First, adjust your mindset about delegation. Many farm leaders might be hesitant to delegate very often or to delegate certain tasks to others in the operation. There’s any number of reasons for their hesitation. The important thing is to understand the true benefits of delegating more off your plate. Basically, you only have a certain number of hours per day – and you want the hours you’re spending working on your operation to be as valuable as possible. The more you can delegate to others, the better you can ensure you’re spending the majority of your time on strategic priorities that are directly aligned with your farm’s goals and vision for the future. The idea of “letting go” of some things might be daunting, but working to realize how much time you can gain to help your farm can help. Plus, you’re giving others in the operation a chance to take on greater responsibility, which is great to prepare future leaders.

Next, figure out what you can delegate. Start by writing down everything that you’re currently doing during any given week – and also what you do during busy seasons. It might take a while to determine how much time you’re spending on different aspects. Next, go through your completed list and rank the activities into different categories. For example, you might assign a 1 to any of your CEO-level tasks (where you’re the only person who can be doing it in the operation), a 2 to high-level responsibilities that could potentially be done by others, and so on – with lower-impact tasks that could be done by others at the end of the list.

Finally, do the delegating. The highest priority tasks to delegate are the ones that don’t have to be done by you and are currently taking the greatest amount of time in your schedule. Determine who in the operation is ready to take on a greater level of responsibility – and what types of tasks they would most excel in. These are the people you can start delegating to. Consider who you may want as your successor leader in the future – that’s probably the person you can delegate the highest-level tasks to.