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KEY POINTS IN DELEGATION

Your ability to delegate successfully is key to your success in completing this step in preparing your time budget.  In a later chapter, we will discuss delegation in more detail.
For now we will only note these key points to remember when you delegate a task.

1. Pick a person to perform the task who has the basic aptitude and who is motivated to perform it.

2. Invest in training. Plan to take the time necessary up front to ensure that he or she acquires the necessary skills to complete the task successfully.  

3. Use a try-out period.  Instead of delegating the entire task, begin with delegating just a portion of the task. Once they are successfully performing this first small part of the task, add other parts until they can eventually perform the entire task. With a try-out period, you minimize your risk - there is less they can do wrong - and you increase the likelihood of their success since they  learn to complete the task in small stages or steps.

4. Finally, be patient. No one will perform the task exactly right the first time, and they will probably never perform the task exactly the way you do. Remember, it is the timely and accurate completion of the task that is important, not necessarily the precise execution of steps according to your personal "one best way."

Now you have a list of recurring activities reduced by those tasks you have decided you can delegate. Your next step in developing a time budget is to transfer this information to a calendar. Any type of calendar will do, but you will probably find it easier to work with a large daily or weekly format.

Your calendar is a visual picture of the time available to you.  All of the recurring business activities you have listed, plus non-recurring activities, have to be on this calendar. In addition, you have to allow for your personal time - to sleep, eat, be with your family, enjoy the holidays, take that vacation you've been putting off. As you review your business list and the time you need for your personal life, don't be surprised if your "large" calendar appears to shrink. Now you are beginning to face the real problem.  There is just so much time available. You have precisely 24 hours a day, 168 hours a week, and 8,736 hours a year. While that may seem like a lot, it isn't. Take away 7 hours to sleep, 2 hours to eat, 1 hour to dress, 1 hour to commute to your business, and as little as 2 hours a day for family and personal chores; and suddenly over half of your available time is gone. Deduct a little more time to read, enjoy a hobby, engage in a sport, exercise, or have just a little free time to get away from it all, and you have 40 hours, or 50 hours - -60 hours a week at the most - to devote to your business. It is during those hours that you must accomplish your business tasks.

How much time are you willing to devote to running your business? Perhaps your business is young and you are prepared to sacrifice more of your personal time to your business, at least for the first few years. Perhaps your business has matured and you now want to cut back on your business commitments to provide more time for family, friends, or leisure. Now is the time to make your decision. Cross out blocks of time on your calendar that you plan to reserve for your personal life. The time that remains is your total business time budget. Within this budget, you must plan for your recurring activities and still leave at least half of your business hours (or more) available for nonrecurring activities.

To fill in your business calendar, begin by allocating time to the recurring activities you have listed. For example, if you need two hours a week to prepare the weekly payroll, block out that time on your calendar when it must occur. In recording your recurring activities, first enter those that have specific deadlines, then enter other activities that can be performed at any time during the day, week, month, etc. Also, try to reserve the first and last half hour of each day and approximately 50 percent of the total time for nonrecurring tasks, since you will need these blocks of time for your daily (short-term) plan.

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