Today’s Quote: Break the unreasonable down into little reasonable chunks. A big goal is only achieved when every little thing that you do everyday gets you closer to that goal. – Maren Kate
Welcome to another episode of the podcast that teaches you how to be a ridiculously good virtual assistant.
Today I am going to talk about how to get more done by doing less. Yep, you heard me right! Time management is an unruly animal to tame for a lot of VAs, and I want to teach you a better way to do it!
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Connect with Tracey D’Aviero, VA Coach and Trainer
Episode Notes:
Time management is something that so many Virtual Assistants struggle with.
Time is literally money for VAs and other service based businesses, and so making the most of the time you spend doing client work is essential to your profits.
The big thing I see VAs doing that is impacting their time management is very simple: doing too much, for too long.
I’m going to repeat that. Doing too much, for too long, is what VAs do wrong – and that’s what eats away at their day, their client’s budgets, and their profits.
Write that one down!
Whether we are working with a couple of busy clients, or lots of little ones, whether we are doing one-off tasks or ongoing ones, whether we are incorporating our own business tasks into our regular day or after hours, we have a lot to do.
Running any business is hard and requires a lot of ‘doing’. We. Do. A. Lot.
The to-do lists seems endless, the new work keeps coming, and we still have to run our own business stuff too. It’s a lot.
But today, I want to talk to you about doing less to get more done. Really!
First let’s talk about why it’s so important to be able to buy into this objective.
Here are 4 reasons that managing your time well is essential to your success as a VA:
Better Clarity and Focus
Many of the tasks we take on for our clients are ‘full’ projects. We manage things from start to finish – whether it’s client care, marketing, social media, bookkeeping, creative work – usually a VA is hired by a client to look after the whole thing.
And many of the things we do have lots of steps to complete them. It’s part of why we are valuable to our clients – because we have the expertise to manage their projects and keep everyone on task and on deadline.
By using a project management system that the team can access we can break things down into all the steps that need to get done, assign each a deadline and the person who is responsible to do it on time.
Everyone can see the status of the project is and what needs to get done next.
The reason that doing less helps you do more is that it helps avoid extra back and forth communication or even status meetings that are a waste of time for everyone. The PM system does that work and everyone can peek in when it’s convenient for them.
Increased Motivation
When we are organized it helps us get more done.
But when we break our tasks down into smaller chunks, we can do them in shorter bits of time, and everything we do still helps us get closer to completing the whole project.
It is much easier to get motivated to do something for 15 or 20 minutes, than it is to try to find time to do a 90 minute project. Chunking your work down into more manageable pieces helps a lot with that.
Who doesn’t like to check things off of a to-do list? It gives us a sense of accomplishment, and can even inspire us to keep going, maybe on the next task. That creates momentum.
The reason that doing less helps you do more is that momentum – when you get going because you are seeing progress and you feel like you are moving forward, it’s a lot easier to keep at it, or do one more thing.
Better Time Management
Working efficiently takes a few things, and efficiency comes when you map out the steps to complete any task. You can estimate the time required to complete each step, and therefore schedule your own time or other people’s time better.
Prioritizing work is important to keep every project moving forward, and making sure you aren’t spending too much time doing one thing is very important.
I suggest setting start and stop times for every tasks… then once you have estimated that, it is your responsibility to complete the rtask in that length of time.
The reason that doing less helps you do more here is that you are literally managing your time – and getting things done in less time than you might if you weren’t paying as close attention.
Better Problem Solving
Collaborating or even just coordinating projects and client work also gets an advantage when you manage your time better.
Sometimes we need to find the best way to get something done, and breaking the project down into the steps we expect it to take can help us make sure that we are doing everything in the most efficient way possible.
You can brainstorm solutions and implement them step by step and that can help keep overwhelm at bay, especially if something you are working on has a lot of steps.
Staying calm and organized is an excellent skill to build as a VA, and will definitely help as you start to work with more clients.
Whether you are managing large projects for your big clients, or managing a lot of small tasks for several smaller ones, being able to recognize that the better organized you are the better.
The reason that doing less helps you do more is that seeing the big picture helps you to avoid roadblocks or things you weren’t expecting.
Understanding that every large project can break down into multiple small tasks is something that every VA should focus on.
If you are one of those VAs that blocks in 2 hour blocks of time for client work, you need to try blocking in smaller time slots.
Identifying the time it takes to complete tasks is the other really important part of managing your time well.
Like I said earlier, if you know how long something ‘should’ take to get done, that means you really know your stuff.
And it also means that you can work to get every task done in the estimated time – that is the definition of good time management.
You will also know whether your estimates are right, and how you are doing in terms of workplace and profitability.
Time is money for all VAs and even though you may not (or may not want to) bill your clients by the hour, it is still really important to monitor how much time you are spending doing their work.
We will get into work pace and packaging your services in other episodes, but know that the more you master your time management, the more money you will make in your VA business.
Now let’s circle back to today’s quote: Break down the unreasonable into little reasonable chunks. A big goal is only achieved when every little thing that you do everyday gets you closer to that goal.
When we think of our business, our own marketing, our own networking, this quote takes the principles of actually doing tasks and time management with our client work and shows us how to make it work for us.
We’ve talked a lot about chunking your work, small tasks, and managing your time around those.
But that last part is what I want to reference:
A big goal is only achieved when every little thing you do gets you closer to that goal.
This is something I did myself a few years ago. I set a big goal, and then everything that I did to grow my business pointed in that direction – my connections, my copy writing, my marketing, my newsletters, all that stuff.
Everything I did moved me in the direction of that larger goal, even though they were smaller tasks or goals themselves.
It is amazing how quickly your business can grow when you focus your efforts in that way.
I loved that quote and it fits so closely with time management and today’s lesson that I wanted to share that part of it too.
I hope I’ve helped you see that doing less can help you get so much more done. Stop booking long periods of time to do anything, and start working in shorter spans of time. You will gain greater focus, get more organized, manage your time much better, and literally get more done than you realized. I can help!
Need Some Help?
This is exactly what I help VAs do. As a VA coach and trainer, I help you set yourself up for success, helping you fix the specific things that are going wrong in your business. When we work together either privately or in a group we talk specifically about your business and you – there is no one stop solution for everyone when it comes to service businesses like VA businesses.
I’ll help you get clarity around your issues, and cheer you on as you walk through the steps to fix them.
I’ve helped hundreds of VAs through their challenges and got them on their way to growing their business and the lifestyle that they dream of.
I’d love to do the same for you.
You can work with me privately, or you can join The Virtual Circle, my mastermind group for Virtual Assistants. Check it out at www.YourVAMentor.com/TVC (the virtual circle) – I bet it’s exactly what you need to start running the VA business you dreamed of.
Reach out to me if you are interested.
That’s all I’ve got for you this week, see you next time!