How do I figure out what tasks to delegate?
Business owners hold onto bookkeeping, emails, and admin tasks because handing them over feels like losing control or risking mistakes. Because nothing is written down, the daunting prospect of explaining workflows keeps them trapped doing everything alone.
Core Friction Pattern
Analysis of 6 peer accounts across online developer and community forums reveals that “How do I figure out what tasks to delegate?” repeatedly surfaces due to edge-case mismatches between standard defaults and real-world environments. Standard troubleshooting frequently falls short, compelling practitioners to develop custom workarounds.
+9 alternative community-tested workarounds cataloged below.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
How do I figure out what tasks to delegate?
- 1Listing tasks and marking them based on whether they need personal judgment and skillDid this help you?
- 2Automating the repetitive bitsDid this help you?
- 3Having someone else do a first draft and only doing the final approvalDid this help you?
- 4Writing down exact instructions and doing weekly check-ins instead of doing the taskDid this help you?
- 5Shrinking the task to a short, structured summaryDid this help you?
- 6Trying AI tools to speed up content creationDid this help you?
- 7Managing customer service, ads, and blogging entirely aloneDid this help you?
- 8Screen recording tasks as an informal alternative to writing formal SOPsDid this help you?
- 9Using AI to generate content and speed up tasksDid this help you?
- 10Contemplating hiring either a freelancer for single tasks or a virtual assistant for limited hoursDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I held onto the books and the marketing way too long because handing them over felt like losing control.”source ↗
“Manual invoice reconciliation and vendor chasing. I thought staying close to cash flow meant clicking through banking exports and matching receipts myself.”source ↗
“For me it was first drafts. Emails, follow ups, quotes, routine customer messages. I used to write every one myself because I thought nobody else would get the tone right.”source ↗
“the boring admin from my freelance gigs for me. did it all by hand way too long cause I thought I'd stuff it up otherwise”source ↗
“Bookkeeping, embarrassingly late. I held onto it because it felt like the one thing I should fully understand — but understanding it and typing every transaction are different jobs.”source ↗
“Customer service, ads and blog posts. That's where most of my week goes, and I'm doing all of it alone for a small trail running brand that makes about $1k a month.”source ↗
“The other problem is that nothing is written down. If someone started tomorrow I'd spend two weeks explaining how I do things.”source ↗
“Customer service, ads and blog posts. That's where most of my week goes, and I'm doing all of it alone for a small trail running brand that makes about $1k a month.”source ↗
“so I'm looking at outside help and I can't decide what kind. A freelancer for one specific task, or a VA for a few hours a week. I can put about $200 a month into it, so an agency is out”source ↗
“The other problem is that nothing is written down. If someone started tomorrow I'd spend two weeks explaining how I do things. People keep telling me to write SOPs, but that feels like one more job on the pile.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 5How to figure out what to delegate to your first employee
- 6How to delegate tasks without micromanaging
- 4Why does my boss make me do everyone else's work?
- 5How to delegate repetitive tasks without giving too much system access
- 2How to delegate responsibilities to a small team
- 4What should I do with inherited stock?