How to Thoughtfully Delegate Your Gift Giving ⇪

Our aim at Athena is to help you achieve more by becoming an advanced delegator.

In each issue of our newsletter you’ll get unique delegation tips, including:

• Level Up → Use Stories to Delegate

• Delegate This → Consistent Gift Giving

LEVEL UP

Use Stories to Delegate

Basic instructions are easy to forget. Stories aren’t.

Telling stories to delegate helps your assistant understand your preferences, thought processes, and decision-making style through rich, multi-sensory examples.

When you engage their senses, abstract concepts become tangible, enabling your assistant to comprehend and remember your ideas more clearly and for longer periods.

What it looks like:

1. Experiences > Instructions → Instead of saying, "I prefer early flights," share an underlying story like "I had a breakthrough idea on a 6 AM flight once. The quiet cabin and altitude seem to spark my creativity. Now I always book early flights for trips."

2. Visuals → Photos or screenshots convey tastes and preferences more effectively than words alone. One Athena member sent photos of the restaurants he went to with a comment to his assistant each time, and over a month was surprised to find how in sync his assistant had become with his taste.

3. Day-in-the-Life → Walk your assistant through hypothetical scenarios. "Here's how I want a typical Monday to go..." or "My ideal experience for a doctor's appointment is to walk in and immediately walk out without having to fill out any forms or wait around to be seen."

4. Unfiltered Audio/Video → Record yourself completing tasks, thinking aloud without editing: "This sentence is awkward," "I love this idea," "I wonder how we could..." Let your assistant see and hear your raw thought process. An Athena member records short voice notes at the end of each day and, over time, found his assistant connecting dots and applying his passive thoughts proactively.

Stories help your assistant understand not just what you want, but why you want it. They’ll likely make decisions better aligned with your preferences, even in unfamiliar situations.

DELEGATE THIS

Consistent Gift Giving

Beginner delegators hesitate to hand off gift-giving responsibilities to their assistants. They worry the gifts may seem impersonal or transactional.

Advanced delegators know that thoughtful delegation leads to more meaningful gifting.

A genuine approach to delegating your gifting is by establishing annual or milestone-based gifts that, over the years, grow into meaningful traditions.

Here are two examples:

Year-End Photo Collection

Delegation: Create and send an annual photo card, book, or calendar to extended family

How it works: Compile highlights from your photos into a personalized card, photo-book, or calendar for loved ones once a year

Your assistant can:

• Organize and tag photos throughout the year

• Select the best images (and present for your approval)

• Research and suggest designs

• Manage the creation and ordering process

• Maintain and update your mailing list

• Handle the distribution

Milestone Birthday Books

Delegation: Gift a carefully selected book to your child on each birthday.

How it works: A parent chooses a book that's appropriate for their child's age and interests at each birthday.

Your assistant can:

• Research books based on your child's interests and reading level

• Provide a shortlist of options with summaries for your final selection

• Order the chosen book and ensure it arrives in time for gift-wrapping

• Maintain a list of gifted books to avoid duplicates and track the collection

By having your assistant set up repeatable, milestone-based gifts you let them manage the logistics while keeping each gift you give highly personalized and meaningful.

Liked this issue? Let us know by voting in the poll below. And expect to receive more delegation tips to help you build leverage every few weeks.