How to Delegate Tasks

Struggling to let go of tasks? Discover simple delegation strategies that help small business owners boost productivity and scale faster.

Brittany is the founder of I Need a VA, a company built from her diverse experience across multiple industries. Each step in her professional journey has led her toward a passion for helping entrepreneurs reclaim their time without sacrificing income.

Brittany explained that she has learned how to streamline business operations by delegating effectively, particularly through the use of highly skilled Filipino virtual assistants. Her focus is on teaching business owners how to do less, earn more, and build systems that support both growth and freedom.

Many small business owners struggle to let go of control. Why do you think delegation feels so hard at first?

Brittany explained that the struggle often shows up even more prominently for women. She noted that many women carry a sense of hyper-independence—an ingrained belief that they must take care of everything and everyone.

That mindset naturally follows them into entrepreneurship, making it difficult to admit they need help. Brittany, who wrote a book titled She Delegates, shared that many women also feel that no one else can do things as well as they can.

Because they’ve built their businesses from the ground up, they become emotionally attached, treating the business like a baby. The idea of letting someone else “babysit” their business feels uncomfortable at first, even when doing so would allow them to operate more fully in their zone of genius.

She added that a major reason entrepreneurs struggle to let go is simple: many are control freaks by nature. Entrepreneurs are typically the idea people, and they assume they must carry out every step of those ideas themselves—even when that isn’t true.

Jenny echoed this with her own perspective. Entrepreneurs spend so much time learning every part of their business to get it off the ground that they become accustomed to being involved in everything. That habit makes it hard to step back, and even harder not to become the cog that slows everything else down.

Brittany pointed out that this tendency often turns business owners into bottlenecks. When a business cannot function without its founder, it becomes harder to grow—and even harder to sell.

She shared her “pie recipe” analogy to illustrate the danger: imagine a bakery where only one person knows how to make the signature pie everyone loves. If that person dies, the recipe dies with them, and the business suffers.

Her mission now is to teach entrepreneurs how to ensure their “recipe” lives on, whether they step away, scale, or eventually sell.

Brittany admitted that she struggled with delegation herself. When she first hired a virtual assistant, the VA didn’t do much in the business for the first three weeks—not because the VA was incapable, but because Brittany hadn’t yet learned how to let go.

When someone is first starting to delegate, where should they begin?

Brittany explained that the first step is what she calls a life audit.

She described this as writing down every single thing she does during an entire week or two-week period, not just inside the business but also everything involving family life, kids’ school schedules, and daily responsibilities from the moment she wakes up until she goes to bed exhausted at night.

She said this list can be kept in a notes app or written down throughout the day. At the end, she goes through the list and highlights the things she does not want to do on a day-to-day basis or tasks that could be delegated if she had the right person and proper training in place.

This process is how she built what she describes as her “insanely delegated life,” explaining that she no longer even does her own grocery shopping and has a VA who handles it, as well as a VA who helps with her kids’ PTO tasks.

Every part of her business is delegated except for speaking, teaching, and helping entrepreneurs find her company. She emphasized that everything can be delegated once someone determines which tasks they want to start with and builds from there.

Jenny added that for many women, it can be easy to begin with the home, noting that delegating household tasks like cleaning the kitchen can be a natural starting point. Brittany agreed, sharing that she comes from a janitorial background where her job was to clean toilets, and she no longer wants to clean.

She listed laundry as another task she delegates, using a laundry service to pick it up, and pointed out how many hours can be gained back by delegating tasks that no one notices or thanks them for.

Delegating these responsibilities frees up time to be more present for loved ones or reinvest that time into a business that can generate more income.

How can a business owner identify which tasks are worth delegating versus the ones they should keep on their plate?

Brittany said that for her, the key was determining what brings her joy. She used to believe that being burnt out and exhausted meant she was winning, and she felt guilty taking any time for herself.

She described having an epiphany about a year earlier when she closed a business that was draining her. Now, she delegates everything that does not bring her joy or make her life feel romantic, explaining that she tries to romanticize her entire life.

Inside her business, she wants to be the person who comes up with the ideas while someone else executes them.

She said she loves talking to entrepreneurs and coaching people through their challenges with delegation, but she does not enjoy tasks like sending invoices and said no one would want her doing bookkeeping because she is dyslexic.

She began by delegating things that would help drive income, but her ultimate goal became doing only what she loves each day, which includes spending time with her kids and talking to entrepreneurs. Everything else requires finding someone who is better at the task and giving them the job.

Jenny responded that many entrepreneurs started their businesses to regain joy, and feeling trapped in the business is no better than being stuck in a nine-to-five.

Entrepreneurs often go from working forty to sixty hours a week for a corporation to working a hundred hours a week in their own business, ending up more exhausted and sometimes more broke because they are not getting paid.

Finding balance in the beginning means identifying which tasks can be delegated that are income-driven so they can make more money and reclaim their time, which then makes it easier to think about what else to delegate.

Jenny agreed and said balance is more like a pendulum that swings based on what needs attention.

Delegation may feel expensive at first and require time to train someone, but eventually the pendulum swings back when the business begins generating more income and the investment in delegation pays off.

Are there any common mistakes you see entrepreneurs make when choosing what to delegate?

Brittany said that the biggest issue is not always what to delegate but who to delegate it to. She explained that many people hire companies to take over parts of their business, which can be good or bad.

She prefers having everyone who works for her be part of an in-house team.

In the beginning, this started with one virtual assistant who handled many different tasks and wore a lot of hats, just like she did. The team eventually grew to two, then three, and now they have departments, fifteen people on their internal team, and an organized chart that shows every person’s job.

When someone hires a graphic design company, for example, they hand over their branding, and if that company closes, goes away, or gets fired, they end up starting over.

In contrast, hiring someone in-house allows that person to become part of the family and also requires them to build their own SOPs as they go. That way, if they move up in the company or leave for any reason, the next person will not start from scratch because they will have all the assets, folders, and training.

Business owners ultimately own everything inside their business, which can help them get a higher valuation if they ever sell or pass it down.

Having SOPs ensures people can do tasks exactly the way the owner would do them. Jenny responded by saying that Brittany mentioned the magic word—SOP—and noted that many people get overwhelmed when they hear it. Jenny is the opposite and gets excited because SOPs create organization.

How do you ensure that tasks are completed the way you want without micromanaging?

Brittany is not a micromanager and that when she gets a task back and it is not right, she sometimes thinks she should just do it herself or start over.

This led her to learn how to create SOPs that work because she used to believe it was faster to do everything on her own. She had to figure out how to train someone to be her.

An SOP should not just be written but should include videos, and she recommended using tools like Loom. AI can watch the screen as someone completes a task and then create a long, easy-to-read SOP for the person who will handle that task moving forward.

She tells AI to explain it like the person is a third grader because she wants even her ten-year-old to be able to run the company. People often fail to over-explain what they want, giving only a little bit of information and then feeling frustrated when the task is not done correctly.

The team should update SOPs every time a process changes and that the manual should be digital and constantly evolving.

Jenny agreed, sharing that her team uses as much video and audio as possible because that is how she communicates best, though they always provide a transcript.

Her business is a strong proponent of AI because it minimizes time and allows them to maximize their work. She explained that they have prompts specifically for their team members to help create content, and those prompts become part of the SOP.

What’s your process for training someone new or creating clear SOPs (standard operating procedures)?

Brittany’s company does a lot of recruiting for a wide range of clients, from solo entrepreneurs and real estate agents to C-suite executives at Fortune 500 companies.

Because they operate in twenty different industries, their SOPs vary widely and they do not have one standard SOP package for every virtual assistant.

Instead, they rely on the VA to create their own SOPs once they start the job. They use many of the AI prompts previously mentioned to support this process.

Every virtual assistant hired through her company comes with pre-training, and they go through a week-long boot camp. This training period helps weed out people who will not work out and equips the rest with the tools they need to perform well.

While learning different tools and systems during training, the VAs become “SOP machines” for their clients. This process works both internally and externally, and as the business evolves, the SOPs continue to improve.

Learning more about AI has made it easier to turn strong ideas and processes into manuals for their clients’ companies.

VA Hiring Guide 

The VA Hiring guide explains where to find Filipino virtual assistants, what to include in a job listing to attract the right applicants, what questions to ask in interviews, how to vet candidates, and what types of questions ensure a person can actually do the work required. It is a DIY guide for finding, hiring, and onboarding a virtual assistant.

Her team is also available if additional support is needed. Her company, I Need a VA is 100% referral-based, with no ads, and new clients come from speaking opportunities or referrals from happy clients. She is willing to give away the entire blueprint but if people need the company to handle the hiring process, they will.

The process does not stop after hiring. The hardest part is management, especially because virtual assistants work in another country.

Her company monitors VAs to ensure they are doing the work they are supposed to do, not working multiple jobs at once, and receiving ongoing training.

They also invest heavily in training, bringing in outside experts not only for their internal team but also for the VAs working for clients. This ongoing support is one of the things clients love about working with her company.