And it’s true – when you try to do everything yourself, it can be
challenging to complete all your personal or business tasks. But what’s also
true is that there are often opportunities to spread work around and share
responsibilities with other people – thereby lessening your load. But you have to
do it right. Here’s how to get started:

Find partners. What parts of your work (or your life) could you use some help
with? If you find yourself overwhelmed with particular tasks, especially ongoing
ones, partnering with someone who can help can be a great way for both of
you to benefit. For example, one of my clients in the remodeling industry was
spending a good chunk of his time helping clients choose tile colors and other
design elements for their remodeling projects. This element of the work wasn’t
particularly interesting to him, didn’t bring in any revenue as he offered it to
clients for free, and it also ate up his valuable time. This just wasn’t the right task
for him to doing. But to an interior designer looking for new clients, this would
be an ideal situation, as they would get face time with a new potential client and
have the chance to show off their skills. He has since recruited several designers
that he can now share this task with. Everybody wins – his time is freed up,
the interior designer gets to meet a potential client, and the client gets experts
working on each portion of their project.

Make agreements. In order for any partnership to work, both partners need
to be clear on what the roles and responsibilities of each person are. To avoid
any problems down the line, discuss expectations, tasks, and outcomes with
your partner, and write them down. This is equally true both at home and at
work. Getting everyone clear on who is doing what and why is as important
for household chores as it is for sharing tasks on a work project. Without clear
agreements, it’s impossible for everyone to know what they’re responsible for
doing.

Keep track. For each one of your partners, you’ll want a place to record your
agreement, along with any notes you have about them and/or your work or
projects together. Create a shared notebook in Evernote for each person, and
within there make several notes – one for your agreement, one for meeting notes,
and one for project updates. If you are sharing any reference documents or files
with each other, you can also keep them in this notebook as well. Having all of
these disparate parts collected in one spot will make it easier to keep track of
your relationships and projects with each partner.

Of course, it does take some time to create these partnerships and agreements.
But by doing so, you’ll ideally be able to focus your time a bit better while
simultaneously getting more tasks completed overall.

If you’re wondering how to implement these strategies, we’d be happy to chat with you. Contact us for a complimentary strategy session by going to http://www.customlivingsolutions.com/Apply

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