Stop Doing Everything Yourself: A 5-Step Recovery Program

Everyone has to start somewhere, and most entrepreneurs start out by doing everything themselves. From buying supplies to sweeping floors to paying bills, there's a good chance that you can do everything in your business. But continuing to do everything yourself is like treading water instead of swimming - it won't get you anywhere.

At least 80% of your time should be spent moving your business forward. This includes motivating your people to do great things, hiring awesome new people, and dreaming up new ideas.

The other 20% of your time will likely always be spent doing less important things that you really can't delegate to others. This is the equivalent of "Treading Water" or just keeping things afloat.

"Doing stuff" is a personality trait common among successful entrepreneurs. While many people have great ideas, only a few actually have the drive to get things done and build a viable business. Eventually, you capacity for "doing stuff" turns from an asset to a liability, and it's an addiction you have to break.

Here is an Entrepreneur's 5-Step Recovery Program to stop doing everything yourself:

1.  Assess your value:
What are you actually good at? What is your primary value to the business? Think about the part of you that you really can't hire someone else to do for you. Your greatest value is probably your creativity, and your ability to inspire others to believe in your vision. I promise that you can find other people to keep the lights on and the floors clean, but you can't replace your core value to the company.

2. Assess your time:
Where are you currently spending your time? You don't have to go all crazy with this, but take a hard look at where you are spending your time over the course of a week. For example, you might spend 34% of your time on bookkeeping functions, 36% of your time on office management functions, 15% of your time managing employees, and 15% of your time working with customers. Most likely, you are spending most of your time treading water, and very little time moving your business forward.

3. Hire someone:
Figure out the area that is taking up most of your time that can be handled by someone else, and invest in finding someone to take it over for you. For example, if you spend a lot of your time bookkeeping, then hire a freelancer, consultant, or full-time employee to help. I know it will be hard to find just the right person, but you have to bite the bullet and make the commitment to trust someone else to do the work for you.

4. Reassign your time: 
Sure, it will take you a few weeks to hire someone, and then a few weeks to get them on board, but as soon as that happens, go back to your time assessment. Remember the 34% that you were spending on bookkeping? Well, now you may need to save 10% of that to manage the bookkeping process for a while, but you should have at least 24% of your time now free to work on value-driven projects to move your company forward. Resist the urge to fill that 24% with more water-treading. Make the commitment now to use your extra time moving the company forward.

5. Repeat
I know that this process will be hard. It will take more time, and make you feel overwhelmed and frustrated. But now you have to push yourself to do it again. What is the next major chunk of your time that is wasted? Hire someone and reassign your time. If you go through this on a constant basis, you will eventually get to the point at which you working at your maximum value level 70-90% of the time.

It is only when you are investing your maximum value in your business regularly that your business will get out of the treading water stage and move forward fluidly into growth and expansion. Dive in!