What should I delegate to a virtual assistant? (a decision rule, not a list)
Delegate any task that recurs, has a repeatable shape, and does not require your judgment or your relationships. In practice that means inbox triage, scheduling, CRM and pipeline updates, recurring reporting, and research. Keep strategy, pricing, key relationships and product direction. The reliable test is to score each task on three axes — founder value, repeatability and automatability — instead of trusting a generic list.
The three-axis test
For every recurring task, score 1-5 on: founder value (does the outcome genuinely change because it is you?), repeatability (does it look the same every time?), and automatability (could a rule or a tool do it?). Low founder value plus high repeatability plus high automatability means automate. Low founder value plus high repeatability but messy inputs means delegate. High founder value means keep, even when it is time-consuming.
The five tasks that leave first, for almost everyone
- Inbox triage — you are needed for a handful of messages a day, not ninety
- Scheduling and calendar coordination — pure logistics
- CRM and pipeline hygiene — the data matters, the typing does not
- Recurring reporting — you rebuild the same view every week by hand
- Recurring research — high hours, low irreversibility, easy to check
What you should not delegate
Pricing and positioning decisions, closing conversations, partnerships, product direction, and anything where being the founder is the point. You can and should delegate everything around those: scheduling, preparation, notes, write-ups and follow-up.
Why most delegation fails
It is rarely the person. It is delegating a task without a defined outcome, a documented process, system access or a quality bar. Before you hand anything over, write down what "done well" means, what the deadline rhythm is, and which exceptions come back to you.
A sane order of operations
Pick one task with the highest hours and the lowest risk. Record yourself doing it once. Have the other person write the SOP from that recording. Approve it. Run it for two weeks with reporting on exceptions. Only then add a second task.
Common follow-up questions
How many hours should I delegate first?
Start with five to eight hours a week across one or two task areas. Enough to matter, small enough to correct when the process is wrong.
Should I delegate to a person or automate it?
If the task is fully rule-based with clean digital inputs, automate. If it needs interpretation, tolerance for messy input or judgment inside guardrails, delegate to a person and automate the pieces later.