There are many reasons why people decide to start their own businesses. For some, it's their passion for their product and the chance to turn their dream into a reality. Others crave the freedom that comes with being your own boss.

While there are a whole host of advantages, there's one particular challenge that nearly every founder knows too well:

We’re working way too much.

In fact, small business owners are spending, on average, 18% more time at work than they actually want to.

66% are clocking between 40–60 hours per week, with 19% pushing past the 60-hour mark. Yet, when asked about their ideal schedule, most said they’d prefer 30–49 hours per week so they can spend more time with family, friends, or simply enjoying life outside the business.

So, what's causing this discrepancy? And how can we fix it?

The answer often hides in plain sight: in our to-do lists.

Why founders should offload recurring tasks

Whether you're sick of working late or wishing you had more time to focus on growth, the more space you can create in your schedule, the better. And delegation is the key to creating that space.

But if you want to get the highest return on your delegation-investment and reap the most rewards, you'll need to be a little strategic.

When people think about delegation, it's easy for our minds to immediately jump to the big, daunting projects on our plates. The quarterly presentation you've been dreading? Feels like the perfect thing to hand off. That in-depth market research report you keep putting off? Seems ideal for outsourcing.

But when it comes to the biggest drains on our time, the most derailing distractions, and the biggest threats to our success, it's death by a thousand cuts.

For example, given the choice between a one-off task that would take two hours to complete and a daily admin task that takes 20 minutes, the first option seems like an obvious choice. You can do much more with two hours than 20 minutes, right?

Well, the key thing to remember about one-off tasks is that once they're done, they're done. That means that your time saved at the end of the day, week, month, and so on, stays the same.

Now, compare that to the daily task. By handing it off, that’s a 20-minute slot of space you’ve gained every single day. It's like compound interest, but for your time. Each recurring task you delegate will continue paying dividends. Over a month, that adds up to about seven hours. Twelve months later, you’ll have freed up the equivalent of three full working days—and that's just from one 20-minute task!

Most business owners spend 68% of their time in the weeds of their daily operations and just 32% on strategy, growth, and revenue. That means there are likely many more prime candidates for delegation on your to-do list that someone else could take on, so you can reinvest in the things only you can do.

If you’re not sure which of your day-to-day tasks are the best use of your time and which should be delegated, enter them into our free to-do list optimizer to find out just how much (or how little!) of your workload actually needs to be done by you.

Or, if you’re looking for more ideas to help get you started, read on for some examples of simple tasks to hand over that will help you create space every day.

Emails and inbox management

Email has become such an integral part of our lives that it's difficult to imagine living without it. While it is certainly a necessary tool in today's world, it's all too easy to get caught up in email for much longer than expected.

According to recent reports, the average person spends 28% of their workweek reading and responding to emails, yet only 38% of emails in the average inbox are important or relevant. So that's at least 13 hours every week, or over 81 full working days per year, spent on completely reactive, low-value work.

Use these examples to help take this top time-waster off your plate:

• Review and tidy my inbox. Clear out spam, promotions, and unnecessary threads so your inbox stays organized and manageable.
• Check my inbox and flag or forward any important emails. Make sure that the only messages reaching your attention are those that truly need it.
• Check my inbox and respond to emails. Draft and send professional responses to routine requests, inquiries, or follow-ups on your behalf.
• Check my inbox and schedule or reschedule appointments. Handle back-and-forth logistics with clients, colleagues, or partners so your calendar stays updated without you lifting a finger.

See: How To Share Access To Your Email Inbox With A Virtual Assistant

Schedule management

On average, senior executives attend 12 meetings per week. Even before you enter the meeting room, the admin around meetings—finding times, confirming attendees, moving things around, sharing links, updating agendas—can take up to six hours per week (≈15% of your work time).

Of course, keeping your calendar up-to-date is crucial for staying organized, and meetings can often be time-sensitive. But whilst an important meeting might be a major stepping stone in your success journey, as the head of your business, there are far more valuable uses for that 15% of your workweek.

• Check my schedule and resolve conflicts. Proactively spot overlaps, propose alternatives, update invites, and notify attendees.
• Confirm tomorrow's schedule with me. Send a concise end-of-day brief covering locations/links, prep notes, materials, and key attendees so you’re set up to win the day.

See: How A Virtual Assistant Can Help You With Scheduling And Calendar Management

Sales and customer support

It goes without saying that your business would be nothing without your clients and customers, so it is essential to keep revenue flowing. If either of these is neglected, your business will suffer.

But with such a vast array of sales and support-related admin tasks that may need addressing at any given moment, it's likely you'll always be facing more tasks than you have time for. That's when your overtime stacks up, and your work days get longer and longer as you try to keep up.

But it doesn't have to be this way. Preserve your time and energy by placing these tasks in the hands of an experienced virtual assistant:

• Check and respond to incoming customer contact. Monitor emails, contact forms, or messages and provide simple, professional replies where appropriate, while forwarding anything important for your attention.
• Respond to queries from customers, potential customers, or third parties. Draft clear, professional replies; share standard information such as pricing, availability, or company details; and gather any additional details needed to move conversations forward.
• Check my ticket system and reply to any new tickets. Review new requests, acknowledge receipt, prioritize based on urgency, and keep records updated so nothing is missed.
• Check voicemail and call back any new queries. Monitor voicemails, return them during your agreed window, and note any follow-up actions or details for you to review.
• Check my customer service inbox and reply to any new messages. Keep the queue clean using templated replies, knowledge-base links, and personalized updates; escalate when needed and track response-time metrics.
• Check for new customers and onboard them. Send welcome packs, set up accounts and permissions, schedule kickoff calls, and share success resources so they see value fast.
• Check for online reviews about my business and notify me of new ones. Monitor review sites and social mentions, flag risks or trends, draft responses using your brand voice, and escalate sensitive cases promptly.
• Check for new orders and process them. Verify details, confirm stock or service capacity, coordinate fulfillment, and send confirmations and tracking updates.
• Input orders and create invoices. Enter orders into your system, generate itemized invoices, attach terms, and send via your preferred billing platform.
• Check the payment status of invoices. Review records, confirm whether payments have been received, and update simple tracking sheets so your finances stay organized.
• Conduct email or phone reminders for late payments. Send polite reminders using a prepared script or template, and keep a record of who has responded and who still owes.
• Check for new contracts or proposals that need to be created. Fill out templates with the right details, send them for review or signatures, and keep track of their progress.

See: How A Virtual Assistant Can Help Increase Customer Retention In Your Business

Marketing and social media

The average time small business owners spend on their social media marketing is six hours per week, almost one full day of work.

While maintaining an active presence and engaging with your community is vital for businesses of all sizes, these are prime examples of working in your business rather than on your business. Not only that, social media is one of the biggest culprits when it comes to distraction and procrastination.

If you want to avoid being sucked into social media wormholes and focus your efforts on the bigger picture, delegating these daily tasks is a good place to start:

• Check my social media channels for messages and send replies. Review inboxes for new messages or comments, provide simple template-based responses, and flag anything important for your attention.ϯ
• Check for social media mentions and notify me of any new ones. Monitor notifications for tags, search for mentions of your business name, products, or services, and send you a quick summary of what’s been said.
• Moderate my Facebook or LinkedIn group. Approve new members, remove spam, and help keep conversations on track following your guidelines.
• Check my blog for new comments and respond to them. Approve or delete comments, reply with simple thank-yous or acknowledgements, and flag anything that requires a detailed response from you.

See: How A Virtual Assistant Can Help With Your Marketing

Miscellaneous

In both our professional and personal lives, there are so many things vying for our attention and demanding action that it's easy to get stuck in time-wasting activities without even realizing it. For example, did you know that the average time spent simply searching for documents is 4.5 hours per week?

As I mentioned earlier, the ultimate aim is to spend 90% of your time on the most high-impact responsibilities that will help you reach your goals. Think about the things you do every day, and think about what you want to achieve. If a task doesn't directly add value or move you closer to your goals, and if it doesn't need to be done by you, you should consider delegating it.

• Review my to-do list and identify tasks where you can assist. Sort by urgency/importance, spot quick wins, and suggest next steps for taking on any potential new admin tasks.
• Check my voicemail and email me any new messages. Note who called, what they need, and any deadlines; queue simple call-backs or follow-ups.
• Organize files in Dropbox or Google Drive. Set up clear folders, use consistent names, remove duplicates, and keep a simple index so key documents are easy to find.

See: 20 Personal Tasks To Offload To A Virtual Assistant

Here's how easy it is

One of the best things about hiring a virtual assistant to handle these repetitive tasks is that you don't need to worry about providing lengthy training sessions or standard operating procedures.

You're not teaching someone to do the task; you're teaching them to do the task your way. That’s a crucial distinction, and it makes the process far simpler and less time-consuming than most founders expect.

In fact, it's refreshingly straightforward:

1. Define what you want done

Clarity is more important than complexity, and you really don't need to overthink it.

To make things even easier, we created our Task Ideas Wizard to take the guesswork out of delegating tasks. Just answer a few quick questions about your workload, and the wizard will suggest tasks that make the biggest impact for you. Once you’ve chosen your task, the wizard generates comprehensive, plug-and-play instructions for your assistant. No need to spend extra time figuring out how to explain what needs to be done—it’s all prepared for you.

With this in place, you can go from “I don't know what to delegate” to “My assistant has everything they need” in just minutes.

2. Give access to tools or platforms

Your VA can’t do their job if they can't access where they're meant to be working. Make sure they can log into the systems or platforms tied to the tasks you’re handing over, whether that’s email, your calendar, project management software, cloud storage, or social media dashboards.

Most tools let you grant limited or role-based access, so you stay in control while giving your VA exactly what they need to get the job done.

3. Set basic guidelines

Think of these as “decision-making shortcuts.” For example, what counts as “urgent”? Do you prefer a formal or casual tone when emailing clients? How quickly should you be updated on issues? Getting clear on this at the beginning will save you both a lot of back-and-forth later.

4. Let your skilled VA run with it

Once you’ve set the stage, all that's left to do is to step back and start enjoying the space you're creating.

Micromanaging defeats the purpose of delegation. The goal is to get those tasks completely off your plate, not replace doing them with supervising them. Instead, trust your virtual assistant to handle the task and know that they’ll get better and faster with practice. The more space you give them to work, the more value they’ll be able to bring you.

If any issues do come up along the way, Time etc’s Client Success Managers are always ready to step in, smooth things out, and make sure everything runs the way it should. You can stay focused on what matters most, knowing you’ve got a whole support system behind you.

What's the bottom line?

As founders and small business owners, you'd be forgiven for wanting to tackle the heaviest tasks on your to-do list first. At first glance, they do look like the biggest wins. But the truth is, real change happens when you clear recurring tasks off your plate.

These are the little things that pop up every day: checking your inbox, updating your calendar, scheduling social posts, sending reminders, and much more. On their own, they don’t seem like a big deal. Five minutes here, ten minutes there. But when you add them up across a week (or a month), they’re quietly stealing hours you need for growth, strategy, or even just taking a breather or making memories with your loved ones.

Every time your virtual assistant handles one of those daily jobs, it’s one less thing for you to think about—not just today, but tomorrow, next week, and the week after that. The payoff compounds.

This is how businesses scale, and how founders find the breathing room to think bigger. So instead of asking, “What’s the biggest task I can delegate?” try asking, “What small thing do I do over and over that someone else could take on?”

Need a top-tier virtual assistant to take care of your daily tasks?

That’s where we come in.

At Time etc, we’ve helped over 22,000 founders and business leaders create space for what matters most by matching them with experienced, reliable assistants to take those time-consuming tasks completely off their plate.

No endless hiring process. No extra management. Just reliable, flexible support that lets you think bigger, move faster, and actually enjoy the freedom you craved when you started your business in the first place.

Here’s why founders choose us:

• Get started fast—Have a dedicated, professional assistant ready to go in just 1-2 days.
• Save time and money—Save 3–6 weeks of recruitment time and up to 90% of hiring costs compared to traditional in-house hiring.
• Skip the hassles of hiring—We handle all the sourcing, screening, onboarding, and day-to-day HR and admin behind the scenes.
• Total flexibility—Scale your support up or down as you need it, with no long-term commitments.
• Peace of mind—Your success is our success, so every plan comes with our lifetime happiness guarantee.

Ready to see for yourself?

Speak to our expert team to tell us what you need, and we'll handle the rest.

P.S. Want $150 off your first month of virtual assistant support? Answer a few quick questions in our Task Ideas Wizard to unlock your welcome discount.