A day in the life of a virtual assistant

As a Virtual Assistant, we are often asked by family, friends, people we meet and prospective clients how it works being a VA. The image of clients talking to the likes of Alex or Google Home, or us sitting at home on the sofa with our pyjamas on, looking unkept with no makeup, hair everywhere and a cup of coffee in hand is the general perception. Those who are new to the idea of working with a VA can find it difficult to understand what a VA does, how do they work with clients who are often in different counties, countries and timezones. So here is a day in the life of a virtual assistant.

Our day starts no differently… Our daily routine starts the same as anyone else. We get up, we get ready and head to the office. Some of our team here at VASS work from our offices in London so it really is no different with the same commute to work each day. Those who work from home may not have the commute into work, but each has their own dedicated office space with all the necessary equipment and privacy they need for a day’s work.

Review the plans for the day Once settled in the office, it’s time to review the plans for the day. Checking what calls and meetings are scheduled in, any reminders that need to be followed up and what work needs to be completed for the day.

Time for a catch up For our busier clients on retainer packages, it often involves a morning telephone or video call to run through their schedule for the day, looking at what their plans are, ensuring they have everything they need for their busy day, and taking anything off their hands that we can deal with.

Email time Next it’s time for emails. After we have checked our own inboxes for anything that our clients need support with, it’s time to check the email accounts we manage on behalf of our clients. Often reviewing the emails from our clients or to our clients means adding things onto the to do list for the day. Our clients’ emails are managed on a daily basis, so it doesn’t take long for us to sift through, deleting any junk, flagging things to review or actioning requests as we go.

Workload for the day This is where it can be hard to describe the average day of a virtual assistant. Here at VASS we have a range of experts specialising in different areas. For some, it’s time to crack on with some bookkeeping, for others it could be marketing, data entry, general admin support, diary management, designing images and graphics, organising an event, booking travel etc.

Each and every task is tracked using time tracking software to ensure our clients are only paying for the time we are working on their tasks. Every time a task is completed, or we have need to take a break or a call, the timer is stopped.

Lunchtime Being no different to anyone else, we do stop for a lunch break. We encourage our team to take a break away from their screens and to enjoy their lunch but having a passionate and dedicated team can sometimes mean it’s hard to pull them away from their desks for very long before they are back at their desks for the afternoon workload!

More emails Unless it’s an extremely busy inbox, we encourage both our clients and our team to only check their emails at certain times of the day. This proves a much better management of time and stops their inboxes from managing their workload. After lunch it’s time to check the inboxes again to deal with anything new that has come in since this morning and action accordingly.

Follow up calls With our busier clients, the afternoon can sometimes be a time for more catch up calls as they are on the train heading back to the office or home. This is their opportunity to run through any follow ups required from their meetings that day, anything they need actioning or updates to pass on. It’s also an opportunity to review their plans for the next day, and the rest of the week to make sure both the client and our team are up to date on any changes in their schedule.

Wrapping up for the day This is the chance to check through email inboxes again and make sure there is nothing urgent outstanding. It’s also the opportunity to add any later work requests onto the to do list for tomorrow. Then it’s a final check of the calendar to see what telephone or video calls are planned in for tomorrow where the day will start all over again.

If you are considering using the services of a Virtual Assistant, why not arrange a discovery call to find out more about the services we offer and support that we can provide. Call us now on 020 3370 4075.

How to manage your workload

Running a business is not for the fainthearted. No two days are ever the same and what might work for one person and a particular business, won’t work for another. However, you do have to learn to wear many hats and juggle multiple things at a time. You always have to be in control and know what’s going on with your business and managing your workload. So here are our top tips to help you manage your workload.

Use a task list Whether you’re a traditional person and prefer pen and paper, or a digital fan, your task list is often the lifeline to running your business. They act as a time saver, giving you control to know what needs to happen and when, but also reduce the stress of having a million and one things going around your head at any one time. Electronic task lists can even help out when you’re on the go to ensure your list is always with you! Some of our favourites here at VASS are Wunderlist, Asana, Todoist and Trello. These are also great if you have a team to share your ideas and delegate tasks out!

Set deadlines Deadlines are vital when looking at your workload. They allow us to quickly assess what needs doing when and helps to prioritise what work needs to be completed. Don’t think you need one? Tasks that don’t end up with deadlines are often the ones that we procrastinate over, get pushed back or even forgotten.

Don’t get carried away ticking things off… It’s very easy to look for the ‘quick wins’ to get more items off your task list quickly. However, it means other items get pushed back or forgotten. The bigger and more challenging ones may take longer, but these are normally the important tasks that will help in developing our businesses. You will also get a much greater sense of satisfaction crossing one challenging project off the list versus a handful of easy quick jobs.

Prioritise Once you’ve set your deadlines, you can then start to prioritise what needs to be completed when. But it can be difficult to decide if everything is due at the same time, so next we need to look at what is urgent vs what is important.

Urgent vs Important Do you have any tasks on the list that need immediate attention? The kind of work that if it’s not completed by the end of the day, or within the next few hours, there will be serious repercussions. These are the tasks to focus on first, followed by anything that is not urgent, but important. Anything that isn’t important or isn’t urgent gets pushed towards the bottom of the list until it’s approaching urgent and important.

Assessing the value After we’ve reviewed deadlines, looked for anything urgent, we must look at what carries the highest value or has the biggest impact. For example, here at VASS our client work is always completed before any internal work. We ensure that our client’s work is completed and back with them for when they need it. This ensures we are adding value to our clients, helping them to meet their own deadlines, keeping them happy and ultimately is what keeps our business ticking over.

Not urgent, not important? If, at the end of reviewing your task list you find there are items on there that have no urgency or aren’t important, it’s time to decide whether they should actually still be on your list. Maybe your priorities have changed, or they are no longer need to be completed. Whatever the reason, if they’re on the list and have no importance, delete them!

Focus your time It’s very easy to become distracted and pick up other things while in the middle of working on something else. But focussing your attention to one task at a time is much more productive. Better yet, work out when you’re going to complete tasks in advance and group things together – why not have a creative afternoon writing your blogs and social media content one after the other while you’re ‘in the zone’?

Outsource If you have a heavy workload then it’s worth considering outsourcing some of the things off your task list. Whether it’s one off projects or ongoing support, look at what’s on your list, whether its something that ‘has’ to be done by you or if it’s something you could pass onto someone else to complete on your behalf and freeing up your time!

If you are looking for help in managing your workload, then call us now on 020 3370 4075 to arrange a free no obligation consultation and find out how we can help.