As an administrative support company that offers virtual assistant services, we pride ourselves on alleviating overwhelm and increasing client productivity. Customers count on us to help them stay organized and manage workflow.
In the end, we exist to offer steady steams of support to ensure goals are met, and stress levels remain as low as possible.
Prioritizing internally first is how we keep external customer relationships happy and healthy.
Your day, your time
One of the most important considerations you can make as a virtual assistant is how you choose to work your business. You should be both happy and capable of executing the workload you set for yourself.
Virtual assistant work can become demanding and overwhelming, especially if you have a large clientele. Some virtual assistants work from twelve to fourteen-hour days to get everything done.
This may not be plausible for you, especially if you are beginning. But don’t fret; you can organize your time and business.
The first thing you want to decide is how you want your time to be organized, which solely depends on how many hours you are available to work each week.
Will you work as a virtual assistant part-time to supplement your income or have you decided to work as a full-time assistant?
As soon as you know how you want to organize your time, ensure your clients know. This way, they will understand when to reach you and when you are off duty and unavailable to work.
Remember, you have a life outside of work
Next, you’ll want to factor in your life outside of work, such as parenting, date night, caring for aging parents, and facilitating your book club. Your personal life may be too demanding to take on virtual assistant work full-time but may be a perfect avenue for part-time work.
After you’ve considered your personal obligations, it’s good form to get deadlines from your clients on when they need tasks completed.
We’ll leave the client check-ins to your discretion ( but on average, we touch bases with clients bi-weekly) but whenever you do it, make sure you know when client work is due.
In addition, it’s also essential to identify any priority work among your clients because their work priorities will become your work priorities.
Take your time
Lastly, pace your work. Most last-minute occurrences can be avoided with adequate lead time.
Except for quick turnaround projects, give yourself enough time, energy and space for each client and the work you’ve committed to completing on their behalf.
Pacing your workload will decrease your stress levels as a virtual assistant and allows you breathing room to tackle multiple projects simultaneously.
Keeping organized with your time is one of the many secrets to being a virtual assistant. It is up to you to set your standards from the beginning to ensure your success.
So be intentional (and realistic) about your availability, responsibilities, and skillsets as a virtual assistant when prioritizing your work.
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