Prioritizing your task list is a good idea when you have a lot of things to get done.

What kind of system do you use to keep your VA business organized?

As a Virtual Assistant, we often have many people throwing tasks and things to do our way – and that can get out of hand very quickly.

And of course, the squeaky wheel often gets the grease – so sometimes the pushier clients try to tell us when we need to do our work.

The more organized you can be yourself, the more you can manage your own workload and prioritize your own tasks.

It is important when you are working with multiple clients that you are the one who prioritizes things, and not the clients.

Being organized takes practice and experience, and learning some techniques to do it better is always a good thing!

1. Keep a master list.

Start by writing down everything you need to get done. A master list is a really good tool to get things out of your head and help you decide what needs to be done, and when. Take your master list and break it into daily work items as necessary, but that master list is important to start with.

2. Work tidy.

Are you a piler or a filer? How do you keep things organized on your desk or computer? Working tidy is a good concept – only keep what you are working on in front of you, and put away everything else. If you don’t use paper, then think of this in terms of web browser tabs – close everything you are not using so you can concentrate on what you are doing. When you focus on just the task at hand, you will work more efficiently.

3. Always be on time.

When you are providing support for a lot of different people, you need to really use your calendar to keep things on track. Set appointments and task start times, and make sure you hold to them. Use meeting agendas to keep them running on time. When you start everything on time, that is the beginning of excellent time management.

4. Respect your stop times.

As much as start times are important, stop times are even more so. You have to make a plan to complete a task in a certain period of time, so that you can be the most productive. If you are supposed to stop working on something in an hour so you can move along to something else, do that. Our brain can work much faster than we think – if we set an hour to get something done, we can do it. If you leave the ‘stop’ time open, you can get distracted and take longer to complete everything you do.

5. Use a prioritization matrix.

To help you decide what you should do first, or next, consider using a prioritization matrix. There are many varieties of them, so find one that works for you. A sample one could use the parameters Urgent -> Important -> Can Wait -> Doesn’t Need to Be Done. Not everything is urgent, but important things need to get done before those that can wait. When you identify the urgency of each task you can put it in your calendar to do at the right time. And definitely don’t forget to remove those things that don’t really need to be done to free up your time for the important and urgent stuff.

If you need help getting your VA business organized, look no further than your VA community! An annual membership in CAVA is the answer. CAVA is a professional association for Virtual Assistants in Canada. We provide community, visibility, resources, connections, training, client opportunities and so much more. Check out our full list of benefits here: https://canadianava.org/join-cava/

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.