The NADA test

Hi ,

There’s a filter I run on operating work, mine and the companies I own, and I’ve started calling it the NADA test. Four questions, strict order: Nix, Automate, Delegate, Act.

Nix: does this need to happen at all? This is the question almost nobody asks, because existing work carries a presumption of legitimacy. The weekly report gets built because it has always been built. The standing meeting survives because canceling it feels like an accusation. But processes accumulate like sediment, and every layer was reasonable when it was laid down. When you actually audit recurring work item by item, a meaningful share has no living owner, no downstream user, and no consequence if it stops. The cheapest process improvement available to any business is deletion, and it’s free.

Automate: if it must happen, does a human need to touch it? Anything that runs on rules should run on rails. Invoicing, reporting, scheduling, follow-ups, data entry between systems. This bar moves every quarter now. Tasks that genuinely required a person two years ago, drafting the first pass of a document, summarizing a call, triaging an inbox, no longer do. If your answer to “can this be automated” was last checked in 2023, it’s stale.

Delegate: if a human must do it, does it have to be you? This is the founder’s trap. The tasks you hold longest are the ones you’re best at, because you did them for years before you built the team. But being good at something is not a reason to keep it. It’s usually the reason to hand it off, because your mastery is exactly what makes you capable of teaching it. The working rule: if someone on the team can do it 80% as well today, it’s theirs, and the gap closes with reps.

Act: whatever survives all three questions is your actual job. Setting direction, allocating capital and people, the handful of relationships and decisions where your judgment is the difference. That list should be short. If your calendar is full, the problem usually isn’t capacity. It’s that too much work skipped the first three questions.

The sequence is the discipline. Most time-management advice starts at delegation, which quietly assumes the work deserves to exist. Run the questions in order and you’ll often find there’s nothing left to delegate, because the task didn’t survive the first cut.

The exercise this week: take every recurring commitment on your calendar and mark it N, A, D, or A. Be honest about the first column. In most businesses I look at, half the owner’s week doesn’t survive question one, and nobody noticed because nobody asked.

Talk soon,

Matt

P.S. When I’m not writing this, I’m buying and operating founder-led businesses for the long term at Eidolon Capital. If you’re a founder thinking about your next chapter, or you advise one who is, just hit reply. I read every note.