Quick Wins: 5 Easy Tasks to Delegate for Instant Time Savings
I talk to founders, CEOs, and entrepreneurs every single week who tell me the exact same thing: "I know I need help. I'm drowning. But I don't have time to train someone on everything I need help with. I don’t know where to start."
It's the ultimate catch-22. You're too buried to delegate, but you're buried because you're not delegating. You know hiring help would save you, but the thought of spending hours training someone on your systems, your preferences, and your processes feels like it would bury you deeper. So you stay stuck in the loop because you're tangled up in tasks that shouldn't be on your plate.
Here’s what breaks the cycle: stop thinking you need to delegate everything at once. Instead, hire a virtual assistant and start with tasks that required almost zero training. Tasks so straightforward that you could hand them off to an experiecned VA in 15 minutes and see immediate results. Tasks that give you back hours in your week without demanding hours of setup. Once you start getting time back from delegating these tasks, use that extra time to go into depth and delegate more.
That's what this post is about. Not the complex stuff that needs extensive onboarding. Not the strategic work that requires deep knowledge of your business. Just five simple, high-impact tasks you can delegate THIS WEEK with minimal training and instant time savings. These are your quick wins. The ones that prove delegation works and buy you the breathing room to delegate the bigger stuff later.
1. Email Management (Save 5-10 Hours Per Week)
Let's start with the biggest time sink for most business owners: email. The average person checks their inbox 15 times a day (let’s be honest, you probably do more than that) and spends 28% of their workday on email. That's over two hours every single day just managing messages.
What to Delegate:
Sorting and prioritizing emails by urgency
Drafting responses to common questions
Unsubscribing from junk and organizing folders
Flagging messages that need your personal attention
Following up on emails that haven't gotten responses
How It Works: Start by creating three simple email templates for your most common responses (meeting requests, general inquiries, follow-ups). Share these with your virtual assistant along with clear guidelines on what needs your immediate attention versus what they can handle. Set up a shared label system in Gmail so they can tag emails as "urgent," "needs response," or "FYI."
I had a client who was a Denver real estate agent getting 150+ emails daily. Her VA started managing her inbox, and within the first week, she saved nine hours. Nine hours she used to delegate inbox management in depth and train on more industry specific tasks (so she saved even more time). She was then able to actually visit properties and meet with clients instead of staring at her screen.
Your First Step: Tomorrow morning, track how much time you spend in your inbox. Write down every instance. You'll probably be shocked. Then ask yourself: which of these emails really needed me?
2. Calendar and Scheduling (Save 3-5 Hours Per Week)
Remember the last time you tried to schedule a team meeting? "Sarah's available Tuesday but John's out. Wednesday works for John but the conference room's booked. Thursday morning? Half the team has client calls. How about Friday at 2?" By the time you've sent fifteen Slack messages checking everyone's availability, the thing you needed to meet about has already become urgent.
When Alpine Virtual started growing and I had a team to manage, scheduling became a job I didn't have time for. I'd spend time coordinating one all-hands meeting across multiple calendars. Then someone would have a conflict pop up and I'd start over. Client calls, team meetings, interviews, project check-ins - I was not doing well at Tetris while actual work sat untouched.
What to Delegate:
Scheduling appointments and calls
Sending calendar invites with Zoom links or location details
Rescheduling conflicts when they pop up
Managing recurring meetings
Blocking off focus time on your calendar
Sending meeting reminders
How It Works: Give your VA access to your calendar (Google Calendar or Outlook work great) and set clear boundaries. Maybe you don't take calls before 9 AM or after 4 PM. Maybe Fridays are reserved for deep work. Maybe you need 15-minute buffers between meetings so you're not sprinting from call to call. Add personal appointments to your calendar so they know when not to schedule and have your team do the same. Your VA protects this time for you.
Use a tool like Calendly connected to your calendar so people can book directly into your available slots. Your VA manages Calendly, updates your availability, and handles all the confirmation emails.
Your First Step: Count how many emails in your inbox right now are about scheduling. Then imagine if every single one of those conversations had been handled by someone else while you were doing actual work.
3. Data Entry and CRM Management (Save 2-4 Hours Per Week)
Here's a confession: I once spent an entire Saturday entering contact information into my CRM because I'd let it pile up for weeks. I had business cards scattered across my desk, notes in three different spots , and leads weren’t responded to in an appropriate amount of time. It took me six hours to get everything organized, and by then, some of those leads had gone cold.
What to Delegate:
Entering new contacts into your CRM
Updating client information and communication history
Cleaning up duplicate entries
Tagging and categorizing contacts
Creating follow-up reminders
Running regular data cleanup to keep everything current
How It Works: Set up a simple system where your VA gets access to wherever new contacts come from (your email, contact forms on your website, networking events). They enter everything into your CRM within 24 hours with all the relevant details and tags. They also set up automatic follow-up reminders so no lead falls through the cracks.
A solopreneur coach I worked with had been manually tracking clients in a spreadsheet. When we moved her to a proper CRM with a VA managing it, her follow-up rate jumped from around 50% to 80%. That's real money she wasn't leaving on the table anymore.
Your First Step: Open your CRM right now. How many outdated contacts are in there? How many leads have you let go stale? This is the tax you pay for not delegating this task.
4. Social Media Scheduling (Save 2-5 Hours Per Week)
Social media is non-negotiable for most businesses, but it's also a massive time trap. You sit down to schedule a week of posts, and suddenly you've fallen down a rabbit hole of scrolling, researching hashtags, and second-guessing your captions. Two hours later, you've posted three things.
What to Delegate:
Scheduling posts across platforms (Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook)
Creating graphics using templates you approve
Writing captions based on your brand voice
Researching and adding relevant hashtags
Responding to comments and DMs
Tracking engagement and reporting what's working
How It Works: Spend 30 minutes with your VA going over your brand voice, the types of content you want to share, and any topics that are off-limits. Give them access to tools like Canva for graphics and a scheduler like Later or Hootsuite. They create a week's worth of content, you review it in one batch (15 minutes), approve it, and they schedule everything.
Your First Step: Install a time-tracking app for one week and see how much time you actually spend on social media for your business. Include the time you spend "just checking" your accounts. You'll want to delegate this immediately.
5. Research and Report Compilation (Save 2-5 Hours Per Week)
Research tasks are sneaky. They feel important (and they are), but they can easily eat your entire afternoon. Whether you're researching competitors, gathering data for a presentation, or compiling market reports, these tasks are perfect for delegation because they're time-consuming but don't require your specific expertise.
What to Delegate:
Competitive research and analysis
Gathering statistics and data for proposals
Creating reports and presentations from raw data
Researching vendors or tools you're considering
Compiling customer feedback or testimonials
Pulling together weekly or monthly analytics reports
How It Works: When you need research done, give your VA a clear brief. What questions are you trying to answer? What sources should they check? What format do you need the information in? They do the digging, organize everything into a clear, usable format, and deliver it to you ready to use.
I had a client who spent every Monday morning compiling analytics from five different platforms into one report for her team. It took her three hours every single week. Her VA now does it in 90 minutes, and she gets those Monday mornings back for strategy work.
Your First Step: Think about the last time you spent an hour or more researching something for your business. Could someone else have gathered that information for you while you were closing a deal or creating a new product?
Making It Happen: Your Delegation Starter Plan
Here's the truth: reading this post won't save you any time. Actually delegating these tasks will.
Start with just one. Pick the task from this list that's eating the most hours in your week. For most people, it's email management. Set up a simple system, hand it off, and watch what happens when you get those hours back. Work with a VA who can grow with you. They’ll start at 5 hours per week and grow as you have the capacity to delegate more.
Most clients who start delegating for the first time are terrified. What if they did it wrong? What if it took longer to explain than to just do it myself? But here's what I learned: the 30 minutes I spent training my first VA on email management has saved me literally thousands of hours over the years. Best investment I ever made. Seriously, she’s the best.
You don't need to delegate everything at once. You don't need a perfect system. You just need to start.
Ready to get those hours back? Start with one task this week and see what becomes possible when you're not buried in busy work. Your business (and your sanity) will thank you.
And if you need help figuring out where to start or want to hire a virtual assistant who can handle these tasks from day one, we're here. Book a free consultation at AlpineVirtual.com and let's talk about what getting your time back could look like.
