When I think back to the earliest days when I began to outsource work and look to employ people to do the tasks that I was doing, the real motivating cause was to alleviate the pressure and the workload that I personally had to undertake in my business. I would say that the toughest challenge I had to overcome was to reset my default thinking when it came to doing these tasks -  I had to change my mindset.

I am a person who is very task orientated. I love to create a list and tick things off at the end of the day. As I began to take those daily tasks that I did and turn them into job descriptions, it was a real challenge for me to let those items out of my control and put them into the hands of someone else. I would often find myself completing them when I didn’t need to do them myself. My default mindset was to finish the tasks and tick that item off my to do list .

They say it takes around 30 days to change a habit and as you begin your journey of outsourcing you need to begin to create new habits. Here are some keys that helped me.

 

1. A visual reminder

I opened up my word processor and I typed this sentence into it – “Could I pay someone to do this?”. I printed it out and stuck it to the very top of my monitor so it was directly in my view. Through out my day as I was at my desk working, I was constantly questioning if I had to actually do what I was working on. This was a real critical step for me to change that default mindset and begin to add these tasks to my teams job description.

 

2. Ensure you have a job description in place

It is a great experience to take a blank piece of paper and list down every task that you regularly do each week, and then begin to divide those up amongst your team. Categorize them into skill groups and turn them into a job description, rather than a task list for yourself. If you are at a stage where you are unsure if you even need someone to join your team as an outsource worker, then do that exact exercise. Begin to make a list of all the tasks that you regularly do – backing up your computer, uploading photos, updating content on a website, replying to emails and even sending emails. You will quickly find that you could outsource this list to a new employee and alleviate that time and workload from your schedule.

 

3. Create processess

It is amazing how many tasks we do that are actually just steps that can be followed on a page – processes that you do now without thinking twice or even are a natural skill for you. As you begin to evaluate them you realize that these can easily be turn into documentation and someone can simply follow steps to do those for you. It is becoming a common practice for me when I start a new project to write the steps out that I complete, so I have the framework of a process ready to delegate and train.

 

4. Wear a heart rate monitor

The situation that got me into outsourcing to begin with was frustration and tiredness. I can still remember sitting there close to midnight one night feeling so anxious about having to complete a project by morning – I desperately needed to get some sleep. I will never forget that feeling. Now when I begin to feel my heart rate rise about a task on me I can now use that as a trigger to find someone else to complete it for me.

 

It is not about avoiding hard work and delegating the difficult task, it’s about finding somebody who has the skills and experience to do the aspects that your struggling with so you can focus on that which you are skilled and experienced in.