Welcome to another episode of the podcast that teaches you how to be a ridiculously good virtual assistant.
Today I want to talk about boosting productivity and working efficiently.
Today’s Quote: Focus on being productive instead of being busy. – Tim Ferriss
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Connect with Tracey D’Aviero, VA Coach and Trainer
Episode Notes:
I tell you all the time that time is money for Virtual Assistants.
Literally time is money. Your time. Your client’s money.
So everything you do – and how you do it – is costing the client a certain amount of money.
And, you are also doing a lot of things. Possibly for a lot of clients
Doing a lot of things at once for a lot of different people means that we can often get overwhelmed. Or busy.
So many times people will ask me how my business is doing, and then they say ‘busy, eh’? I say oh yes, ‘busy’.
We have created a world where busy sounds good.
At the minimum, busy means good – people are hiring us, they are working with us. That’s good!
So yes, busy can be good. It has good connotations, anyway.
But if WE feel busy, that sometimes isn’t so great.
Busy also denotes a state of having too much to do, or at least that seems to be the word we use to describe being as such.
And that’s when we want to make sure we are making changes to how we work to handle that better.
Productivity!
Being productive or working productively takes these five things:
- prioritizing your tasks effectively
- managing time well
- automating what you can
- using technology where possible
- self-care and boundaries
And these are the things I want to talk about in today’s episode.
Prioritizing Tasks
There are a number of ways to prioritize what we do for our clients.
Some will work for you, and some might not. It is first and foremost important to find something that works for you.
Don’t try to fit into someone else’s system or format. Try it, but if it doesn’t feel like it fits the way you think and work, it’s okay to try something else.
The key thing about prioritizing your work well is that if you don’t know how to do it well, it needs to be the first thing you prioritize!
Your Virtual Assistant business will thrive much faster if you learn to manage the things you do.
Not everything is urgent. Not everything is even important.
Your clients might think everything is – their work – but it isn’t.
So you have to figure out how to assess what needs to be done and then block times to get it done that make sense.
When you prioritize better, you will absolutely get more done, you will feel less stressed and you will be able to focus on what really matters.
Time Blocking
I am a big fan of time blocking and batching work to work more efficiently. You’ll hear me talk about these things nearly every time I speak about time management.
Managing your time well is going to be one the greatest skills you can even master as a Virtual Assistant.
Again, because you are managing the work (and expectations) of more than one person – your clients – you have to juggle it all well.
Allowing certain time slots for a certain client will help you book the things you need to do into your calendar in a way that helps you manage everyone better.
Balance comes from doing things well – and also from paying attention to why things are going well. Your actions will be essential to achieving balance too. Burnout sucks, you need to work to keep it at bay.
Automation
One of the ways you can do things better, faster, more efficiently, or more easily, is to use automation. When I talk about outsourcing parts of your business, I always mention automation as something to consider
You don’t always need to hire someone to get extra things done. You can simply use automation.
I love finding ways to automate what I do in my business. Not to be lazy, but to be efficient!
Anything that is a repetitive task can probably be automated in some way. There are so many tools and software out there that have been designed to solve the problem of repetitive tasks.
What are you doing that is repetitive? What would make things easier? Start with a simple checklist, and then move along to more digitized options.
Human error goes way down when we automate well. I love checklists, I will always tell you that – they save brain power and just focus on the task at hand.
So do the apps and software tools that are designed to help us get more done. Check them out – password apps are an excellent example of great automation.
Technology
Taking automation one step further, technology can definitely be your friend. There are so many apps and programs and platforms that are designed specifically to help you do things better.
Streamlining your projects is easy when you find the right technology.
My beloved checklists are a great start, but moving to a project management system that helps you work better with your clients can be awesome.
One of the cool things about these systems that people build is that they also stay on top of trends and industry needs and they update them!
The best part about the technology additions is the communication part – often it’s easy to respond to project updates via email (my favourite way), and it also cuts your actual communication with clients WAY down when you use something sharable.
Your clients can now check a project status and updates instead of messaging or emailing you for an update. Time saver. Ya!
Self-Care and Boundaries
The final piece to being productive is recognizing that we need to put boundaries in place and manage our self-care.
I said it right off the top of today’s episode that we are looking to boost our productivity because we are too busy.
Busy can lead to burnout, especially if it’s left unmanaged for too long.
We have talked about burnout in other episodes because it’s way more prevalent than you think.
Motivation is a big part of working alone – it can be hard to find that motivation, so we need to prioritize that too.
Never mind the daily challenges that come with operating your own business. Get support in place to help you manage those too.
Doing things like taking breaks and managing your time and taking your meals away from your desk can really help manage the tunnel vision that we can have as we work from home.
Having a community to share our struggles and successes with is so important. And it helps us have better communication with our clients too.
Defining clear expectations, and communicating well, will go a long way to keeping everyone happy and healthy.
There you have it, five tips to help you boost your productivity. These are things that you can action right away, which I always love.
If I can listen to a podcast episode or a training and take away one thing that will make a different in my business right now, then that’s what I love to do.
What is your one takeaway from today’s episode?
Write it down and get it in place – take action!
Now let’s go back to today’s quote:
Focus on being productive instead of being busy.
When we focus on being productive, it’s a lot different than focusing on being busy. Busy makes us feel overwhelmed, or at least feeling like we have less time than we probably do.
Instead if we look at it as finding ways to be productive, we can step back and organize the chaos and actually get more done.
Let’s get productive!!
Do You Need Help?
If you are ready to get some help to manage your time and your workload better in your VA business, that’s where I come in. I am here for one reason – to help you become a ridiculously good VA.
I have helped hundreds of VAs who are stuck get moving through private coaching, group coaching, and self study trainings. If you are ready to get my help, let’s connect on a Cut to the Chase call. You can book yours at YourVAMentor.com/15-min
Thanks for tuning in this week! I’ll see you next time!
What You Need to Do Next:
Let’s work together privately to get you to your really big goal. It’s the fastest way to get results and we can start right away. Learn more about private coaching here.
The Virtual Circle (TVC) is a monthly mastermind group for Virtual Assistants just like you. We get together 3 times a month for group Zoom sessions to talk about what you are struggling with, working on, or celebrating. It’s a close knit community of your VA colleagues that provides the best kind of support for your VA business. Learn more about TVC here.
My self study program Getting Started as a VA can help you get your VA business started easily and quickly too. You can sign up right away and be on your way to getting clients by the end of the program, with all the right foundations in place. Check out the program here.
Click here for more tips to help you with your productivity and time management in your Virtual Assistant business.
Reach out to me if you need to talk about where you are stuck and what the right option might be to get you moving. It’s literally all I’m here to do is help you get to where you want to go. Book a complimentary Cut to the Chase call with me here.