Constantly recruit talent. Even if you don't think you have the payroll capacity to bring a new person on board, do it anyway. Find a way to build your bench. Family Business Institute’s Dennis Engelbrecht says, “Contractors think they have to be 110% busy 110% of the time!” It would horrify our members if they thought they were going to hire a $100,000-a-year person, but he or she wouldn’t be supremely busy from the first minute. It’s time to forget that limiting, old-fashioned thinking. If you want to be really successful, hire people smarter than you. Get talent on your team, and you'll be glad you did.
 

Plan your next vacation. If you can't completely disconnect from your company for a week or two at a time, you've got a problem. When I say disconnect, I mean you must be free from constant calls, texts, emails, and check-ins. To begin your strategic, systematic separation, block off your next vacation. If you're at a point now where you can take a week off, that's great. Schedule your next vacation for six months out and make it for two weeks. If you're at the two-week stage, block off a four-week vacation. To plan for your succession, you've got to disconnect. If your company can't get by without you for a week or two at a time, how will they do in the years after you're gone? It's just common sense. Schedule a vacation as your “deadline,” and then work backward from there determining what steps you need to take to be able to be away from your company for an extended period.
 

You've got to have a plan. You must have a plan to organize your company, to give it a central purpose, to give it direction. You've got to have a mission, vision, and values. You’ve got to have goals and budgets. You've got to have timelines and accountability. Put together a plan; even a poor one is better than none at all. Plan to work yourself out of your job. Don't you want a business that runs smoothly whether you show up or not? Wouldn’t it be great to have the freedom to do the things you love to do but not have to deal with the things that suck the life out of you?
 

Start stopping. You've got to stop doing all the routine daily, weekly, and monthly tasks and pass them on to other people. If you continue to do them plus all the new ones that hit your desk as your company grows, you will become a tremendous bottleneck. Mead writes that many CEOs adhere to the “70% Rule,” which dictates that a task should be delegated if someone else can perform it 70% as well as you can. That will free up your time and allow you to devote your limited energy to new initiatives and to running a growing, thriving enterprise.