The one-week time audit: find what to hand over

Why a whole week, written down

Memory is a poor record of time. The long jobs you did once stick in the mind, and the ten-minute jobs you did forty times vanish. A written log catches both.

A week is long enough to catch the jobs that happen on a Monday or at the end of the week, and short enough to keep going. Pick a normal week: not the one before a holiday, not the one with the trade show. If your business has a monthly rhythm, such as payroll or month-end invoicing, note those jobs separately and add them at the end.

Set it up in ten minutes

Use a spreadsheet or a sheet of paper with a row for every 30 minutes of your working day, including the evenings and weekends you actually work. Set a quiet reminder on your phone every half hour, or fill it in at least every two hours while the detail is fresh.

For each block, write what you did in plain words and which tool you did it in. If you did three things in one half hour, write all three. Those fragmented blocks are often the most useful part of the log.

The log template

Copy these columns. The rows below are an example of how filled-in entries might look, not a real business:

Log the small things too

The jobs that are easy to leave out are the ones that matter most for this. Checking the bank for a payment. Looking up an order number for a customer. Resending an invoice. Moving a meeting. Each takes minutes, but they arrive all day and break up the work around them.

Note interruptions as well. If a phone call pulled you out of a quote and it took twenty minutes to get back into it, that twenty minutes belongs in the log.

Sort every task into one of three

At the end of the week, go through each entry and give it one of three labels:

• Only you. The decisions and relationships that are the reason the business is yours: pricing, hiring, key customers, the specialist work you are paid for, and signing off money.
• Could be taught. Anything that follows rules you could write down, happens often, and does not need your judgement each time. Most admin sits here.
• Should not be done. Reports nobody reads, the same figures typed into two systems, a manual step a setting in your software could do. Stop these or fix them rather than handing them over.

Be honest about the only-you pile

Many tasks land in the only-you pile because only you know how, not because only you can. That is a gap in the notes, not in the task. If the reason is that it lives in your head, it belongs in the could-be-taught pile, with a note that the steps need writing down first.

Score what could be taught

Total the hours for each could-be-taught task across the week. Then score each one on two more questions: does it happen at least weekly with broadly the same steps, and what does a mistake cost?

A simple rule works: start from the weekly hours, count them double if the task is regular with the same steps, and set aside for later anything where a mistake is expensive or hard to undo, such as paying suppliers or replying to a complaint. The idea is not precision. It is to see which tasks are both big and safe to learn on.

Pick the first three

Take the three highest scores that you could explain in under an hour each. Three is enough to make a real difference and few enough to teach properly. Resist handing over the job you hate most if it is also the one with the most exceptions; it will make a poor first lesson.

For each of the three, write down what it is for, when it happens, the steps, and when to stop and ask you. Our guide at /guides/how-to-hand-work-to-a-virtual-assistant goes through writing procedures that a new person can follow without you.

What suits a VA working UK hours from abroad

If you are thinking about an assistant based overseas, add one more question to each task: can it be done entirely on a screen, within agreed hours, from written steps? The work that fits best has all three:

• Screen-based work in software they can log into with their own account: email, bookings, accounts, a shop platform, a CRM.
• Rule-following work, where your written steps cover most cases and the rest come back to you.
• Work that can happen in a fixed block of UK hours, rather than at any moment you happen to need it.
• Calls and messages to your customers and suppliers, once there is a script for the common ones and a clear line on what must come to you.

What stays local

Anything physical stays with you or a local helper: handling stock, post that has not been scanned, cash, site visits, meeting people. So do decisions that must be made on the spot by you. A remote assistant can still prepare, book and chase around that work, which is often where most of its time goes.

Tasks that involve your customers' personal data can be handed over, but set up access properly first: their own logins, only the systems they need, and the right basis for data leaving the UK. Take advice if you are unsure.

Add up the total

Finally, total the weekly hours of everything you could teach. That number tells you what kind of help fits. A handful of hours suggests a freelancer or a better set-up in your tools. Around 20 hours is a part-time role and around 40 is full-time. That is how our own managed VA roles are sized, and 20 hours a week is our minimum.

Keep the log. Run the same week again three months after somebody starts, and you will see what has moved and what to hand over next.

Turn the audit into a plan

If you want a second pair of eyes on it, our free plan at /fit asks what eats your week and roughly how many hours it takes, and comes back with the jobs to hand over first and the kind of person we would hire. It takes about three minutes, and your log will make the answers easy.