With delegating, the first and most important thing to bear in mind, is whether the task is appropriate for delegating in the first place. If, for instance, you can do it better and more quickly than other people, it may not be appropriate to hand it off to someone else, and vice-versa. However, if you need to manage your time better it is a viable option. Below is a guide to how to delegate effectively:

• Explain the tasks clearly and precisely. You are the one who knows exactly what the job involves, they don’t. It’s up to you to transfer that information thoroughly.
• Remember the basic rules of productivity: explain why you are doing it and what you want the outcome to be. Just because you are delegating the task to others does not mean that they don’t need to know these details as well.
• Likewise, timeframe the task. When you delegate, you don’t then want to worry about when you will hear progress reports or how quickly things are moving forward. It allows you to be aware of progress without constantly hovering around the project.
• Explain why you are giving the task to the persons involved, what they can get out of it and what their boundaries are. This way they are clear about what is expected of them as individuals/as a team.
• Give the people you delegate to the responsibility of the project. If you are telling people exactly what to do, micromanaging the project and not allowing for any initiative that is not delegating. Rather than seeing it as doing a project for someone else, it becomes personal to them with all the responsibilities and expectations that accompany it.
• Give recognition! The key is to be positive and when criticism is required be constructive with it. Let them know where things are going wrong and discuss together how it can be rectified (if you just tell them how to fix it you are no longer delegating, as mentioned in the previous point).

Last week I discussed the GTD vertical map (otherwise known as the horizons of focus). In it I mentioned the importance of the 20,000ft level and how understanding your roles and responsibilities influences your map both up and down. In this post I want to take that level and expand upon it further, discussing how I personally define my roles and responsibilities, work out the projects and requirements for them, and how I then monitor my performance.

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The vertical map, otherwise known as the horizons of focus, is a key element of GTD yet it is very often neglected, probably because the GTD book does not go into any great detail about it. As such, much of it is open to interpretation and you will find people using it in different ways. Below I’ve tried to condense some of these interpretations with my own personal thoughts on the matter to hopefully give you all a more clear idea of how it can be used. It is quite possible that a lot of you may have alternative approaches to what I have described, so I would be interested in reading your comments on this.

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Welcome to part two of my series explaining my GTD system. Be sure to check out the introduction and part one of the series to understand the background. When I last left you I was using a ring binder and individual sheets for next actions. For Christmas I was given a leather conference portfolio which I liked and really wanted to use but as it was not a binder it would have required quite a departure from my existing system. As over the holiday period I had rather neglected things I figured it was a good time to freshens things up with a new approach.

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As previously promised here is the first part of my discussion regarding how I have implemented Getting Things Done over the last year and a half, and how my system has evolved into what it is today. Hopefully this will give you a few ideas for your own implementation of GTD and help show how to improve your system.

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