For those of you with have direct reports and always feel overwhelmed with too many things to do consider improving your delegation skills. Rreduce your own workload or improve your productivity to leave more time for higher level work.

Obviously not everything you do can  be delegated but a quick review of your daily ,weekly and monthly tasks should give a starting point for picking some of your work that can be delegated.

Consider the following filters

1. Is there sensitive information included in the task?

2. What level of skill is required to perform the task?

     a. Technical

     b. Computing

     c. Physical

Create a simple matrix of the tasks with details as above with the view to assigning specific staff .

Decide who you will delegate the task to and get them  involved in the process. Discuss the reason for the task, frequency and why you  believe this staff member is best placed to perform  it ( maybe you need to ask about current workload as well !)  Then .....And this is the really important part, document what you currently do to complete the task now and then when you have done that , pass it on to your delegatee for them to review and suggest improvements.

Once you have both  reviewed the process and  agreed on the how,what and when of the task pass it over and start thinking about the other things you can catch up on.

Save some time ....and spend it doing something you love !

Tim