Delegate. Automate. Dominate.
It's the method that got me out of my own business, and I ran it on myself first.
One
Delegate what was never really yours.
Most of what fills your day was never your work. It landed on you because you were the only one there when it showed up, and then it stuck around because you got good at it. Being good at it is the trap.
Handing it off isn't the hard part. The hard part is admitting which pieces were never yours to begin with. Once you've said that out loud, the rest is easy.
Two
Automate what repeats.
If you've done it the same way twice, it's a candidate. If you've done it the same way twenty times, you're overdue.
Most people start here, and it's second for a reason. If you automate work you should have handed off, all you've done is make the wrong work happen faster with nobody watching it.
Three
Dominate what's left, because it's the only thing that was ever actually you.
Whatever survives the first two steps is the part nobody else could've done. That's the only work worth being great at, and it's usually a much smaller pile than you'd think.
I'm not talking about beating anybody. There's no market to conquer here. I'm talking about being undeniable at the one thing that's actually yours, and finally having the room to do it, because you gave away everything that wasn't.
Where this came from
I was a loan officer. I automated my own job. That's why the company is called Automated Loan Officer.
I'm not a consultant who read about automation somewhere. I'm the guy who did it to himself first and then figured out how to explain it to everybody else. The method came before the company.