# 34 Automate, Delegate, or Eliminate *Week 6, Day 4 of [[00 The Wealthy Stoic Course]]* #source/course << [[33 Tap Into The Most Powerful Force On Earth|Back]] | [[35 Week 6 Tips and Tools|Next]] >> ⁠ ## Content When you look at successful people—be they CEOs or athletes or artists—it can be easy to marvel: How do they do it? How do they do it all and still have time for their charitable work? How do they do it all and still stay in shape? There is an answer to those questions. **They don’t do it all.** Great CEOs have personal assistants. Great writers have researchers and editors and publicists. Great parents have nannies and tutors and cleaners. That’s how these peak performers and high flyers get it all done. They have chiefs of staff. They have personal trainers. They have subject matter experts who are members of their village. They invest in help, automation, and delegation. We are not pointing this out to make you jealous, or feel inadequate, or to point out the inequities of our society. In fact, it’s the opposite. It’s to nudge you into following in their footsteps. To invest in help. To automate. To delegate. Seneca writes that if all the geniuses in history were to get together, none would be able to explain our baffling relationship with time. He says: > “No person would give up even an inch of their estate, and the slightest dispute with a neighbor can mean hell to pay; yet we easily let others encroach on our lives—worse, we often pave the way for those who will take it over. No person hands out their money to passers-by, but to how many do each of us hand out our lives! We’re tight-fisted with property and money, yet think too little of wasting time, the one thing about which we should all be the toughest misers.” You can only hand so many hours of your day over to other people before there is none left. [[Marcus Aurelius]] talked about how things like delegation, elimination, and automation were the recipe for being effective. “If you seek tranquility,” he wrote, “do less.” And then he follows the note to himself with some clarification. Not nothing, less. Do only what’s essential. “Which brings a double satisfaction,” he writes “to do less, better.” Do what only you can do. For instance, if you get paid hundreds of dollars for an hour of thinking, mowing the lawn–which the kid down the street will do for twenty bucks—is a terrible allocation of your time and resources. This is what nearly everyone misses with Tim Ferriss’ [_The 4-Hour Workweek_](https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/the-4-hour-workweek-escape-9-5-live-anywhere-and-join-the-new-rich?_pos=1&_sid=d2bd7c60e&_ss=r). It’s not about only working four hours a week. No, it’s about reducing the amount of work you don’t particularly enjoy doing to four hours a week. That’s the minimum amount Ferriss believes one can get away with. Then, you can spend the rest of your time doing the actual work you actually enjoy. Delegation, automation, and elimination lead to liberation. So we’re not talking here about anything lavish or outlandish like a full team of financial advisors and accountants or a full house staff of butlers and nannies. We’re talking about tapping into technology and software and the kid down the street wanting to make a few bucks. Some people have personal shoppers. Just as easily, you can pay $99 a year for a Shipt membership and never go grocery shopping again. Some people hire an accountant or a financial advisor to handle their retirement and savings accounts. Just as easily, you can use the automation features in something like Wealthfront ([highly recommend!](https://www.wealthfront.com/c/affiliates/invited/AFFC-UH80-G94A-LH10)). Some people have a personal assistant manage tasks for their business or social media for them. Just as easily, you can use software like [Buffer](https://buffer.com/) or [IFTTT](https://ifttt.com/home) to automate routine tasks for you. Some people complain about what a pain it is managing their inbox and and doing administrative paperwork. Just as easily, you can hire a virtual assistant at a fraction of your hourly rate to do all of your low end tasks. So much of what we think we must do, so much of what we end up doing, is not essential. We do it out of habit. We do it out of guilt. We do it out of laziness. We do it because of external expectations. We do it because we’ve just never considered we might be able to automate it with some software. We do it because we think we can’t afford to outsource this or delegate that to a virtual assistant. **Watch Instagram [Reel](https://www.instagram.com/reel/CtANmadARBj)** 📺 ⁠ You might think of Stoicism as cultivating the ability to endure. You might think of the Stoics as people who are able to put up with everything, who grit their teeth and bear it. To an extent, they do, but only with things that are unavoidable and out of their control. As for things that are avoidable and within their control, the Stoic avoids it. The Stoic eliminates the inessential. They improve their systems. They invest in the tools that buy them more time and energy. And then with this time and energy, they do the work they actually enjoy doing and they do that work better…A double satisfaction. If you would like to listen to more of Rob Dyrdek's episode on The Daily Stoic Podcast, click below or click [here](https://dailystoic.com/rob-dyrdek-on-the-power-of-living-with-intention/). --- ## Activity **What are ways that you can automate, delegate, or eliminate?** Your time is precious. What are tasks and chores that you can automate, delegate, or eliminate? What will help free up your time so you can pursue the life you want to live?