Today’s Quote: Lost time is never found again. – Benjamin Franklin
Welcome to another episode of the podcast that teaches you how to be a ridiculously good virtual assistant.
Today we are going to talk about productivity – how to get more done without sacrificing quality work or excellence.
Click the play button above to tune in, or choose your favourite podcast player below:
Connect with Tracey D’Aviero, VA Coach and Trainer
Episode Notes:
As virtual assistants, we talk a lot about productivity.
Time is money when you provide a service like we do, and every minute counts.
That doesn’t mean that you have to work fast, or charge by the minute. What I’m talking about is increasing productivity – and that’s different.
We want to be ridiculously good – right? – and so we never want to sacrifice excellence.
We just want to make the best of our time.
That means we need to identify what needs to be done , prioritize it well, and make sure it gets done.
The system that you use to manage your work has everything to do with works best for you.
I can’t tell you what to use – pen and paper, a project management system, Google, Outlook, time tracking.
What works for me may not work for you. But what I want to share with you today will let you know how to manage your time better, no matter what system or process you use.
- You must eliminate distractions when you are trying to get things done. Yes I know, lots of people tell you this. But I’m going to explain distractions a bit differently for you in this episode. Many virtual assistants I talk to have no idea where their time goes during the day. But then they tell me that they check a client’s email all day long, or leave it open so they can manage whatever comes in as soon as it comes in. I will say that if a client requires that you do that for them every day, I hope you are getting paid for 8 hours a day from that client. Email is a means of communication but it does not need to be answered immediately. Instead, plan to check in hourly or less – I used to do client care for 6 and 7 figure business coaches, and I checked their email 3x a day. That’s it. It helped me manage my time better, and the clients still got responded to three times every single day. Eliminating distractions extends far past closing social media – we need to work smarter and not make excuses for why the way we do things might not be the most efficient way to do it.
- Learn to focus better. The more time you give yourself to get something done, the longer you will take to do it. When you focus on what you are trying to do, you can work much more efficiently and you can get it done in less time. Look at everything you do – are you repeating things, or taking longer to do something than necessary? Think about what you could do differently – or ask a colleague to give you some input. A business coach of mine once ran us through an exercise at a live event. We paired up with another attendee and the exercise was to tell the other person 5 things that we did to help our clients. We each had 5 minutes to explain what we did, and then the other person helped us write down our 5 things, as they understood them. Once we finished that exercise, she tasked us with another exercise – create a piece of content in 15 minutes. She suggested a blog post. Everyone panicked – 15 minutes – but she said to use one of the ideas we just came up with, and get it done. There were 24 of us in the room and nearly all of us got the piece of content made in time. Why? Because she gave us the tools we needed first – and then we worked to complete the task in the time that was allotted. That’s focus.
- Create buckets of time – I often talk about this, and it will definitely make my productivity podcast! Part of the reason that we lose time is that we give ourselves a start time, but we then don’t stop. I’ve seen it happen with things like research projects, social media, and more. Going down a rabbit hole – and letting yourself do it – can rob us of valuable time every single day. If you tell yourself that you will start at x time, and then stop at x time, you give yourself a reasonable bucket of time to complete the task. It is important to manage your time, not just spend it. So if you give yourself a stop time, that’s managing it. And if you need more time you are aware that you need more time, and you can assign yourself more time to complete it. But you’re not losing track of time.
- Use tools – checklists, procedures, automation tools. Whatever you need – and whatever you will use. I use a bullet journal, Trello and my Google calendar. So that is a combination of paper, my phone, and a project management system. It works for me. With my bullet journal, I keep lists. When I want to get something done, then I can use the bullet journal list to create checklists, processes, procedures, Trello boards and set deadlines. The bullet journal is my master list. The Trello board is where I manage the tasks or action steps. The calendar I use to book my time – but I don’t book all of my time like many others. I know when I have hard stops for meetings or other commitments by my calendar. And it helps me decide when I can fit in the things that I need to do. You need to use the same process. Keep a master to-do list, use a system or process to manage your daily and weekly tasks, and work within your calendar. Again here you are managing your workload in the time that you have available in a day or week. It’s a great habit to begin using and you get better at it the more you do it. Practice makes perfect!
- Stay on track. Whatever you plan, do your best to keep yourself on track. If you haven’t scheduled your time and really managed it before, you may get it wrong sometimes. Cut yourself some slack. and keep at it. Block in a bit of empty time every day to use to catch up that way you don’t get used to bumping tasks. And keep honing your managing skills. You can do it! Create a distractions list so you don’t get derailed by distractions too. All that is, is a list beside your work station of things that you think of – that you may feel like you need to do now. But you don’t. The task you are working on is the priority, keep it that way. Write the new thing on the list, and then decide when you will work on that when you next do your calendar management.
Remember lost time is never found again. When you start to change the habits you have around your time, and start to manage it better, you will get more done in less time -and won’t lose any excellence. In fact, you’ll become even more excellent!
Need Some Help?
If you need some help getting more productive and managing your time better, reach out to me at tracey@yourvamentor.com. I’ve helped hundreds of VAs through their challenges and got them on their way to the next thing. I’d love to do the same for you. I do private coaching, and registration for my new mastermind group The Virtual Circle is open now. Maybe one of those is right for you!
That’s all I’ve got for you this week, thanks for tuning in to learn to become a ridiculously good Virtual Assistant.