14 Tips for Technology Leaders: Reclaim 20+ Hours Weekly and Accelerate Team Efficiency

As technology leaders, we face a unique challenge—balancing product development, team management, and strategic initiatives without drowning in endless tasks. Dan Martell’s Buy Back Your Time introduces principles and strategies that can help you reclaim time, refocus on innovation, and lead your team effectively.

Here’s how you can apply these principles in the context of technology development and leadership.

1. The Buyback Principle: Optimize for Time, Not Just Code

The common mistake? Hiring to grow the team without first creating systems to scale yourself as a leader. Instead, focus on buying back your time. Delegate tasks that:

• Don’t align with your core strengths (e.g., repetitive code reviews).
• Can be handled by someone else effectively (e.g., documentation).
• Take time away from high-value activities like architecture planning or strategic decisions.

2. Recognise the Pain Line in Scaling Tech Teams

The Pain Line for tech leaders often emerges when operational tasks—stand-ups, bug triage, or firefighting—consume all your energy. Left unchecked, this leads to:

• Stalling: Progress slows as you're bogged down by details.
• Burnout: The team feels your frustration and morale dips.
• Sabotage: Rushed decisions lead to tech debt and poor design choices.

Break through by auditing your role, delegating tasks, and focusing on impactful work.

3. Implement the Buyback Loop in Your Workflow

The Audit-Transfer-Fill method works seamlessly in technology teams:

• Audit: List all your tasks for a week—coding, meetings, admin.
• Transfer: Delegate tasks like routine code reviews, sprint planning prep, or tool maintenance.
• Fill: Use the freed-up time for strategic activities like architecture design or team mentorship.

4. Map Tasks with the DRIP Matrix

Organize your daily responsibilities into the DRIP Matrix:

• Delegation: Low-value, low-energy tasks (e.g., formatting reports, logging tickets). Delegate immediately.
• Replacement: High-value but draining tasks (e.g., managing release schedules). Gradually transition these.
• Investment: Low-value now but crucial long-term (e.g., learning a new framework). Prioritize wisely.
• Production: High-value, high-energy tasks (e.g., writing scalable code, driving technical strategy). Spend most of your time here.

5. Calculate Your Leadership Buyback Rate

Your time as a technology leader is invaluable. Calculate its worth:

• Estimate your yearly contribution to the company.
• Divide it by 2,000 hours to find your hourly rate.
• Delegate any tasks that cost ? of your hourly rate.

For instance, if your rate is $200/hour, outsource documentation or task triage for $50/hour or less.

6. Progress from Developer to Tech Visionary

To scale as a tech leader, embrace these levels:

• Developer: Solves problems through personal effort.
• Tech Lead: Solves problems by empowering the team (via delegation).
• Technology Visionary: Leverages systems, automation, and strategic foresight to multiply the team’s impact.

7. Conduct a Time and Energy Audit for Your Role

Track your tasks for a week and evaluate them for:

• Time: How long do they take?
• Energy: Do they energise or drain you?

Mark draining tasks (e.g., chasing status updates) for delegation, and focus on high-energy tasks like innovation and mentoring.

8. Climb the Replacement Ladder in Technology

Dan’s Replacement Ladder applies to tech leadership too. Prioritize hiring and delegating in this order:

• Operations: Delegate repetitive, low-skill tasks like system monitoring.
• Delivery: Hire engineers to offload hands-on coding or QA tasks.
• DevOps/Tooling: Bring in specialists to automate processes and improve CI/CD pipelines.
• Architecture & R&D: Focus your time on setting long-term technical vision and exploring emerging technologies.

9. Hire Developers the Right Way

Apply these hiring strategies to build a high-performing tech team:

• Assign a test project mirroring real work (e.g., build a small feature or fix a bug).
• Pay for the test—great candidates respect fair treatment.
• Provide minimal instructions to assess problem-solving and initiative.

10. Document Processes to Scale

Train your team efficiently by documenting key processes:

• Record critical workflows (e.g., release deployments, onboarding new devs).
• Outline high-level steps (e.g., pull request flow).
• Specify task frequency (e.g., daily stand-ups).
• Provide checklists for consistency (e.g., pre-deployment checks).

11. Adopt Time-Saving Hacks for Tech Teams

• 131 Rule: When team members need help, have them present 1 problem, 3 potential solutions, and 1 recommendation.
• Definition of Done (DoD): Clearly define expectations for deliverables (e.g., “Feature is done when it’s deployed and passes all regression tests”).

12. Transformational Leadership: Let Go of Control

Shift from micromanagement to transformational leadership:

• Define what success looks like and let your team surprise you with their approach.
• Focus on outcomes, not processes. For example, instead of saying, “Write unit tests this way,” say, “Ensure 90% test coverage for this feature.”

13. Design Your Perfect Work Week

Plan your week for peak productivity:

• Proactively prioritise: Block time for high-impact activities like code reviews or roadmap planning.
• Energy-based scheduling: Tackle complex tasks during your most productive hours.
• Batch tasks: Group similar tasks, like meetings or design discussions, for efficiency.
• Say no: Guard your time fiercely to focus on what matters.

14. Create a 10x Vision for Your Team and Product

Think big. Visualise where you want your technology and team to be in a decade:

• Team: Who are the key players you need?
• Product: What’s the single flagship product your team will master?
• Ecosystem: How will you expand (e.g., integrations, new markets)?
• Culture: What lifestyle will this vision support for you and your team?

The Takeaway

As a technology leader, your time and energy are your most valuable assets. By embracing the Buyback Principle, you can shift your focus from firefighting to innovation, enabling your team—and yourself—to thrive.

Start small. Delegate one task today. Reclaim one hour this week. With each step, you’ll move closer to the freedom to lead, innovate, and transform your technology vision into reality.

What’s one task you’ll delegate first? Let us know in the comments!