Below-Your-Pay-Grade Delegation
Each day, find three tasks beneath your skill set and delegate or automate them.
- Difficulty
- Starter
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 85%
Below-Your-Pay-Grade Delegation is a simple daily productivity practice: for a week, identify three tasks each day that you don't need to be doing because they're below your pay grade or outside your skill set, then delegate or automate them. Greenfield credits breaking out of a scarcity mindset and hiring his first virtual assistant as the moment his business took off, and he still applies the rule whenever a low-value or unpleasant task recurs. The test is whether a task is your best calling or gives you a 'frowny face'; if not, a person or machine should replicate it.
Origin
Greenfield offers this as his single actionable tip for becoming more profitable, recounting that his business took off as soon as he escaped scarcity thinking and hired his first VA, then made multiple additional hires.
Core principles
- 01Anything below your pay grade or outside your best calling should be handed off.
- 02A daily audit surfaces the recurring low-value tasks worth delegating.
- 03Scarcity mindset keeps founders doing work they should offload.
- 04Both people and machines can replicate delegable work.
- 05Tasks that give you a 'frowny face' are prime candidates for delegation.
How to run it
- 1
Run a one-week task audit
Each day for a week, identify at least three things you're doing that you don't need to be doing because they're below your pay grade or outside your skill set.
Pro tip Flag any task that gives you a 'frowny face' or clearly isn't your best calling.
- 2
Delegate or automate each one
For every flagged task, find a person or a machine that can replicate it and hand it off.
Pro tip Greenfield's business took off when he broke scarcity mindset and hired his first VA, then kept hiring.
Watch out A scarcity mindset will keep you clinging to low-value work you should offload.
- 3
Make it a standing reflex
Whenever you catch yourself repeatedly doing something that isn't your purpose, immediately find how a person or machine can take it over.
In the wild
Greenfield says his business took off as soon as he got out of scarcity mindset and hired his first virtual assistant, going on to make multiple additional hires and continuing to offload any recurring task that isn't his best calling.
→ Business growth and freedom to focus on his highest-value work.
Common mistakes
Staying in scarcity mindset
Refusing to hire or automate out of a fear of spending keeps founders buried in low-value work that caps the business.
Is it for you?
Best for
Entrepreneurs and professionals ready to buy back their time and focus on their highest-value work.
Not ideal for
Very early-stage solo operators with no budget to hire or tools to automate (though the audit habit still helps).
From the transcript
“identify at least for the next week three things each day you're doing that you don't need to be doing because they're below your pay…”
“my business took off as soon as I got out of scarcity mindset and hired my first VA”
From the episode
Ben Greenfield: Biohack Your Way to Peak Health and Overall Wellness
Ben Greenfield