How do I know when I need to outsource tasks?

If you’re asking this question, then first of all CONGRATS! HUZZAH! MAZAL TOV! Your business is growing and that’s a good thing.

But as any entrepreneur knows, growth comes with challenges. How do you pick and choose what to give your attention to when everything is demanding your precious time? If you’re constantly finding yourself in a position where either your core business goals or your daily business tasks are suffering at the expense of one another, that could be a sign that you need help. But because you are in the best position to understand and execute your core business goals, it makes sense to bring someone on to help you with the rest.

There are a lot of factors to consider when it comes to bringing someone onto your team.

Do you have enough work and for long enough in the future to support a full-time or part-time permanent employee? If you’re thinking of bringing someone on for a short-term contract, do you have the capacity and resources to onboard them, and pay employment taxes and benefits?

If not, you may be in the market for a virtual assistant—a contractor who can help you with agreed-upon business tasks for an agreed-upon time, no employment strings attached.

Before you start the process of finding someone, consider what kind of work you are doing daily and for how long. Everyone hates it, but I strongly recommend time tracking everything you do for one week. Take note of each task and how many hours it takes you to do it.

One of the ways you can really visualize if a task is one you can delegate, is by using Eisenhower’s Decision Matrix to analyze all the stuff you took note of in your week of time tracking. The Eisenhower Matrix is a time management tool that categorizes tasks based on urgency and importance.

Here’s how it works:

Assign two values to every task—”Urgent” or “Not Urgent”, and “Important” or “Not Important”. Then map out each task on the matrix based on the values you assigned. Everything that is urgent, but not critical to your business goals falls into the ‘Delegate’ quadrant. These are the tasks which can more than likely be delegated to a contractor, virtual assistant or employee. If you have tasks that are important, but not urgent, you can schedule them for later or consider another approach. If you trust your VA, you might opt to get their help with these types of tasks too. When you’re mapping your tasks on the matrix, be sure to include hours spent so you can really visualize what tasks you need help with and how many hours of help you need.

That leaves us with two quadrants. In the ‘Eliminate’ quadrant, you’ll find tasks which are not urgent and not important—I’m going to give you the okay to stop doing these now! Finally, there’s the “Do it now” quadrant, which contains tasks that are both urgent and important. These are the tasks which really impact your bottom line the most and ideally should command your attention. By freeing up space in your to-do list, you can give these the attention they deserve.

Just as importantly, this exercise can help you understand the kind of tasks you need help with and how many hours of time you need from a VA or contractor to complete those tasks.

If this article helped you understand when to bring on a VA or what kind of tasks are right for you to delegate, please share!

Ready to get help with some of the tasks that fall into your “Delegate” quadrant? Get in touch today.

-Dina