The Solo Consultant's Guide to Delegating Your To-Do List

Get more off your plate, starting today

Table of Contents

What to expect from this guide

You’re reading this because you’re asking one very important question: how do I get more things off my to-do list?

As a freelancer or consultant, time is your most precious resource. If you bill hourly, there is a literal cost to every hour you spend on a non-billable task. If you bill by the day, week, or project, you want to minimize the time it takes to get your client to the outcome they desire.

This guide boils down everything you need to know to get started delegating projects off of your to-do list. When you finish reading, you’ll have a firm understanding of:

  • Why delegating projects is one of the three ways you can take projects off of your to-do list
  • What types of projects you can identify and delegate (and what you should refrain from delegating)
  • What to do to get started delegating tasks and projects

The Three Paths

When you have a project on your to-do list, you have three options:

  • Automate it using a tool like Zapier
  • Delegate it to a virtual assistant or team member
  • Eliminate it entirely — will anyone be hurt if this doesn’t get done? If not, just don’t do it.

On the path to learning how to automate, delegate, or eliminate tasks, I discovered virtual assistant services that let you hand off repeating tasks:

  • Monthly: Call my barbershop and book an appointment for any open Friday on my calendar
  • One-off: Call Home Depot, check the price for plywood, and ask about delivery fees

Why delegate?

As your business grows, the projects you used to spend your time on just aren’t the projects you need to focus on now. When you level up as a business owner, you’re left with more projects competing for your scarce attention.

Time and time again, I’ve found delegation to be a ‘secret weapon’ for my business. If I can delegate a project to someone else, I can get the results without investing my time.

How do you build that delegation muscle?

  • Practice creating Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs or checklists) for your business tasks
  • Hand off the SOPs to someone else — a junior member or a virtual assistant — to execute on your behalf

It might take you as long to create the SOP and train someone as it would to do the task yourself. But once you’ve set up the process, you’ve dramatically reduced future time investment.

I hired my assistant to replace me and told my assistant her #1 priority is to replace herself with a robot (Zapier).

What types of projects should you delegate?

Start small. Delegate discrete tasks with a fixed scope:

  • Call Home Depot and check the price for plywood
  • Email my colleague and ask if these dates work for a meeting
  • Call the plumber and reschedule for any available time this week

Then, over time, expand to larger projects:

  • Log the podcasts that a specific person appears on
  • Weekly, pull data from my email program and report subscriber counts
  • When I send a newsletter, repost it to my site as an article

As you knock out smaller items, you make space to recognize the larger ones and delegate those too.

80/20 Delegation

How can you get the most impact for the smallest investment?

When it comes to delegation, there are several cost centers:

  • The direct cost of retaining the employee or assistant
  • The time spent training them
  • The cost of tasks done incorrectly the first time

Two optimizations to start:

  1. Use a 3rd-party service to vet your virtual assistant for you
  2. Start by delegating small, discrete tasks (~20 minutes) that aren’t mission critical — use these to refine your delegation system

What you’ll learn in this guide

  • Recommendations for services to help you find a Virtual Assistant
  • How to use delegation to better manage your projects
  • The specific language you can use to delegate tasks, projects, and assignments
  • Specific examples of tasks and projects (and word-for-word email scripts) you can use to start delegating today

Chapter 1 — Delegation 101

A Virtual Assistant is like a personal assistant: they manage tasks, schedule appointments, make calls, and handle research. The difference? Your assistant could be anywhere.

When you sign up for a VA service, you can start submitting tasks right away — no waiting, just working.

What a VA service is

  • An assistant that’s just an email away. You can request tasks by email, phone, or web, from anywhere.
  • A quick way to take care of tasks. Great for those 5–20 minute tasks like making reservations, doing light research, or scheduling appointments.
  • Support that helps you focus. Any task that a smart, Internet-savvy person with a phone could accomplish, your VA can handle for you.

What a VA service is not

  • Not a dedicated, full-time, 24/7 assistant. You may work with different assistants from a pool.
  • Not an employee for long-term projects. For ongoing engagements, look at Upwork or Freelancer.com.
  • Not a replacement for doing your job. They support you by handling small tasks so you can focus on what matters.

Chapter 2 — Getting Started with Delegation

Submitting your tasks

Submit tasks through the VA service’s website, phone line, or by email.

  • Small tasks (find a price, check availability) — completed in 10–30 minutes
  • Larger tasks (book a hotel, research options) — your VA may email follow-up questions, then complete within a few hours

Writing your request

There are 3 essential components to every request:

  1. Subject line — Specific and descriptive. Start with an action verb: ‘Call,’ ‘Find,’ ‘Research,’ or ‘Email.’
  2. Task description — Draft in bullet-point form, breaking down the steps one-by-one. Visualize the steps you’d take yourself and include all that information.
  3. Deliverable — What will have changed when the task is done? An appointment scheduled? A spreadsheet delivered? A purchase made? Clearly describe the expected outcome.

What if you goof up?

Simply reply and clarify. All VAs are experienced professionals — mistakes happen, and they’re happy to work with you.

Example tasks

Schedule an appointment: Include your account number, available times, and any information the office will need. Specify what your VA should do if no times are available.

Find a service provider: Use your VA to research, get quotes, and set up interviews for housekeepers, repair workers, movers, etc. Specify where to search (Google, Yelp, Craigslist) and what factors matter (price, ratings, location).

Research trip costs: Specify your criteria (cost, destination, travel dates) and your VA can compare flights, hotels, or put together an itinerary.

Find restaurants in a new city: Indicate the area, target rating, cost range, and any dietary restrictions. Ask your VA to include a link to each restaurant’s menu.

Chapter 3 — Project Management by Delegation

By now you’re comfortable with the basics. Let’s go deeper: how do you identify large projects on your to-do list and break them into delegatable tasks?

Three questions to delegate any project

1. What does success look like? Define the outcome, then backtrack to where you are now.

2. Can you delegate the tasks? Is there knowledge only you have? Can you capture it in a document and delegate both the document and the project?

3. How will you know when it’s complete? What specific, tangible thing will exist that doesn’t exist now?

Is your to-do list covered in ‘rot’?

Large projects without a clear next action sit on your list for months. This is list rot — projects so stalled that you’re afraid to open your to-do list.

To fix it, triage your projects with these questions:

  • Is this something I honestly want to work on?
  • What’s the most exciting part? The skills and connections you’re interested in might apply to other projects too.
  • Would I feel better if I didn’t have to think about this? Kill it. It’s perfectly normal.
  • How will I know when it’s complete?
  • What’s the deadline? Without one, other projects with deadlines will always win.
  • What questions do I have? Capturing the questions is more important than immediately having answers.

Example: Breaking a project into tasks

Project: Start skydiving lessons.

After walking through the questions above, here are the tasks:

  1. Research skydiving certification requirements
  2. Make a list of schools within 30 miles
  3. Research how many classes each school requires
  4. Get price quotes from each school
  5. Research what equipment I need
  6. Schedule my first lesson
  7. Add lessons to my calendar
  8. Attend lessons

Out of 8 tasks, 7 can be delegated. The one that’s left is the thing you actually wanted to do: taking the lessons.

How to delegate a project

  1. Organize tasks — Put them in logical, sequential order
  2. Unpack dependencies — Identify what needs to happen before each task can start
  3. Delegate — Send each task to your VA with a clear subject line and thorough description

Chapter 4 — Advanced Delegation Tactics

Explaining tasks clearly

Write instructions as if you were explaining to an intelligent, capable person who speaks English as a second language:

  • Explain all acronyms
  • Avoid abbreviations
  • Include all relevant background information
  • Use bullet points for sequential steps
  • Describe the expected deliverable

Start tasks with action verbs

When you write a task, start with a physical action verb: Call, Find, Research, Email, Buy, Print, Draft.

Merlin Mann of 43Folders explains the distinction between project verbs (Finalize, Resolve, Handle, Implement) and next action verbs (Call, Email, Find, Print). Project verbs describe multi-step projects. Next action verbs describe single physical actions.

Starting with a next action verb ensures you’ve thought through the task to a point where you can envision exactly how it needs to be done.

Specify your desired outcome

Before clicking ‘Send,’ have a clear understanding of what will have changed in the world once the task is complete. Then write that down as part of your instructions.

Maximize research projects

Ask your VA to create a Google Doc to collect all findings, then share it with you when complete. This makes it easy to review and share with team members.

Understand task time limits

Most VA services spend 10–20 minutes per task. If yours will take longer, break it into smaller tasks before submitting.

Get delegating

This guide is here to help you get more things done and focus on what you want to do.

The key takeaway: for every project on your to-do list, ask yourself — can I automate it, delegate it, or eliminate it? Then act accordingly.

Who wrote this?

My name is Kai Davis. I’m a marketing consultant and entrepreneur living in Oregon. You can read more about me here.