Time Management: Delegating the Monkeys

Having returned recently from a much-needed vacation, I am determined to not let so much time lapse between now and the next one, and prevent burn-out before I go again. That’s where better managing my time comes into play. To help you find time to plan your summer vacations and more fully enjoy leisure time with friends and family, this month’s theme is Time Management.

If you are a manager, one of the best skills you can develop for your success is that of the delegation of responsibilities to those who report to you. For those of us without direct reports, we must still build this skill and be aware of “monkeys” on our backs that could be better handled by someone else, thus giving us back control of our time.

In researching the topic of delegation for a leadership training session, I ran across an article from the Harvard Business Review entitled, “Management Time: Who’s got the Monkey?” I do not currently manage employees; however, this article had a huge impact on me and the way I look at my work load and time management skills.

The authors, William Oncken, Jr. and Donald Wass, say that there are 3 different kinds of management time: Boss-imposed time – needed to accomplish tasks required by the boss which cannot be disregarded; System-imposed time – for supporting the company and peers; and Self-imposed time – where we make decisions on what gets done with the rest of our time. What happens frequently in this Self-imposed area are those bad time management decisions we can only blame ourselves for – saying “yes” when we should have said “no”, and hanging onto those monkeys (responsibilities and tasks) that could be delegated, or worse, taking them back when we did give them away once already.

I thought about how many times I have held onto an activity or responsibility because “no one could do this as good or as quickly as me” or “it’s just easier to do it myself”. This applies to household chores and as well as paying someone to handle small business administrative tasks. In addition, and more embarrassing, are the times I took something back without thinking twice about it. A common example is giving tasks to volunteers or students, then when they ask for clarification on directions, I say “you know what? I’ll just go ahead and take care of this” rather than taking time to explain and completely hand off to someone else. There it is, unnecessarily back on my to-do list.

Notice the time management decisions you make with your valuable discretionary time. Double check your calendar and work load before saying “yes”. Check yourself on how well you are delegating to others, giving clear instructions, and then staying out of their way and letting them make decisions about completing a task. As the authors of this article say, “get control over the timing and content of what you do” by enlarging your discretionary time. Delegation is key.

I encourage you to read this article, which, by the way, was written in 1974! It is filled with great examples of a manager’s dilemmas in delegating and the monkeys he continues to battle, and then tame. Thirty plus years later, this concept is still so applicable today.
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