I do everything myself: is that diligence, or the reason I'm stuck?

It's eleven at night. You've spent two hours changing the font on your website, then the colour of the buttons, then the font again. Before that you sorted the month's invoices and answered an email from the bank. Now you're tired and satisfied, because you got loads done.

None of it brought you a client.

Why do self-employed people try to do everything themselves?

For three good reasons and one less good one. You know the good ones. It costs less, you know how to do it, and nobody understands your work like you do. They're true, and they come from a quality you really have. You're precise, and you don't settle.

The less good reason is that technical tasks pay off straight away. The website that updates, the tidy folder, the spreadsheet with the right formulas. You start, you finish, you see the result. Phoning a potential client, or writing the proposal that might get a no, pays off much less, and much later.

«I'll do it myself» has the look of rigour. Often it's the most respectable way we have of putting off the part that scares us. Nobody can tell you off for working hard on your bookkeeping.

The best part is that it works on you too. At the end of the day you look at your done list, it's long, and you feel at peace. Only at the end of the month, when you look at what came in, do you notice the long list didn't turn into anything. And at that point the temptation is to work even harder, on the same things.

What does it really cost to do everything yourself?

This is where a calculation helps, because feelings lie. Economics has a principle that's two centuries old, Ricardo's comparative advantage. Applied to your time, it says something simple. It pays to hand a task to someone else even if you'd do it better, as long as the hour you free up is worth more than that difference.

Take just one thing, say messages and bookings. If you spend five hours a week on them, that's about two hundred and fifty hours a year. It's like closing your business for more than a month and a half. Even if the person helping you replies a little less well than you would, the real question is what you'd do with those hours.

Many people find their hour is worth less than they thought, precisely because half the hours they work are paid by nobody.

I'm telling you this as someone who's been there. I had months when I polished my website and blog obsessively, before I even had a clear product or knew who I was talking to. The website was beautiful. The results didn't come, and they couldn't have.

What should I delegate first?

Before you decide, look at how last week actually went. Take your calendar for the past seven days and write a letter next to each block. C if it was your craft, the thing people pay you for. F if it was about finding clients. O for everything else. Almost everyone finds that O is the most frequent letter and F the rarest, and that discovery stings a bit.

Among the Os, the first candidate is the one that meets three conditions at once. You do it often, it isn't the reason clients choose you, and someone else could learn it in a few weeks. Bookkeeping, design, video editing, managing your calendar, technical updates to the website. Rarely is the thing to hand over your relationship with clients, which is usually your craft itself.

There's a detail almost nobody tells you. The first month will be worse. The person helping you will do things differently, more slowly, with a few mistakes. You see the drop straight away and the benefit comes later, and this is exactly where almost everyone takes the task back in week two.

The sentence that saves delegation has to be said before you start, to yourself. «For two months this will be worse than if I did it, and that's fine.» Write it on the sheet where you note what you've handed over and to whom.

One more thing. Give the person helping you the result, not step-by-step instructions. «No invoice stays open past the end of the month» frees your head. «Do it the way I told you» keeps it just as busy.

Is asking for help a sign you're not capable?

It means you've understood where you're capable. People who are good at their job tend to believe that being good at one thing obliges them to be good at everything. It's a generous thought towards others and a very harsh one towards yourself.

Think back to the first time you drove a car. Hands, mirrors, clutch, foot on the brake, all at once, and your head about to burst. Working alone at the start is the same, because you do sales, marketing, admin and your actual craft in the same day. With practice some things become automatic. Others are better left to someone who drives them better than you.

The same goes for decisions. People who work alone often don't delegate even the thinking: they decide everything in their head, in the evening, with nobody to check it with. Having someone next to you, even just to put your choices in order, is a form of delegation. The hardest one to ask for, and often the one that unlocks the rest. If you know what to do and still don't do it, "I've studied so much, but I can't apply it." What's really missing might sound familiar.

If you see yourself in these lines and don't know which task to start with, we can talk it through in half an hour over a coffee. Bring the list of things you do every week, and you'll leave with the first one to let go of. Choosing what to keep is the same move as choosing I have lots of services and few clients: should I add another one?.

Your best hour deserves your best work.

Frequently asked questions

How do I know if I'm doing too much on my own?

A simple check is to look at last week and count the hours spent on your real craft, the thing clients pay you for, against everything else. If everything else takes more than half, and especially if the work that brings in clients always ends up at the bottom of the list, you're doing too much on your own.

Isn't delegating too expensive when you don't earn much?

It depends on what you do with the hour you free up. If you use it to see one more client or to write the proposal you've been putting off for months, delegating pays for itself quickly. You can start small, with one task and a few hours a month, and check after three months whether the freed time turned into paid work.

What should you never delegate?

Generally your relationship with clients and the heart of your craft, the reason people choose you specifically. Decisions about the direction of your business stay yours too, although you can have someone alongside you when you make them. Anything repetitive, technical and teachable in a few weeks is a good candidate to hand over.

Why do things get worse when I delegate?

Because at first it's unavoidable: the person helping you has to learn, and will do things differently from you. You see the drop straight away and the benefit after a few weeks. It's worth accepting that before you start, giving it at least two months, and giving the other person a clear result to reach instead of detailed instructions to follow.