The owner-time audit is a one-week exercise that shows, in plain numbers, which of your working hours someone else should be doing. It's the starting point for the hiring and owner-time session, and you can do it on your own with a notebook or a spreadsheet.
The idea is simple. For one week, log every working half-hour into one of four categories. Then score each category for how easily someone else could take it, and how much your time is worth elsewhere. The first hire usually becomes obvious.
Step 1: Set up the log
Use a sheet with one row per half-hour from when you start work to when you stop, including evenings and weekends. For each block, write a few words on what you did and pick one category:
| Category | What belongs here | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Tools | Hands-on work a qualified tech could do | Service calls, installs, picking up parts |
| Admin | Office work that follows a routine | Dispatch, invoicing, chasing payments, ordering, answering routine calls |
| Selling | Turning interest into jobs | Replacement consults, writing quotes, follow-up calls |
| Owner work | Decisions only the owner should make | Pricing, hiring, planning, key relationships, reviewing numbers |
Be honest, and log as you go. Owners who fill the sheet in from memory on Friday usually under-count admin by a wide margin.
Step 2: Total the week
At the end of the week, add up the hours in each category. Here's an example from a fictional owner running a four-tech company:
| Category | Hours | Share of week |
|---|---|---|
| Tools | 14 | 23% |
| Admin | 22 | 35% |
| Selling | 16 | 26% |
| Owner work | 10 | 16% |
| Total | 62 | 100% |
The pattern here is common. The owner works 62 hours, and only 10 go to decisions only the owner can make. Thirty-six hours, tools plus admin, could be done by someone else.
Step 3: Score what to hand over first
Not every hour is equally easy to hand over, or equally valuable to free. Score each category on two questions, from 1 (low) to 3 (high):
- Ease of handover: how easily could a new hire take this on within 90 days?
- Value of the freed hour: if you stopped doing this, how much would that hour be worth spent on selling or owner work?
| Category | Ease | Value of freed hour | Priority score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Admin | 3 | 3 | 9 |
| Tools | 2 | 3 | 6 |
| Selling | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Owner work | n/a | n/a | keep |
Multiply the two scores. The highest number is your first handover. In this example, admin scores 9: it's routine enough to train, and every hour freed can go into selling, where this owner closes well.
Selling scores low on both counts here, because the owner is the strongest closer and the hours are already valuable. That changes later, once a second person can quote reliably.
Step 4: Cost the role
Once you know which work to hand over, cost the role that would take it. Use local job postings to set a realistic pay range for your city, because wages vary widely across Canada.
A worked example for an office coordinator:
- Hourly rate: $24, as a placeholder to replace with your local figure
- Hours: 40 a week, about 2,080 a year
- Wages: about $49,900
- Payroll costs and benefits, roughly 20%: about $10,000
- Software, phone and equipment: about $2,000
- Total yearly cost: about $61,900
Now estimate the return. The coordinator takes about 20 of the owner's 22 admin hours. If the owner puts half of those freed hours, 10 a week, into replacement quotes, and that produces one extra $9,000 job a month at a 35% gross margin, it adds about $37,800 a year in gross profit.
That covers most of the cost on its own. Add the less visible gains, such as invoices sent the same day, fewer missed calls, faster payment and an owner who isn't writing quotes at 10 p.m., and the role is usually worth it. If your numbers show a clear shortfall, the answer may be to fix pricing first; see the pricing and margin session.
Step 5: Plan the handover
A hire only frees time if the work actually moves. Plan it in three stages over 90 days:
- Days 1–30: shadow and document. The new person watches, then does the work while you watch. Together you write a one-page checklist for each routine task.
- Days 31–60: do and review. They do the work; you review it once a day, then once a week.
- Days 61–90: own it. They own the tasks. You stop checking routine work and only handle exceptions.
Log your own week again at day 30 and day 90. If your admin hours haven't dropped by day 30, something is holding the handover back. Usually it's the owner.
What the audit often reveals
Beyond the first hire, the log tends to surface three useful findings:
- The phone is the biggest interruption. Owners who answer every call lose their best thinking time. Even a few hours a day of call coverage can change the week.
- Selling time is squeezed into evenings. That's often where replacement quotes slip. Moving selling into daytime hours can lift close rates.
- Owner work barely happens. If pricing, planning and hiring get under 10% of the week, the company drifts. The owner numbers sheet is a good first use of reclaimed time.
Common mistakes
- Logging from memory. Log in real time, or the results will flatter you.
- Hiring for the category you dislike most. Hire for the one with the highest priority score.
- Skipping the cost maths. A role that can't pay for itself needs a plan for the gap.
- Not writing anything down. Without checklists, training takes twice as long.
- Keeping the work anyway. Agree, in writing, which tasks you'll stop touching.
Next steps
Log one week, total it, score it and cost the role. If the result surprises you, or if you'd like a second opinion before you hire, see the session topics and how sessions are quoted, then call, text or email Ali with your totals.
Frequently asked questions
Which week should I log?
A normal one, not the week of the first cold snap or a holiday. If your year is very seasonal, log one peak week and one shoulder week.
Do I log evenings and weekends?
Yes, especially those. Quotes written at the kitchen table and invoices sent on Sunday are exactly the hours the audit is meant to find.
What if my spouse does the books?
Log their hours too, if they're willing. Unpaid family work is real work, and it often hides the true cost of running the company.
Is a virtual assistant a good first hire?
Sometimes, for well-defined admin such as invoicing reminders. For dispatch, where local knowledge and quick judgement matter, owners usually do better with someone on the team.