One way of determining how to decide what activities to outsource involves making a map of the entire process of your business. Begin the map with a list of everything that must happen in your business, from beginning to end. Next, ask yourself, “What are the unique functions that allow this business to create value for the customers and compete in the marketplace? What are the brains of the business that determine whether the revenues and profits of the operation grow?” The activities that do not fit within these criteria should be outsourced.

After you’ve finished your map and lined up services to handle your outsourcing, you should periodically analyze whether you are on target. While recognizing that everything takes longer than expected, ask yourself how you will be allocating your time for the next 3 months. Do you have contracts to negotiate or specific creative activities to perform? All of these are extremely time consuming. It does not help to be overly optimistic with regard to your efficiency: Try to put together a realistic schedule of how you will be spending your time. If it looks overwhelming, then either you have not outsourced enough functions or you must think harder about how to focus the business to simplify your activities.

Once the business is fully operating, the ongoing administrative maintenance should not take more than an hour a day. This means that work that is neither part of your core competence nor part of your constant effort to reinvent the business should take you no more than an hour each day. You need time and energy for the creative functions that allow you to leverage what you do best, and for building your business for the future.

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