The Delegation Audit
Map a full week of your time against what only you can do — and price the gap at your own rate.
Why it matters
The problem
Most senior people can name three things they shouldn't be doing. Almost none can name thirty, which is roughly the real number. Without a full inventory you delegate the annoying tasks instead of the expensive ones, and the week doesn't change.
Step by step
The method
Log the week, not the intention
For five working days, capture every block of thirty minutes or more. Calendar exports lie — they miss the drafting, the chasing, the reading. Write down what actually happened, in plain language.
Sort into four buckets
Judgment (only you), Relationship (only you, for now), Craft (someone could, with context), Admin (anyone or anything could). Be honest about Craft — it's where seniority hides from itself.
Price each row
Put your effective hourly rate against every Craft and Admin block. That figure, annualised, is your delegation gap. Most directors find between £40k and £90k of their own time sitting in the bottom two buckets.
Rank by frequency, not by pain
The weekly two-hour job beats the quarterly one-day job every time. Sort by hours-per-year recovered, and ignore how irritating each task feels.
Pick exactly one
Take the top row and nothing else. The audit's value is destroyed by trying to fix five things at once.
What you'll have at the end
If you work through this properly it takes an afternoon. Most people don't, which is the entire business model of every consultancy you've ever hired.
- 01A written inventory of your week, bucketed and priced
- 02Your delegation gap as a single annual figure
- 03One ranked shortlist, top item chosen
- 04The vocabulary to have this conversation with your team
Take the full playbook with you.
The complete document — worksheets, prompts, and the templates we use — plus the other eleven. One email, no drip sequence.