Want To Work ‘On’ Your Business? Then Outsource ‘$20-an-Hour’ Tasks

I say this often when coaching: "Decide what tasks you do that are worth $20 an hour and which tasks are worth $200 an hour. Pay someone else $20 an hour to do the $20-an-hour tasks."

This is my antidote to the "I just don't have time to..." complaint I repeatedly hear from publishers. They tell me they don't have time to sell sponsorships, work on grants, develop more donors, or fix their newsletter drip campaign—important stuff. Why? Because they're assembling the newsletter, posting stories in WordPress, transcribing interviews or updating spreadsheets.

With a wisp of discipline (and a pinch of abundance mindset), you can pull this off and give yourself hours of quality time to work on your business' growth. Here's how:

1.) Grab a warm beverage, shut off email and social media and set a timer to spend 25 minutes on this task. (Yes, that's the Pomodoro Method.)

2.) List out your typical week by day, putting rough time blocks in for the tasks you usually need to accomplish. You can be a bit aspirational here—if you imagine you'd like to spend Monday morning working up a list of 50 client emails to send out, but you generally don't, you can still put that on the list.

3.) Look at those tasks and assign hourly wage values to them.

4.) Take those you've assigned lower hourly wages and group them by type of task—admin, editorial, sales, digital.

OK, now we've got an idea of some items we could offload to someone for the proverbial "$20 an hour." (It might be higher or lower depending on your part of the world.) Now you can pick. You can offload those that are easiest to offload—because you already have a staffer or freelancer who could handle them—or you can offload those that you like doing the least or those you could train anyone to do with relatively little effort. Or pick tasks that aren't as time-sensitive because they don't need to happen at 2 p.m. every day, but an assistant could do them on nights and weekends instead.

Now, find someone. Again, if they're already around the building, that's great. If not, you've got a publication, right? Advertise. Be honest about whether it's part-time, contract, days, nights, or whatever. Look for someone with the fundamental skillset and a great attitude who is excited about working with your publication—or at least excited about the work itself and the freedom or dollars it brings.

Don't worry if they're not superstars or don't have decades of experience. These are the lower-dollar tasks, right? Just get someone who you feel you can rely on and, perhaps, can grow into even more of an asset for the organization. And if they don't work out? Move on politely and quickly.

Suddenly, you've got 8-10 hours back in your week, but it costs you a few hundred dollars. Make them count. Put a block of time on your calendar to work "on the business" and accomplish those $200-an-hour tasks. Set a timer, turn off email and social media and then go sell things, gather in donations, write grants, reach out to supporters, and strategize to grow your publication and make it sustainable.