Hire a part-time virtual assistant to handle routine work. You'll spot which tasks actually matter, find ways to improve them, and free yourself to think. Your assistant gets real career experience. Both sides win.
Delegate, then automate. One of the big discoveries I've made is the value of having an assistant, like a virtual assistant, which basically just means an assistant who probably just lives somewhere else, who can be giving you help on a part-time basis. And you will be amazed at how much it can take things off your plate and allow you to free up your time. But the other thing about it though is it gives you perspective. It gives you perspective on what is really important about those activities and how much you miss it when certain things are slowed down because you hand them off to someone else and as you look around with your entrepreneur's mind, what the opportunities are to really cut into it. See, when you're doing it yourself, it's much harder to come up with ideas of how to make it better. But when you see someone else doing it, especially someone else where the results are affecting you, you're going to have much bigger opportunities. And it's going to be great for the person you're working with because you'll be able to give them much more useful and important work and progress them on their careers as well.
