After starting my own online business I had realized that life can get pretty darn hectic especially when working at home. I felt as though I was always busy and not getting anything accomplished. I’d be up late at night and wake up early in the morning trying to get it all done. There was no balance in my life and I’d end up exhausted and wondered were other entrepreneurs going through this too?
After doing research on the topic of time management, I started implementing what I had learned. Below you will find some of the time management tips I have used and hopefully they will help you too.
Start logging (writing down) what you do in a day, starting with your ideas, conversations and activities. By doing this you can start to see what you actually accomplish in a day, which also helps you recognize things that might be considered time wasters.
When setting up meetings you should assign a certain time of day (or a certain day of the week) for this purpose. I have certain days of the week where I meet with regular clients and certain days where I meet with new/potential clients.
I like to set up an appointment with myself and I block out spaces of my time on my calendar so I can get important tasks done and I try to spend at least half of that time in doing things that will produce results for my business. Though planning for interruptions should be considered too in case you have to re-prioritize your day.
What I prefer to do is schedule 30 mins at the beginning of each day to organize and adjust my calendar as needed. Before anything else gets done I check and arrange my schedule for the day. This helps me become a lot more productive.
Delegating has been the biggest time saver for me yet. Delegating less important tasks to employees allows me more time to work on my businesses priorities and get lots more accomplished.
Even though I recommend you schedule your day, don’t forget to leave some me-time in between. Don’t forget to give yourself breaks (you can even schedule those in if you like). For instance if you decided to block off 1 hour to write a blog post, don’t jump to the next task at hand once you’re done. You should take 10 to 15 minutes and move around, stretch, dance, do some jumping jacks or check on your loved ones and ask them how they’re doing. You can even do nothing at all and just stop and smell the roses.
We’re living in a fast- paced world in the digital age, where it appears there’s more to do and less hours to do it in. By taking the time to stop and plan your day, at the end you will be able to see what tasks you were able to accomplish with ease, and others you didn’t, therefore, giving you the perfect indication of which tasks you should delegate.
Robyn here! I’ve had a passion for technology for as long as I can remember. I bring a variety of skills and experience to any business, which have been gained with over 25 years of experience as an administrative and IT professional. Learn more…
The building blocks of a great relationship with your VA
Great! You’ve hired yourself a VA – you’ve already started assigning projects and tasks and everything is moving along just fine.
You might ask yourself, is your VA working out as planned? In order for you to build a good relationship with your VA, you need to be clear in what you need and you need to be sure that your tasks & projects are being carried out as you require. For example, does your VA perform the daily and weekly tasks that you need done? Do you feel that you need to go more into depth explaining the jobs that need to be done – something that you didn’t expect to have to do? Or maybe it’s going great and you think wow what took me so long to do this?
In the beginning, you could allot some time at the end of each week for a short discussion with your VA to see how everything is going? Cover tasks/projects, what still needs to get done?
How long does it take to see if it works or doesn’t?
Start with a TRIAL RUN – When you hire a VA, the best thing to do is to set a timeline, at which time you can decide if you want to keep working together or not, a sort of test period. Ideally, this is also a good time to let your VA know all the good things he/she is doing for you and also gives you the chance to talk about the other side and discuss those things that you would like to change.
How long should the test period be? Well, that really is for you and your VA to decide. Maybe you prefer one month, or 3 months or even 6 months if you think that is the amount of time you need to be able to make an informed decision. Just remember that sometimes it could be a while before you and your VA click, so you’ll probably need more than a month. After 3 months you will have a better picture of your working relationship and whether its working out or not, so that would be a good time-frame to follow.
One very important thing… Do not micromanage! If you want your relationship with your VA to work out you cannot let yourself be involved with every little detail because what is the point of having a VA? You originally wanted to get a VA so you can concentrate on other aspects of your business, like acquiring more clients etc. With a professional VA and regular meetings micromanaging should not be necessary at all.
I think it’s important to remember that you hired someone with experience, a professional, someone who has done this type of work before.
How to not micromanage?
One thing that would be helpful is to give your VA a project to do, explaining what end result you need, rather than detailed steps on how you need him/her to do it. Most VAs will ask you questions if things aren’t clear.
For example, instead of telling your VA; I need you to search for an image of a dog, a seeing-eye dog and a police dog working with their master etc. (silly example but you’ll get my point soon)
Instead you can say, I need you to search for images of ‘service’ dogs working and put it up on the blog and make it look nice. Your VA will know what to do, and if it’s not what you want, then you can use this chance to show him/her how you would like your blog to be done etc.
Another thing that helps is to create a system where your VA gives you a report on the job being worked on, whether it be every day or once a week so that you can feel comfortable knowing that things are getting done, this is where project management tools come in handy (see lasts week’s blog post) and it also helps with keeping up to date on completed tasks.
Something that is important to know – IF you and your new VA don’t click, that’s ok, just be fair and let them know what is and isn’t working. Things might change or you might have to part ways, however, by being honest with them they have a choice to make as well… Sometimes it comes down to both of you wanting different things.
If you want your business to succeed, then you need to have a VA (as well as other out-source help) that you can depend on – It is essential to have a VA that you can click with and feel comfortable with, it’s not easy, but after a few adjustments here and there, and some trial-and-error, you and your VA can end up having a great working relationship that feels right for the both of you.
Robyn here! I’ve had a passion for technology for as long as I can remember. I bring a variety of skills and experience to any business, which have been gained with over 25 years of experience as an administrative and IT professional. Learn more…
Typically when you work with a virtual assistant, it means you will have to be in touch with each other quite regularly. This also involves sending images and files as well as other types of data. The way you communicate together will depend mostly on you, as well as your VA’s, personal choice. Where some people prefer to work casually – just emails and telephone calls – others would much rather use a Project Management system.
Here are a few ways you can share projects/tasks with your Virtual Assistant:
Email – One of the more popular ways of sending your projects to your VA is via email. Perhaps emails is the option that you both would prefer. It does give you something that you or your VA can refer back to if you ever have to recheck on some instructions or content given.
Phone/Skype – for certain assignments that need more detailed instructions that may be too difficult to explain by email, then it would be a better idea to speak to each other by phone or Skype. There is, however, a setback with this method, in that you don’t have a paper trail. In that case, it would be a good idea to phone/Skype your VA and follow that up with a short email with the key notes which your VA may need and can easily refer to while doing that particular assignment.
There are apps out there that can record your Skype calls. Which is another way to refer back to the conversation. Personally, I have not used them but here’s a list supplied by Skype.
Dropbox – Now, here is a great little treasure. Chances are, that you probably already know about this product and most likely used it to store your photos and share with family and friends. This product is simple to set up files that you and your VA can share and add to – or edit. One of my favorite features of Dropbox is that when you edit your documents and save them, it will be synced between yourself and your VA, so you can always be on top of any changes, rather than have to scan documents back and forth between yourselves and have to wait for replies/confirmations etc. from each other
Another great feature is that you can use Dropbox and co-ordinate with your emails by very easily uploading files to the Dropbox folder and emailing your VA particular instructions that you need to have done – OR – to make it even easier (if you and your VA prefer) you can eliminate the whole email procedure by writing out instructions/log-in info etc. and upload it right into the same Dropbox folder. So easy! Just be certain to tag your VA in the @mention option that Dropbox now offers so they become notified (and your VA will return the favor when task is complete).
Project management systems – You will find that some VAs would rather work, as described above, with stricter guidelines and use a Project Management system. If your VA works this way, then you will be added into their project management system as a New Client/Project – you will be given the login information in order to access your account – Now this is where you will be doing all your communicating with the VA and send the VA your projects etc.
BASECAMP is one of the more familiar Project Management systems that you might have already heard of and some other favorites are Asana and Teamwork to name but a few.
In person – should you be fortunate enough to find a local VA, then you can have the luxury of meeting in person on a regular basis to discuss the current and upcoming projects for the near future.
The above are just a few of the more popular methods of working with a VA in your online business – Eventually, you and your VA can discuss together to figure out the best form of communication that will work better for the both of you.
Robyn here! I’ve had a passion for technology for as long as I can remember. I bring a variety of skills and experience to any business, which have been gained with over 25 years of experience as an administrative and IT professional. Learn more…
There’s a misunderstanding that if you delegate some of your business tasks to a third party, such as a VA, it will cost you a lot of money. However, outsourcing can actually have the opposite effect and can even make you some money. What I mean is that whatever you will be paying can be easily recovered as you will be able to spend more of your time concentrating on important tasks such as sales and marketing for instance.
One thing you should know about hiring a VA, is that it can cost you anywhere from $15.00 to $75.00 per hour or more – There are just too many different scenarios and expertise levels depending on the tasks needed.
For new Virtual Assistants that are just starting off, they will probably offer you a less expensive rate as opposed to the more experienced VA – You might even get a VA who is just starting out and will charge less so they can get the experience, knowledge and get their foot in the door.
The more experienced VAs who have been working in the industry for a few years, they will charge a higher rate but it’s worth it as you are paying for experience and that goes a long way.
Then of course, you have those that will offer you extras, such as technical support and that’s where you will find the much higher rates such as $50 – $75 per hour or more.
There are also VAs who offer to charge per project – for instance someone who offers social media management services. So rather than charge per hour, they will charge you a set price for the setup of social media accounts (if necessary) – finding followers – posting blogs etc.
In addition, you may need a VA whose specialty is in Kindle formatting – this can also be charged per project rather than per hour. The different niches are too many to name but you get the point that there’s someone out there who’s great and professional and exactly what you need.
So, there are many different scenarios that will have an influence on what you should spend to hire a VA for your coaching business. A good way to plan is to make yourself a budget, and then by working together with your VA, you can figure out the best way to work together that will be worth your while.
The main thing is that you need to decide exactly what jobs/tasks you need to source and find that ‘perfect VA’ that will be a delight to work with. So don’t make a decision based on the rates they charge (whether it be high or low) – When you interview them, you should get a good indication of their expertise as well as their work values. Then you should have enough information to decide who would be best suited to be your VA. You an also refer to my blog post 25 Questions you need to ask a potential VA first! for help in choosing what questions to ask potential Virtual Assistants.
Robyn here! I’ve had a passion for technology for as long as I can remember. I bring a variety of skills and experience to any business, which have been gained with over 25 years of experience as an administrative and IT professional. Learn more…
