Successful business owners focus their time on what’s most valuable in growing their business, then delegate the rest to others.

Follow these five tips for successful delegation.

• Place a high value on your time. Entrepreneurs often ask me: “How can I afford to hire in help?” My reply: “How can you afford not to?” Your time is extremely valuable. You need time and energy to focus on the big picture. Hand over administrative tasks such as taking phone calls, handling orders, and cleaning. You don’t need to take on a full-time employee for these tasks – you can pay by the hour.
  Think of it this way. You’ve got two options. You can pay to have a $10 per hour assistant. Or you can be a $10 per hour assistant. Honestly is your time only worth $10 per hour?
• List out everything you do. Spend a week tracking everything you do in as much detail as possible. Track your business and personal life. When you’re done, circle all the administrative tasks you can hand off, such as reading email, scheduling meetings and returning phone calls. Then, look at all the non-administrative tasks where a hired hand could help.
• Give employees responsibility. When you’re starting out, you are responsible for everything in your business. As you hire in help, you’ll hand over those responsibilities. Letting go can be difficult, but you’ve got to do it. You must fire yourself from the positions where you hire in help, and let the new staff member take over.
• Work on shared systems. Make sure all your team are working on the same platform for email, contacts and calendars. Share files using folders in the cloud. This simple step will save you and your team a ton of time.
• Refocus. Once you’ve delegated your tasks, go back to being CEO and spend your time there.