Today, let’s discuss what I think is the greatest mantra ever for the business owner or manager. I’ll just read the first part of Chapter 27 in my book The Systems Mindset: Managing the Machinery of your Life. The Chapter is entitled

AUTOMATE, DELEGATE, DELETE 

“Use the title of this chapter as your filter for many of the decisions you make, especially at work.”

“If you’re going to quickly get out of the middle of things and gain a truckload of personal control, you must be sure you’re headed in a single direction, not helter-skelter, all over the place. It really does boil down to picking the correct road and then traveling down that road efficiently, and a great way to assist that effort is to pass every decision through this ‘task filter’ of Automate-Delegate-Delete.

“To reinforce the concept’s validity, think about the opposite tactic: doing every task manually or doing them all yourself, or accepting every burden that shows up on your doorstep.

“And yes, it’s especially about work, but it’s also about relationships and health. 

“And automating and delegating can be combined. For example, my strength coach at the gym, Scott, guides me through my twenty-minute high-intensity training session. The automating part is easy and it’s simple: I just need to show up as scheduled. The delegating part is easy and simple too. All I have to do is give control to Scott. Here’s an illustration of the effectiveness of it. Just a week ago, as I was writing this chapter, Scott put me on a horizontal leg press machine and loaded it up with tremendous weight. He said, ‘I want fifteen.’ In other words, fifteen repetitions. The weight was more than I had ever dealt with before and at the fourth repetition, gritting my teeth through the pain, I told him I can’t even do one more! He firmly balked and persuaded me to continue. I plugged along—slowly, agonizingly—somehow getting the full fifteen. For a few minutes afterward, I stumbled around in exhausted stupor as I asked myself where those other eleven repetitions could have possibly come from. But the answer was simple. I had given management of the process over to Scott. Even though I was the one who had met the challenge, I had effectively delegated the management of my performance to someone else. 

“And, let’s talk about ‘deleting.’ What about it? Maybe the simplest illustration is to imagine you’re in a romantic relationship that is not turning out to be what you had hoped it would be while the other person thinks it’s going fine. Rather than try to make it work when you know in your heart it never will, use the ‘delete’ part of the formula to simply end it. The alternative is a frustrating, wasteful expenditure of energy for both of you (and of course it will ultimately end anyway, just further down the road…and with probably a whole lot more pain). Being able to decisively walk away from a dead-end scenario like this is a powerful personal attribute.”

That’s it for “Automate, Delegate, Delete!” It really is that simple, and applying the concept provides instant results.

Feel free to share these videos with your friends and colleagues all you want! And check out Josh Fonger’s WTS Enterprises website if you need structure and accountability. He’s the sole worldwide licensee for the Work the System Method and has coached and consulted with well over a thousand business owners just like you. And for the record, I am not financially involved with his business.

I’ll see you next time!