I witnessed a colleague take about 2 hours to backcheck the math on a task he had delegated to his assistant.

To be sure, the task was high stakes and involved writing checks in the correct amounts, so it was 100% appropriate for him to double-check the math.

But, this was the exact same task I do myself in about 30 minutes a week, with the help of a bit of software automation.

All to say, try to automate before you delegate.

(Full disclosure, I’m the world’s worst delegator, so automating started as my coping mechanism. But time and time again, I’ve noticed automation often saves more time over delegating.)