Doing everything can feel right for longer than it should. Early on, that makes sense.
When the business is small and so is your team, a lot still depends on you. The trouble starts when you keep working like that after it needs something different.
You keep saying yes and hang on to work that should have moved elsewhere, and there’s never enough time for the things that actually matter. I’ve fallen into that trap twice.
Across dozens of Millennial Masters conversations, the same lesson keeps coming back. Staying effective means getting much more careful about where your time goes and what still belongs with you. 👇🏻
Work on what moves things
Mike Jones sees the trap everywhere: “A lot of the time they’re just being busy fools… If you look at some of the best businesses in the world, it’s not that they just outwork everybody else. It’s that they work on the right things better.”
For Liam White, it’s about directing effort with intent: “…on things that really, really move the needle in the business.”
Ryan Carruthers uses an 80-20 lens: “Let’s just focus on the 20%… move out a lot of stuff that I shouldn’t really be doing.”
This is usually where the week starts opening up again.
Jack Good keeps it simple: “…what’s essential Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and what is like a nice to have? And then trying to not do the nice to haves.”
And as Lydia Snape puts it, when it’s crucial: “…you can’t afford not to.”
Let go or stay stuck
“You don’t have to do everything,” said Kieran Jones. “You rely on the people you’ve hired… If you try and do everything, you’re going to do everything badly.”
Tyler Dunagin keeps delegation structured: “We call it frames and rails… Giving my team clear KPIs and goals… It’s not to micromanage… it’s peace of mind for me.”
Francesca McClory approaches it bluntly: “I need to hire people that are better than me at some of the stuff that I don’t want to do.”
Kamal Ellis-Hyman hires for outcomes: “I had to learn how to hire somebody for a specific outcome… I’m hiring for a problem, I’m hiring a solution.”
William Stokes gives trust first: “With me, you don’t need to earn trust. You’ve got it already. If you break it, you’ll never get it again.”
Will Polston has the reminder on a t-shirt: “I delegate the outcome, not the activity… It needs to be done, but I don’t need to do it.”
Sometimes the next step isn’t delegation. It’s that the wrong person is still in the role.
Jack Good has learned the importance of “moving people on… If you want to grow a company.” And Francesca McClory has had to “stop seeing the good in everyone. Because it can backfire.”
Protect your time properly
For Jasmine Foley, family time is non-negotiable: “I always make sure I have to have time with my daughter every single day. That’s just a non-negotiable.”
Jordan Stachini avoids clients who expect constant access: “…people that think they can text you, call you, email you any time… That is a huge, huge red flag for me.”
Ryan Carruthers learned from a partner who was “uncontactable on the weekends” and says to “set those boundaries and also just be really, really honest and open.”
Will Polston sums it up: “Structure creates efficiency.”
Lexie Kirkconnell-Kawana backs it up with action: “…I’m not sort of lurking in Teams… which gives them permission to do the same.”
Say no earlier
Gemma Price stands by her focus: “Staying focused on your aim and learning when to say no is crucial… otherwise you can get easily distracted and wear too many hats and not be good at any of them.”
Jordan Stachini turns down work she won’t enjoy: “…we say no to [work] because yes, we can do it, but are we going to enjoy it? No.”
Nick Telson checks founder–opportunity fit: “…are we the right founders for this opportunity?… No, actually that’s not the right one.”
Noel Andrews resisted an easy pivot: “I was very resistant… I did not want to become a recruitment agency.”
Lexie Kirkconnell-Kawana calls her CEO role “almost a sort of marriage between yourself and the mission of a business.”
Tyler Dunagin learned the hard way: “…I was constantly on the job and on call 24/7… That’s what led to burnout.”
When saying no, speed matters. “A fast no is one of the best things you can get,” said Noel Andrews. And as Thibault Louis-Lucas warned: “…when I see a red flag… it will just get bigger and bigger over time.”
The real work only you can do
The real shift comes when you get clear on what still needs you and what’s only sitting with you because you have not let it go yet.
That means trusting other people with more, saying no more often, and protecting your time from work that no longer belongs in your hands.
If you keep holding on to everything, you stay stuck inside the business.
The job gets better once you strip it back to the work only you can do.
Brilliant as always ⭐ Restacked it 💥