What should a founder stop doing? Nine things to eliminate this month
Before delegating anything, eliminate it. The most common eliminable work: status meetings that could be written updates, reports nobody reads, manual data re-entry between systems, chasing low-value leads, custom work for the smallest clients, tool evaluations without a real trigger, approving decisions below a trivial money threshold, real-time replies to non-urgent messages, and rebuilding the same document from scratch.
The elimination test
For each recurring task ask: if this stopped for a month, who would notice and what would break? If the honest answer is "nobody" or "nothing measurable", it is a candidate for elimination, not delegation. Delegating waste is still waste, just cheaper.
The nine usual suspects
- Recurring status meetings that duplicate a written update
- Reports without a named reader
- Manual re-entry between two systems
- Pursuing leads outside your qualification criteria
- Bespoke exceptions for your smallest accounts
- Tool research without a triggering problem
- Approvals below a trivial money threshold
- Real-time responses to non-urgent messages
- Rebuilding documents that should be templates
What to do with the recovered time
Name the destination first. Hours that are not deliberately redeployed get absorbed by whatever shouts loudest, which is usually the work you just eliminated returning in another form.
Common follow-up questions
How do I stop a meeting without upsetting people?
Replace, do not cancel. Offer a written update at the same rhythm plus a monthly live session, and review after four weeks.
Is eliminating risky?
Run it as a two-week experiment with an explicit checkpoint. Most eliminations are reversible; that is why they should come first.