buy back your time by Dan Martell if you have tasks that you enjoy doing and they generate a ton of money for your business why the hell aren't you hiring someone to do the rest well if you're like me you probably have one of the following excuses I can't afford it it's too much work to delegate and I can't trust anyone else to do it like I do these are common excuses but they're invalid once you understand the buyback Loop the camcorder method and the test first principle and realize that 80% done by someone else is 100% freaking awesome let's start with the buyback Loop you start a buyback Loop by spending a small portion of your income on people who could complete minor tasks for you which frees up time to focus on activities you love that generate significantly more revenue for your business that increased Revenue allows you to hire people to complete larger tasks which gives you even more time to work on high value tasks creating a flywheel of profit freedom and enjoyment this buyback Loop all starts by calculating your current buyback rate and putting it to work your buyback rate is your hourly rate which is your annual income divided by 2,000 hours divided by four so for example if you made $80,000 last year your hourly rate is $80,000 divided 2,000 which is $40 an hour and your buyback rate is 40 ID 4 which is $10 an hour that's the money you must must give other people to complete tasks for you otherwise you're doing your business a disservice when you hire people at one4 your hourly rate you get a 4X return on your investment making it a no-brainer also once you know your buyback rate it becomes a game to see how many low value energy draining tasks you can start delegating at that rate start playing this game this month by starting with a time and energy audit for a week log all your activities in 15 minutes increments to get a comprehensive look at what tasks you can start delegating I like to do this time and energy audit by filling my calendar with 15minute events from my standard wakeup time until the time I usually go to bed then I edit an event in my calendar roughly every 15 minutes to capture what I was just doing this may seem like a lot of work but it's incredibly valuable because once you have a list of everything you typically do you can put dollar signs next to each activity and find which are the most valuable to both your personal life and your business and which are the least valuable if a task led to very little money or personal energy for you put a single dollar sign next to it if it generated a lot put $4 signs next to it for anything in between either put two or3 signs next to it now bring out a green and red highlighter highlight events you find draining that you dislike with a red highlighter and highlight events you find fulfilling and energizing with a green highlighter all the single dollar red highlighter items are items you should start delegating immediately pick one you want to delegate most and use the camcorder method to start getting other people to do it for you whether it's formatting documents creating new marketing material answering emails or doing Financial reports use the camcorder method to explain how you want it to be done by simply taking a video of yourself doing it h record on a screen recording software like Camtasia or Loom or on your phone mounted to a tripod and start executing a task while talking through it and not pausing the video Don't Be Afraid of rambling or having downtime you can always edit the video later I found an added benefit of recording myself doing tasks is that it helps me refine and simplify tasks that I've been doing for years after you finished your first recording take the following three steps to wrap up the camcorder method one make at least two additional recordings by recording yourself doing a task at least two more times you will capture subtle differences that the person you hired to do it can use to answer their questions number two generate a procedure document select the best video version and upload it to a transcription service like rev.com to convert your recording into text then use an AI tool like chat GPT to turn the transcript into a procedur document simply ask AI to format it with clear headers logical steps and detailed instructions to ensure everything is easy to understand if necessary include screenshots from your video in the document to better explain steps and number three create a checklist and put it at the back of your procedure document so that the person you hire to do the task does a quick quality control before finishing the task imagine you're running a t-shirt printing company and you want to hire someone to fulfill t-shirt orders use the camcorder method to record yourself fulfilling an order and then create a document with the following sections receive and confirm order prepare the design print the T-shirt package and ship after writing out the process create a checklist with the following items did you confirm the order details quantity size style did you verify the design placement on the mockup and did you confirm the customer shipping address the video combined with the procedure document and checklist make up a task Playbook that anyone can use to complete that task for you without additional input from you they simply watch the video go through the document step by step and then consult the checklist once you've made your playbook it's time to give it to someone you can trust so you can free up your time to focus on high value activities this is where the test first principle comes in Seth Goen once said when it comes to hiring I have one simple rule I can't work with you until I work with you Seth gives all potential hires a test project first and you should too simply find at least three qualified people on freelancing sites like upwork or Fiverr or on job boards like LinkedIn jobs Indeed or glass door and give them a sample project to complete that requires using your playbook this project should be no longer than 48 hours and you must pay them for their time after promising candidates complete the test project you simply picked the candidate who followed your instructions delivered on time and did the task at least 80% well as you could if two or more people met this criteria pick the best Communicator now your ears may have perked up when I said 80% as well as you can the fact is no one will do certain tasks as well as you but many people can meet 80% of your standards which is usually good enough to get a job done and keep your customers happy as Dan says 80% done by someone else is 100% freaking awesome not having to work on weekends or miss important events because someone you trust is doing the work is 100% freaking awesome now there will be some tasks that require absolute Precision for these use the 10810 rule spend 10% of your time initiating the task and laying out a plan delegate the next 80% and then use the last 10% to review and refine the work just the way you like it in the end if you think you can't afford to hire help use the buyback Loop and start delegating small tasks at your current buyback rate so you can free up time to do high Revenue tasks you love with more Revenue you can delegate more tasks and free up more time if you think it's too much work to delegate use the camcorder method and simply record yourself doing a task and then use AI to generate a procedure document and checklist and if you think I can't trust anyone else to do it like I do remember the test first principle and that 80% done by someone else is 100% freaking awesome that was the core message that I gathered from buyback your time by Dan Martell I've struggled with deleg but this book has changed that for me I highly recommend it if you would like a one-page PDF summary of insights that I gathered from this book just click the link below and I'd be happy to email it to you if you already subscribed to the free productivity game email newsletter this PDF is sitting in your inbox if you like this video please share it and as always thanks for watching and have yourself a productive week