Save time and hassle with a simple delegation strategy that surprised me

I recently stumbled into a useful approach to delegation that applies even if you manage zero people.

In my little business, we’ve used this one manual process for years. I finally put my foot down and said, “There’s gotta be a way to use software to speed this up and save me and my assistant a bunch of time.”

I have a great part-time contractor who chooses and implements software tools to keep the business running. In my haste, I reached for my phone to tell him my needs and current process. But he charges a legit (and well-earned) hourly rate, even for a call like that. That motivated me to write out my needs to avoid wasted time.

I didn’t have any kind of template in mind, I just started writing an email to him in casual, familiar language. Writing made me realize how much was stuck in my head. It showed me where I needed more detail to preempt missteps.

The project details aren’t important for my main point here, but the email ended up with these subheads:

• Current process
• Current pain points
• Ideal improvements
• Risks to watch out for

It took me about 30 minutes – longer than I would have guessed, because I hadn’t realized how complicated the situation was until I tried explaining it to another person.

When I finished, instead of pressing “send,” a light bulb went off in my head: “Why not just paste this into ChatGPT?” Even though I hadn’t considered that I was writing a “prompt,” the final product was exactly that. ChatGPT spit out its recommendation, including a section headlined “Step-by-Step Implementation.” I asked a few questions and challenged a few of its suggestions, and found I already had a piece of software that could solve the problem by itself, without the technical integrations I had assumed would require my contractor’s help.

I never called the contractor! I just built the implementation myself right there. Got this done about a week faster than it would have taken otherwise. I used the saved budget for him to do some higher-level stuff.

Here’s the takeaway:

When delegating, invest extra time upfront to spell out instructions and preempt errors.

You’ll save time (or money) on the back end by dramatically reducing reviews and corrections. It doesn’t matter if you’re delegating to a human or a chatbot, this principle holds true.

An additional takeaway:

Before turning to a human expert, boss or coworker to solve a problem, push your existing knowledge further by tapping AI first. Then you can ask the human a more informed question that they can answer more quickly than starting from scratch.