Stop doing it all yourself. Start delegating like you mean it.
A practical, 4-step framework for executives who want to reclaim 10+ hours a week without losing control. Written by a professional EA who runs this work every day, from Nairobi.
Most executives know they shoulddelegate more. Most never build the system to do it well. They hand off a task, it goes wrong, they take it back, and they conclude delegation doesn’t work for them.
It does work. You just need a framework, a brief template, and a review rhythm. That’s what this playbook gives you. It’s the same system I use with every executive I support \u2014 and it’s why they stop opening their inbox 30 times a day by week two.
Three reasons your delegation keeps breaking.
The “It’s faster if I do it myself” trap
Short-term true, long-term fatal. Every task you keep “because it’s faster” is a task you will own forever. The math only works if you pay the onboarding cost once and collect the time savings every week after.
Vague briefs
“Handle the travel” is not a brief. It is a vibe. Without a destination, a budget, a deadline, and a definition of done, the person you delegated to will either guess wrong or come back with twenty questions. Both cost you more time than doing it yourself.
No review rhythm
Delegation without feedback is abandonment. If you hand off a task and never look at it again, the quality drifts, the trust erodes, and you eventually take it back — confirming your original belief that delegation doesn’t work. It does. You just skipped the review step.
The DABR method: Define, Assign, Brief, Review.
Four steps. Every task, every time. Skip one and the system breaks.
Define
What does done look like?
Write down the outcome, not the process. “Inbox below 20 by end of day, with anything from these 5 senders flagged for me” — not “check my email.” If you can’t describe done in one sentence, you’re not ready to delegate yet. You’re still figuring out the task yourself.
Assign
Who owns it, and who is informed?
One owner, not a committee. “You own this. I am informed.” If two people own it, nobody owns it. Name the owner, name the stakeholders who need to be kept in the loop, and name the escalation path when something goes sideways.
Brief
Context, constraints, and a definition of done.
A brief is not a job description. It is a 5-line document: the outcome, the deadline, the budget or constraints, the stakeholders, and the definition of done. If the task is recurring, write the brief once and reuse it. The first brief takes 10 minutes. Every future iteration takes 2.
Review
Daily, then weekly, then monthly.
New task: review daily for week 1, weekly for month 1, then monthly forever. Each review is 5 minutes: what went well, what didn’t, what we change. The goal of the review is to make itself unnecessary — once trust is built, you back off. But you never back off to zero.
A tiered list of what to hand off, and what to keep.
Delegate first
- Inbox triage and response drafting
- Calendar management and meeting scheduling
- Travel coordination end-to-end
- Expense reports and invoice processing
- Meeting notes and action-item tracking
- Vendor and supplier coordination
Delegate next
- Recurring reports (weekly metrics, board prep)
- Research and competitive intelligence
- CRM hygiene and pipeline updates
- Onboarding logistics for new hires
- Event and offsite planning
- Social media scheduling (with your approval)
Keep longer
- Performance reviews and direct reports
- Hiring decisions (final call)
- Board and investor communications (the substance)
- Strategy and prioritization
- Customer escalation calls
- Anything with your name on the byline
The 6-line brief template.
Copy this. Fill it in. Send it. Ten minutes to write, ten hours of rework saved.
Save this as a reusable template in Notion, Google Docs, or your task manager. The first time you write it, it feels heavy. By the fifth task, it takes 90 seconds.
How often to check in (and when to back off).
The goal of each review is to make the next one shorter. By month two, you’re not checking the work \u2014 you’re checking the system.
Five mistakes to avoid.
Micromanaging the process
Manage the outcome. Let the owner pick the method. If the result is right, the method is right.
Unclear ownership
One owner per task. “You and Sarah handle this” means nobody handles it. Name a single name.
No feedback loop
5-minute daily review for week 1. If you skip this, you’re not delegating — you’re abandoning.
Delegating the wrong things
Delegate the repeatable, not the strategic. Keep hiring, strategy, and direct-report feedback.
Delegating without context
A 10-minute brief saves 10 hours of rework. Context is the cheapest investment you can make.
You can run this framework yourself.
Or you can hand it to me.
The framework above works with any delegate \u2014 a junior team member, an offshore assistant, or a family member helping out. But if you want it run by someone who’s done it hundreds of times, works your hours, and writes the way you write, that’s the work I do.