Cut Low-Value Work
Make sure your time drives profit.
What this recipe is for
Identifying which tasks give real return and which consume capacity with little impact—so you focus effort on what moves the business forward.
What you’ll get
- A clear filter for prioritizing daily work
- A ranked list of tasks by profit leverage
- Decisions on what to delegate, delay, or stop
- A repeatable habit to protect your most valuable time
Key inputs
- List of regular tasks or projects
- Estimated impact (revenue, retention, risk reduction) per task
- Time or cost to execute
- Frequency or urgency
- Ownership (who’s doing it and could it be delegated)
Core logic
Time is finite. Effective operators spend it where the return exceeds the opportunity cost. Score tasks on impact ÷ effort and kill or defer the ones with poor payoff; double down on the high-leverage few.
Step-by-step actions
Step 1: Inventory your work
List everything you or your team spends time on regularly—daily, weekly, monthly.
Step 2: Score each task
- Impact: Does it generate revenue, save costs, reduce risk, or unlock future growth?
- Effort: Time, complexity, or internal coordination required.
- Leverage ratio: Impact divided by effort.
Step 3: Bucket tasks
- Keep doing: High leverage
- Optimize or delegate: Moderate leverage with outsourcable/streamlinable steps
- Stop/postpone: Low leverage or distractions
Step 4: Reallocate time
Cut or delegate low-leverage tasks and reassign that capacity to the top 1–3 high-leverage activities.
Step 5: Build a weekly review ritual
Quickly reassess new tasks that entered your queue and update scores; prevent “busy” from creeping back in.
Decision thresholds / guardrails
- Task with high effort but low measurable impact → Stop or delegate.
- Recurring low-leverage work → Automate or eliminate.
- High-impact task not getting sufficient time → Protect it; block focused slots.
- New task displacing a top leverage activity → Require explicit trade-off before accepting.
Examples
- Founder: Spending hours on manual reporting (low leverage) vs. refining the core offer or customer outreach (high leverage)—shift time accordingly.
- Service provider: Prepping lengthy proposals for low-probability leads—replace with a lean qualification framework.
- E-commerce operator: Constantly tweaking aesthetics vs. optimizing pricing/bundles that drive immediate margin—prioritize the latter.
Thinking checks
- Is today’s time mostly on high-leverage activities?
- What recurring “busy” work can be deferred or handed off?
- Are you protecting time for the few tasks that grow profit most?
- Do new requests get evaluated before displacing core work?
If the answer is no…
- Pause everything non-essential for one day and rebuild your priority list.
- Delegate or batch low-leverage tasks immediately.
- Schedule protected blocks for top-leverage work.
What to track (minimum)
- Time spent vs. task leverage score
- Number of low-leverage tasks eliminated per week
- Revenue or outcome change from reallocated effort
- Frequency of review updates