What does your day to day schedule look like as a Virtual Assistant?

Many years ago, I was having dinner with a family friend and she asked me how business was going for me. 

It’s a natural question when you are a business owner – everyone always wants to know how things are going.

I knew what my answer would be – many of my clients had gotten busier as their businesses were growing like crazy. And at the time I had also introduced my own new VA training program (www.GetStartedVA.com), and I was definitely feeling the stress on my time.

I answered quickly, ‘Busy! … TOO busy, actually!’

My friend commented back without missing a beat, ‘There is no such thing as too busy. We just need to work smarter.’

With that one sentence, I knew she was right. 

I wasn’t working hard enough because I was feeling rushed and overwhelmed. Actually I wasn’t working smart enough.

I made the decision that night to take the plunge and hire my own Virtual Assisant.

Many of the things that were keeping me ‘busy’ were not a good use of my time.

You know what that’s like. We tell our clients this all the time.

Outsource this, delegate that, automate this.

Why do we not take our own advice?

Well, I did and immediately saw the impact that choice made on my business, and actually on my life.

Now instead of doing, I was planning and overseeing.

I was able to sit down with a clear head and make lists of what was supposed to happen next, and when it needed to happen.

I am a very organized person, and I love to make plans, strategize and detail out the steps to a goal.

Those lists became easier to make, just knowing that someone else was going to help me with the actual ‘doing’ part.

It’s not necessary to do it all on your own.

Like I say, outsourcing, delegating and automating are three ways that you can get more done.

I started with some automation as well – scheduling, social media templates, checklists for repeated tasks. Every little bit helps when you are trying to get as much done as a business owner needs to get done.

This is advice that we all tell our clients all the time – get help when you need help. We need to take this advice ourselves too.

You will always buys back the time you need to run your business well.

Being a VA means being a business owner, and it’s easy to burn the candle at both ends thinking we are supposed to do it all by ourselves.

But it’s rarely a good idea. You will think that you can’t afford to pay someone, but you really don’t realize that you will get more return from getting help for a couple of hours a week than you will from all of those early mornings, late nights, and weekend work.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to hire your own VA right now.

One of the ways that I bought back some time early on in my business was to send my son to daycare for the mornings. It was a small daily price to get many hours of uninterrupted work time.

We also hired a house cleaner that came every two weeks, so I never had to get distracted by house work (you’d be surprised at what seems appealing when you are looking for an alternative to writing a blog post!)

I highly recommend taking stock of your business to see where you can use help … even if it’s just in one small area. I guarantee you will not regret giving yourself back your own valuable time.

So now I’ll ask you … how busy are you?

What you should do next:

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About the Author: Tracey D’Aviero is a Virtual Assistant Coach, Trainer, Speaker and Author. After operating a busy VA business of her own since 1996, Tracey began teaching others to run their VA businesses in 2010 through Your VA Mentor. She also owns CAVA VA association and now teaches and coaches VAs exclusively. She has a vast amount of experience working in many different industries which helps her to offer her students and coaching clients a unique perspective and sound advice. She is a proud advocate of the Virtual Assistant industry. Learn more about Tracey’s journey in the VA industry here.