How many times have you wished that you had more time? Do you feel like you’re too busy? Feel frazzled, rushed, and stressed?

No matter how much fame and fortune we may have, time is one thing that money can’t buy. One constant for every single one of us. Whether you are Jeff Bezos or a frenzied physician, we all only have 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days a year (except leap year). And none of us knows how much time we actually have left. Time is our most precious resource.

I’m not about to suggest that I can create more actual hours in your day, but I want to talk about a practical strategy that we can all employ that will, in fact, give us more time. Delegation.

Effective delegation is a tool to get more done in less time. It helps build teams of effective people around us. It helps us lessen our load and decrease our stress levels. Effective delegation lets us work smarter, not harder.

We all say that we should be working to the level of our license, but how often do we find ourselves doing paperwork or making calls that could be delegated to someone else? Why do we do this? It takes time to explain a new process and then to trust that it will be done. You might even be thinking that you’ve tried it before, and it doesn’t work. That it’s just easier to do it yourself.

Well, yes and no.

Learning new things takes time and energy upfront, which is definitely a challenge. But if you feel you’ve tried delegation and it doesn’t work, that’s probably because you haven’t properly learned the skill. When we try to delegate without understanding how to do it properly, we end up dumping instead.

Effective delegation isn’t about dumping a task on an employee and simply hoping or expecting that they get it done. That is a sure setup for failure and will provide you with further evidence that nobody can do it except you. Adding to your sense of burden. Effective delegation involves more than magical thinking. It is an active process by the delegator. It includes clearly defining the task and the reason for it, finding the right person with the right skill set, providing support and check-ins along the way, setting clear expectations and deadlines, creating trust so the delegatee can come to you with problems, and one of the hardest parts for us:  letting go of micromanaging the process.

You can keep doing everything yourself. But it might be time to learn this skill if you feel burdened or stressed.

As physicians, we are masters at practicing delayed gratification when the reward at the end is worth it. My purpose here is not to teach you how to effectively delegate but to convince you why it’s worth learning. It’s to create a compelling case so that you want to invest your time in the short term.

Once we have the right motivation, we can accomplish anything.

Before I close, I want to point out that there are strategies for shifting from a “time-poor” mindset to a “time-rich mindset.” Strategies that will help you prioritize your commitments and not take on more than you can handle. These strategies will help you create a sense of ease without changing processes and people in your environment. I highly recommend doing that personal work with a coach, but the practical tool of delegation has the potential to make your work environment much more enjoyable.

Invest in yourself and develop this skill. The short-term pain will pay significant dividends in the end.

Jennifer Shaer is a pediatrician and chief wellness officer, Allied Physicians Group, and a certified executive and life coach. She is founder, Shaer Coaching, and can be reached on Facebook. She is available for one-on-one coaching and speaking engagements: Feel free to schedule a conversation with Dr. Shaer or reach out by email.