What to offload first: the 10-task audit every founder should run

Start with your calendar, not your to-do list

Most founders try to offload from a to-do list and miss the real time sinks. Open last week's calendar and highlight anything that wasn't (a) selling, (b) building, or (c) hiring. That highlighted block is your offload candidate pool.

The 10-task audit

1. Inbox triage and follow-ups
2. Lead list building from LinkedIn / Apollo
3. CRM updates after meetings
4. Travel and calendar coordination
5. Expense reports and receipts
6. Deck formatting and clean-up
7. Web research with summary docs
8. Spreadsheet cleanup and dedup
9. Recurring reporting pulls
10. Vendor outreach and price checks

How to hand it off without losing control

Write the brief once — outcome, inputs, definition of done, examples of good and bad. Send the credentialed work through a delegation tool that never asks for your passwords. Review the first three deliveries closely, then move to spot-checks.

What to expect

Most founders reclaim 6–10 hours in the first two weeks. The compounding win isn't the hours — it's the mental space to do the work only you can do.