each week and buying products.  When I had them professionally done, I only spent an hour every other week and $35.

Hi, my name is Caitlin and I have spent years learning to delegate.

That sentence has made me very, very busy throughout my life.  So busy that I’ve missed a lot of birthday parties, family brunches, movies, and get-togethers.  So busy that I’ve sometimes had a job title longer than I probably should have just because I was “way too busy” to take on any other responsibilities.  Being “super busy” doesn’t mean that you are really important or moving forward.  It just means that you might be halfway to work and realize that you forgot your laptop.  I have gotten to the office and realized that I forgot to put on a bra as a result of early morning conference calls and paperwork.

You are probably too busy too.

I know someone has written “the 4 hour workweek” but here’s the thing:  most of us are just trying not to go nuts with all of our to-do’s and maybe we need a baby step or two.  Also, there are people out there like me who just don’t really delegate well.  Here’s how you should start:

1) Realize that you are too busy. It’s possible you are too busy to move forward.  Once you admit that you are at capacity, you will be able to decide which things need to go.  So say it.  Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Ok, now you are ready to let someone else do something you were once doing, because you want to move forward right?

2) Start Small.  Delegate 1 thing.  For me, that one thing was the 2 hours I was spending doing my nails each week; there was just no way I was going to start with work delegation.   Pick out the thing that you spend 3 useless hours on a week that you can let someone else do.  Maybe it’s answering cold sales calls or explaining what your company does to people.  You might even be surprised, my nail people put my self-manicures to shame and once I calculated what I make an hour and apply it to the two hours I spent doing my nails, it’s less expensive to get them done.

3) Delegate beyond work.  Maybe you spend just the right amount of time on work and you can shift things in your personal life easily.  For example, could you join Peapod and stop grocery shopping?  Could you get a salon blowout and spend less time in the morning doing your hair?  Resist the urge to say that it’s more expensive because that’s assuming that your time is worth nothing which it isn’t.

4)  Pay someone.  This might make you feel better.  Simply asking someone else to take on more responsibility makes me cringe.  Why would someone do another job simply because I asked?  Even if I am their boss.  Create incentive.  Pay them or find some other reward to even the playing field.

The sort of sinister side to this is that if I pay someone or create a reward, I am far more justified in yelling at them if it’s not done or not done correctly.  I could have asked the New Jersey-ite to walk the dog every day, but since I don’t pay him I’d probably end up stuck with it occasionally and I couldn’t really yell at him.  So we hired a dog walker and spend a lot less time running home at noon to do it.

5) Don’t delegate jobs you love even if they are below you.  I will never delegate reading social media blogs.  Even if I am the most busy person in the universe.  My boss once tried to make me delegate advertising strategy sessions to someone else and I felt the bright spot going out of my day.  Don’t delegate things you love in order to move forward or you’ll regret it.

Once you start with small things, I promise it gets easier.

Follow the Leader – Manage your life like other young leaders

Gen-Y does a heck of a lot. This is the first post in a new series called, “Follow the Leader,” where you get the chance to peek into the professional and personal lives of fellow young leaders to learn how they get it all done. If you would like to be the next young leader profiled, email me.

When I wrote my first post, it was Tiffany Monhollon (left) who contributed the first comment. Which made me giddy for days upon days and gave her instant status as my first bona fide blogging buddy. It only made sense to feature the talented writer of Little Red Suit as the first young leader to be profiled for the Follow the Leader series.

Check out the week of Tiffany Monhollon,
Writer and PR Professional, 25 years old:

(click twice to enlarge and sharpen Tiffany’s calendar and to do list for this week)

Tiffany says:

How to generate ideas
“I listen for themes in my life and let them speak into my work and my writing. I carry a notebook with me at all times and keep track of story, article, blog and graduate project ideas over dinner, while I’m sitting in traffic and when I’m shopping. I have anywhere from 15-30 ideas in progress pretty much all the time. I’m very curious about everything, so that helps.”

Balancing priorities is inherently lopsided
“My priorities often set me, to be honest. In theory, I should set priorities based on what I want to get the most out of in life – relationships, personal interests, family, and then spend my time focusing mostly on those things, right? But truthfully and frustratingly, I find that whatever is taking up my time finds its way to the top of my priorities in practice.

A lot of workers are faced with this reality. That’s why we talk about work/life balance so much. Our work dictates our priorities because it takes the most of our time. I try rather than to ’set’ priorities, to just take an honest assessment of my time, and adjust that when it gets too lopsided. Otherwise, I would drive myself crazy and feel guilty all the time.

When I spend four hours instead of two on my blog, and ignore the important people in my life, I have to be honest with myself that I’m being really stupid. I have to look at where my priorities are right now by seeing where my time is invested, and then make decisions with my time to shift my priorities to what I want them to be ideally by spending time on them.

People who say family is their biggest priority and spend 70 hours a week working aren’t being honest with themselves.”

Time-management is a myth
“Though I talk about it a lot, time management is really a myth. It doesn’t exist, because you can’t control time. It passes, at regular intervals, despite us. Oh, how I wish this weren’t true! But it is, so we have to learn to manage ourselves in time. It’s really all about self-management.

I can’t tell you how many times in life I’ve heard or said some version of: ‘I don’t have enough time.’ But really, the truth is, you can plan on having the same 24 hours each day that everyone has, plan for your plans to be interrupted, and figure out how to manage yourself in that time that remains. That’s really the way it seems to work in real life, all theory aside.”

Aww…
What does Tiffany look forward to the most? “Spending time with my wonderful, supportive boyfriend any time I get to see him.”

What do you think?
Do you relate to Tiffany? Do your priorities set you? Are you constantly on? Do you like the Follow the Leader series idea? What are your ideas to improve it?

Follow the footprints, yo.

The best time-management advice. Ever.

I recently asked Dan Schawbel, personal branding guru, how he gets everything done: “I don’t know how I do it at this point, but I’m passionate about what I do so I make it happen. Is that a fair answer?”

Not only is that a fair answer, but it’s the best time-management advice. Ever.

Dan, just 23 years old, has launched his Personal Branding magazine today. I strongly recommend you head on over to his website to download the PDF for $12.95. All proceeds benefit the American Cancer Society. I’ve downloaded my copy which is chock-full of valuable information from an interview with Donald Trump, to a slew of guest articles that tell you how to reach your full branding potential.

Trust me, you’ll want advice from this “personal branding force of nature.” Go on. Go see for yourself.

Brand passion.