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ICT's Daily Game. In less than five minutes, I'll break down why these words matter and reveal personal stories that show them in action in my life.

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Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio.

Good morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast Podcast.

Today's tip is to make yourself replaceable. When other people can do what you do, you have the freedom to do other things, at least for a little while.

Today's tip comes partly from Jenny Blake's book Free Time. Jenny writes about how to lose the busy work and love your business.

Many small business owners work incredibly long hours because they need to do everything. It can be a recipe for burnout.

Even people in big businesses can wind up taking on a lot when no one else knows exactly what they do.

A simple long weekend becomes problematic because long-term projects grind to a halt when the person isn't there.

I'd add that we can feel this way about our home lives as well. If you do everything and no one else seems to know how to do anything, you feel trapped.

You can't take a break because everything falls apart. You get more and more exhausted.

So Jenny Blake recommends thinking about the Fiji test. The idea is that if any team member were to get whisked off to a three-week surprise vacation in Fiji, with no devices and no ability to give notice, could the rest of the team seamlessly step in and take over the role?

My guess is that for many of us, the answer is no. And we might not worry about this too much because no fairy godmother is going to whisk us to Fiji.

And yet we might encounter various less-lovely situations than the Fiji test.

We are mortal, and any of us could wind up in the hospital for weeks or worse.

So Jenny recommends that each person works toward making themselves replaceable every day.

One of the best ways to do this is to document common processes. Get granular on the steps so that someone else reasonably competent could step in and do them.

Then you might figure out who else could do this stepping in on various roles.

Sometimes this is obvious. For my best of both worlds podcast, when I am out of commission, my co-host Sarah can do everything about the show, start to finish, on her own.

As can I, if she is unavailable?

It's a little trickier for something like a solo show, like before breakfast.

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