Your life can be considered one never-completed to-do list, such that tasks are added as fast as they are completed. Did you shop for groceries yesterday? Great. But you’ll need to shop for groceries again! Did you prepare dinner and/or clean up afterwards? You certainly can expect that task to come around again soon. It can be very burdensome to have a never-ending to-do list. In the face of overwhelming lists of tasks we can experience stress and even depression.

One way to de-stress is to perceive that you, today, are the manager of a vast team of subordinates: the you of tomorrow, the you of the next day, and the yous of all the days after that. Even if you don’t have a cook, a housekeeper, or a personal secretary, you can delegate the tasks in your life to your future selves in a way that will lower the amount of uncompleted tasks you carry around, like emptying that invisible but weighty backpack you carry on your back.

Bills and Mail

Do you sometimes get overwhelmed with the amount of bills and mail that piles up? Delegate to your Thursday evening self, twice a month, to put aside time to do bills. Now you don’t have to think about it – it will be done, by your very efficient and reliable subordinate (you, every other Thursday evening). When Thursday evening comes around, ‘Do bills’ will show up in your schedule, 7-8PM. You know what you’ll be doing at 7PM, and you know that by 8PM you’ll likely be done. No worries about forgotten bills.

Infrequent Tasks

If you like to get things done early, set aside ‘February 15′ as ‘Tax Prep Day’ and assign to your ‘Feb 15th self’ the task of doing your taxes. If you need the pressure of deadlines, make ‘Tax Prep Day’ April 12th, and you’ll be fine.

‘Tomorrow’ Tasks

Don’t delegate all your to-do-list items to ‘tomorrow’- ‘tomorrow’ likely will never come and the to-do list may remain uncompleted. Rather, delegate the high priority items to the prime time in your day, today or tomorrow, and be disciplined about performing the tasks that will allow you to have confidence that, over the next few days, tasks that need to be completed will be. Space out your to-do-list, ranked by time urgency or task priority, so that you will complete tasks in advance of their drop-dead due dates.

Delegating to Others

This process works whether the work we are talking about is your work or study, family or other life tasks. At work, you may have other people to whom you also may delegate portions of your tasks or projects, for whom it would be developmental or interesting to join you in your projects. This may also be true in your family – delegate to other members of the family tasks that will help them contribute to the family’s overall functioning. But remember, whether you are delegating to yourself (in the future) or to others, delegation only works if you are willing to hold those to whom you delegate responsible for the completion of their work. Even, especially, including accountability to yourself.

Your Delegation Toolbox

Here are a few resources to help you take these ideas and turn them into habits that remain part of your daily life:

• Getting Things Done (GTD) – self described as the art of stress free productivity, David Allen’s GTD methodology has become a hit among those seeking enhanced productivity. At the least, take a look at this summary.
• Calendar Manager Strengths and Weaknesses – a central calendar is essential for any type of delegation. This blog post discusses your best options, paid or free. For simple self-management you may want to consider Google Calendar, but if you want to share your Calendar with others or need to manage multiple categories of calendars, check out ClearSync.
• Task or Project Management Tools – this is a list of 50 project management power productivity tools that are both useful for self and remote delegation. After all, once you delegate, you need to be able to track progress and in the case of remote delegation, communicate effectively.

In Conclusion

The point is not to schedule out one’s entire life, but to clear the decks, so that when time comes around that is not claimed by the manager of your life (YOU!), you are free to be spontaneous, to enjoy life, to relax, to bask in the sun or to curl up with a book warmed by a fire, or to enjoy your family and friends. You can do this guilt-free, knowing that your responsibilities are being handled by your staff (YOU – past and future!), and so you (in the present) can enjoy life unencumbered by the to-do list of responsibilities you carry.

How do you handle self-delegation? Do you find that you are as hard on yourself as your boss? Do you use any tools to manage your self-delegation? We would love to hear from you. Please post your comments, questions and ideas below.

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1. Complimentary Resource – Key Business Drivers for Unified Communications
2. Management and Leadership – Managing Your Virtual Team

The main problem with online collaboration is that your staff, by definition, must have a reliable access to the Internet. Aka “The Infinite Distraction Engine.” Administering employees online can be like herding cats, except the cats are all in different countries, and invisible. The cats also have access to YouTube. How can you remotely manage them?

1. Set a strict schedule – for yourself

Task management is tricky, but you can’t let your workers know. The very first time you write “Did you get that, um, thing?” (a week after it was needed) is the time they decide that responding to you is optional. As a virtual project manager you can’t afford that, and neither can your company.

Get some proper task management software and upload everything into it – digging through your inbox’s search filter every time you need information is a great way to get distracted. Set a schedule for contacting, reviewing, compiling updates and administering problems each day, and stick to it outside of the direst emergency. Dropping everything because of one problem is a great way to create twenty more.

2. Use the right contact method for the right job

Web based task management is all about the results, not the hours. If you’re sending 8am emails just to check if people are at their desks, congratulations – you’re not a manager, you’re a first grade teacher! If you’re ever looking at the “time sent” instead of the email content, you’re literally missing the point.

The key to communication in project management is using the right tool for the right job. It’s tempting to play with the whole range of communications strategies – e-mail, AIM, Skype , phone, even a project-based Twitter – but that’s exactly what it is: play. If you’re going to work, you need to use each option right.

E-mail: This should be your regular communications system. For setting schedules and assigning tasks, because you can attach all the relevant information and make sure everyone involved gets the same package. Your first inquiry after any non-urgent work should also be by email. Better yet, use a web based project management system that keeps all conversations relevant to the project in one place.

Phone/Skype: This should be your problem resolution option (set up Skype if you can, it’s an entirely sensible cost-cutter with no downside). It might seem “cyber” to talk by messenger, but hashing out problems works better with voice in many cases. You can exchange information faster, you can pick up on mood and tone, and information won’t be throttled by whoever has the slowest typing speed.

Messenger/AIM/Skype: You can use this instead of phone if you’re swapping a lot of files back and forth (just make sure you’ve got a service and clients which can carry those). As online project manager, you MUST resist the temptation to drop in a “Hi how’re things going!” every time you see an employee online. It breaks their concentration, it’s the slowest and least precise of the virtual management options, and if you don’t have a definite reason for talking you’re telling your workers “Hey, just break off and talk to whoever you want, whenever you want! I do!”

3. Keep track of it all

Get ready to have your mind blown: as a virtual project manager, you have to manage the virtual project. Astonishing stuff, we know, but there’s more to it than you might think: you have to keep track of your own online contacts as well as the project progress.

What’s the status of the online interface? When was the last time you talked to the graphic design team? Whose tasks are due now, and who’s already updated you with reasons for delays? It’s flattering to think you can hold all that in your head, but that head evolved to avoid tigers and find mates – don’t kid yourself. Two pounds of grey sludge is not a filing system.

Proper online management tools are keys to success, or even to competence. Yellow stickies are useful for EXACTLY ten seconds after the call – either enter the data you scribbled with the phone on your shoulder somewhere more permanent, or get ready for that awful cold feeling when a task is two weeks behind because you simply never told them to start. Those yellow notes have their uses, but permanent recording isn’t one of them.

Real team software can record your contacts as well as your updates, so you don’t phone the same guy one day later demanding his next weekly update. The instant they think you aren’t on top of things is the instant you aren’t.

Check your team management software before every call – as task manager you have to be the central front, the master computron brain that’s on top of it all. Even if it’s really your desktop who knows what’s what, you’re the one who’ll get paid for it.

Relate Articles:

1. Management and Leadership Best Practice 1 – Open, Honest, Timely Communications during Times of Uncertainty
2. Recommended Resource – Managing the Nonprofit Organization
3. Management and Leadership – Coaching for Exceptional Performance
4. Recommended Resource – The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
5. Project Management Best Practice 1 – The Project Management Intensity Continuum