This week, I hit that wall. You know the one: where your calendar looks like a war zone and your caffeine intake could fund a Starbucks IPO.
If you’ve noticed I’ve been quieter online, it’s not because I’ve run out of things to say (never ever!). It’s because I’ve been sprinting from one task to the next, trying to do everything myself.
Between client work, new systems, and a dozen open tabs in my brain, I realized I was drifting straight into burnout. So I did something humbling and overdue: I hired help.
Bookkeeping help.
Automation help.
The kind of help I’ve told other women to hire for years but quietly refused to give myself. Because “do as I say, don’t do as I do”
Like a toddler insisting, “I can do it myself,” I clung to every spreadsheet, every email, every workflow. Until I couldn’t.
The truth hit me hard: you don’t hire people because they can do it better. You hire them because their doing it buys you back your time.
And in business, time to breathe is valuable.
Quote Of The Week
“Being busy is most often used as a guise for avoiding the few critically important but uncomfortable actions.”
– Tim Ferriss
The Hidden Cost Of Doing It All
We glorify independence in entrepreneurship until it quietly wrecks us.
Picture this: you’re your own bookkeeper, marketer, copywriter, and IT support. You save a few hundred pounds (or dollars) a month, and lose your sanity in return.
Research backs it up:
- A 2023 Harvard Business Review study found that founders who delegate effectively grow 33 percent faster than those who don’t.
- Another from Stanford University showed that decision fatigue can reduce productivity by up to 40 percent when entrepreneurs try to manage every detail themselves.
That’s inefficiency disguised as dedication.
If you’re thinking, “But I can do it myself,” – I can see you, I can hear you and you’re right.
But that’s not the point.
The real question is: do you want to run every system, or do you want to build systems that run?
From Worker To Builder Of Systems
This is one of the toughest hurdles in going from employee to entrepreneur.
In corporate life, you’re rewarded for execution.
In entrepreneurship, you’re rewarded for design.
Your value no longer comes from doing the work: it comes from creating the frameworks that make the work repeatable, scalable, and sustainable.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
- Move from Execution to Design. Stop being the operator in every process. Start architecting how things get done — sales, onboarding, delivery — so others can follow the blueprint.
- Automate and Delegate. Technology exists to free your attention. Automate what drains you, delegate what delays you.
- Document Everything. Build checklists and playbooks for recurring tasks. Future you — and anyone you hire — will thank you.
- Measure the Bottlenecks. Track where work gets stuck. If something slows you down every week, it needs a system, not another burst of effort.
- Replace Yourself, One Role at a Time. Your job isn’t to be irreplaceable. It’s to create a business that can function without you in every seat.
Every process you hand off is an act of growth, not surrender.
Valuing Your Time Like A CEO
But Claudia, you now ask, do you now want to manage people?
That will be a strong Fuck No, thank you very much.
I have no desire to become anything but what I am – a Solopreneur, with a Portfolio career, who has the ability to choose where, how, when and with whom I work with.
But Im not blind to the uncomfortable math either:
If your business generates $250k a year, your hourly value is roughly $120. Every time you spend an hour on admin, you’re paying yourself that rate to move commas in a spreadsheet. If your business makes $500k a year, the number is $240. And so on and so on. You get the picture, right?
Would you ever pay someone else $120 an hour to chase invoices?
Probably not.
So why do it yourself?
Start treating your time like the scarce asset it is.
- Know Your Hourly Value. Use it as a filter for decisions. Anything below that threshold should be automated, delegated, or eliminated.
- Practice Ruthless Prioritization. If a task doesn’t drive revenue, growth, or deep satisfaction, it’s a “no for now.”
- Batch and Block. Group similar tasks and protect large blocks for strategic work. No constant switching.
- Audit Your Week. At the end of each week, review where your hours went. If most of it was operations, your business owns you. I used ChatGPT to log a few days of “auditing my time”. I was not happy to see 6 hours of automating my inbox in there. Sometimes you gotta look in the mirror and you’re not gonna like what you see.
- Outsource Without Guilt. You’re not weak for hiring help. You’re wise. Every hour you delegate is an hour for high-impact work or genuine rest. In my case this outsourcing will allow me to take on another 12 month retainer client.
Why Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity Matters Here
While rebuilding my own systems, I started reading Cal Newport’s Slow Productivity, and I couldn’t stop nodding. His philosophy validates everything this newsletter is about: doing less, better, and slower so you can work with purpose instead of panic.
Newport argues that real progress comes from doing fewer things. He calls out “pseudo-productivity,” that frantic cycle of checking boxes just to feel useful. Sound familiar? When you design systems and delegate tasks, you automatically narrow your focus to what truly moves the needle.
He also insists we work at a natural pace. Hustle is not a virtue; it’s a design flaw. The goal isn’t to cram more hours into the day but to build a rhythm your business — and body — can sustain for years. Systems do that. They keep running even when you pause.
And then there’s his call to obsess over quality. By slowing down and choosing your priorities deliberately, you create space for excellence. CEOs aren’t rewarded for ticking boxes; they’re rewarded for making high-impact decisions.
Reading Newport while re-engineering my own business felt like getting permission to stop glorifying “busy.” He reminds us that small tasks act like productivity termites — nibbling at our energy until nothing meaningful remains. The cure isn’t harder work; it’s better design.
Slow Productivity is about protecting your best hours for the work only you can do, and letting systems, tools, or people handle the rest.
OWN IT
You don’t build freedom by doing more. You build it by designing better.
Delegation is leadership. Automation is leverage. Slow Productivity isn’t about slacking — it’s about excellence without exhaustion.
When you start valuing your time as a CEO and building systems that outlast you, your business stops being a job and starts being an asset.
This week, that’s my reminder and my practice.
If you’re ready to move from worker to system-builder, let’s map your next step together.
Book a call,
and we’ll identify the first two processes you can delegate or automate to buy back five hours of real freedom this month.
Thanks for being here while I learn my own lesson again. Turns out, valuing time isn’t just productivity, it’s also self-respect.
Off to grab a coffee now.
