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Hi and welcome to The Business of Being A Virtual Assistant. I’m your host, Tiffany Parson and you’re watching and listening to episode number…..200!!! Episode #200. The funny thing is this technically is not episode #200 for us. I’ll have to give you a backstory on the podcast the next time and a little history and all that stuff.
But today we’re not gonna jump into it, but we are going to celebrate episode #200!!! All right: in today’s episode, I want to talk to you about The Gift Of Time. Before we dive into this, If this is your very first time listening-watching, thank you so much for watching. This means that you want to start a virtual assistant business and I am so glad that you’re here.
So let’s talk about the gift of time. Like, where does it come from? Where does it go? Right?! So, first off, this is not to tell you exactly what to do or anything like that. It’s just to open your eyes and make you look at “where is your time going?”. A few episodes back, I asked you to do a little exercise with yourself and to write down all the different things that you’re doing so you could see what’s happening in your day. So you can look at your productivity and all that good stuff. But specifically today we’re going to hone in on time to see “where does the time go?”.
One of the main places that our time goes is mindless activity. That looks like, basically a scroll. Scrolling on your phone, or scrolling through tv channels — some device, where you’re just flipping through, flipping through, flipping through. You see something, you get stuck on it: time goes by. Now, there’s nothing wrong with mindless activities. We need to decompress, we need to relax and if that looks like, you know, scrolling online or trying to see something good on tv, that’s fine. If that’s the intent, right? If we know okay, this is my time to do mindless activity. But, if we’re looking for where our time goes, to were we’re feeling we’re getting lost: like “I don’t have enough time…Where is everything going in my day?” Then mindless activity is just not good. Right?!
Where else does the time go? We’re giving it away. Are you giving all of your time away? What does that look like? It looks like doing things for everybody else and not yourself. Giving, giving, giving but not refilling what you’ve given. Right?! It means, looking at a week’s worth of things that you’re doing and realizing I’m doing something every single day….I’m loading up my day from the time my feet hit the floor, to the time my head lands on the pillow. My days are full to capacity. That’s where we have a problem, right?! And we just want to [AHHHHH!!!] scream because there’s no time! We’re going to talk about “where can we get some time?”. It’s important that we value the time that we have. All of us are given 24-hours/seven days a week. We all have the same amount of time; we cannot negotiate with God for more time in the week or more time in the day…It is what it is. Right?!
So how can we find more time? Well, you probably already can guess what I’m about to say. And I’m saying this surprising myself that I’m even going there and saying this to you, right?! I’m gonna just quietly tell you…*deep sigh*…Wake-Up-Earlier.
I know, I know – I know it! I hate to even be the one to say it! Because I have not always been a fan of getting up early. Right?! I wanted to start my business so that I could do what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it and all these things. Here’s what I’m finding: when you get up earlier, you actually have more time for yourself. And some of you may have already discovered this. Especially if you have families. You probably have already discovered, “If I wake up before everyone else, I can enjoy that quiet time to myself.” That’s what I’m talking about! That is like the gift of time! That’s when time truly becomes a gift when you can embrace it, be excited about it, cherish those quiet moments, right?! Where you’re not having to do something for other people: where you’re really able to just take a deep breath, drink some water/coffee/tea, whatever your drink is and reset yourself. This is something that we need every-single-day. You need a time to reset yourself. When you don’t do that, you feel like I’m busy, every single day/all day. I hit the ground and I’m moving, moving, movin—-and at the end of night: CRASH! I’m sleep. And then I’m back up again, doing it all over—-CRASH! I’m sleep. The Gift Of Time.
Now: you may be thinking, “Look Tiffany, I get up early already to head out to work. Uh, that’s not gonna work for me. If I get up any earlier, I’m not going to be sleep. Okay?!” So this is not, you know, a promotion to get you- everybody to get up early and to do the, I forget there’s a book out early morning something, I can’t remember–anyway. This is not that, okay? I’m just helping you to find what that feels like/what it looks like: The Gift Of Time. Okay?! So maybe yours is flipped and your gift of time is when you come home from work and you’re able to decompress. Okay?!
So when I first started my business, I was single and didn’t have any children. I still don’t have any children yet, but I was single. And so after work was a good time for me to decompress. I realized I couldn’t get home from work and jump right into doing my work for my business because then I truly felt like I was working all day, every day. There had to be a break in there. There had to be some type of space in there between my work day and my business work. I wanted to be excited about my business work. So I had to, you know, do something in between. So don’t dive into, if you’re working full time, don’t just come home and dive right away into your business work. Take a break in between and–the length of time that break is, is completely based on what your schedule looks like. Doesn’t have to be an hour. If it’s 15 minutes, do something that you feel like “I’ve been given the gift of time”. Right?! And don’t swap it out for something related in the house. Like, “Oh, I gotta rush and clean for dinner, I gotta rush and do this—” because that is work! Now, that’s just housework. You’re coming right home from your corporate job and diving right into housework. That’s not what I’m saying.
If you have to do that, still take a break between whatever work you have to do and then the things you have to do for your business. Take a break to decompress, to breathe, to allow yourself to release whatever it is that you brought home with you. And to get excited about this business that you’re creating. And no matter how long you’ve been in business, you’ll always be creating it because things change/you want to add something to it. So creating, not created, creating–it’s evolving! Ever changing–that’s your business, right?!
So the pockets of time where you are able to do nothing, that’s what I’m speaking of when I say The Gift Of Time. Now granted, the gift of time, you know; the fact that we’re alive, living, breathing, able to make choices and make decisions and all that stuff. Yes, we’ve been given that gift of time. But specifically what I’m talking about right now, is the pockets of time that don’t belong to anyone. Your pockets of time that don’t belong to anyone. Those are your gifts! And you might have both: You might have early morning, you might have after work; those are your gifts of time. And look at it like that. So that you value those opportunities and you don’t waste it unintentionally doing mindless activities or giving that time away because it’s open. And maybe on your weekly calendar, you need to just block it off–however you want to phrase it–so that you don’t schedule over it. It’s so important.
It’s almost like it allows you to be clearer in your thinking. It allows you to be more creative and thoughts to flow. We have to be creative for all aspects of our business. Even if the task that we’re doing does not seem like an outright creative thing. When we’re able to be creative, get excited about it! Because this is when we get to color outside of the lines and we get to be our truest self: no restrictions!
This is why it’s important that we seize those opportunities every day! So we aren’t getting stale, so we aren’t getting in a rut or feeling overwhelmed. Look at your schedule now for this week, look at the whole week, a whole seven day week-timeframe. Is it filled to the brim? Or can you see where there’s open pockets of time for yourself–that can now become The Gift Of Time that you give to yourself because now you’re valuing it? Now, you know what to do when you feel like “I don’t have anything to do”. Now you know what to do; it’s your reset time! Time to sit down, get quiet, get something to drink, put your feet up, be in the moment…Be in the moment. For those of you that are Christian business owners, during this time you may find yourself praying during this time: praising and worshiping during this time. Let it go where it goes! Don’t block yourself.: let it go where it goes.
It’s challenging to just sit in silence, rest, sitting there and not be appreciative to all that God has given you and what He’s doing for you. It’s hard not to do that. Let it flow when it happens and then, when it’s time to go into what you have to do for the day for your business, you will be a new person. You’ll be refreshed, revived. You’ll be so excited to get into it and you won’t want to stop! Imagine that, every single day–every single day, not that we’re working every single day, but we’re taking those gifts of time every single day so that you can go forth in the things that you need to do.
So that is episode # 200. I want you to let me know how it’s going and how you’re feeling after you have taken the time to really dive into your pockets of time for yourself. I want you to notice how I’m choosing not to say free time because these pockets of time aren’t free. If you get in your mind it’s free time, you’ll give it away. You’ll do something else. But no! These are your pockets of time–your Gifts Of Time. Let me know how it’s going, as you intentionally seek out these times in your day and actually do it, and then, go into your work: tell me what that is like. What it’s like now–going into your work? You should find that there’s a difference in how you approach and what you’re doing.
So thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode. If you’re watching the video and [wondering]“why is she keep looking down?”, I got notes again today because that is going to help me stay on track and not, you know, go all over the place with the podcast episode. So anyway; next week I’m going to dive into the backstory of the podcast because that will be episode # 201! *Celebrates* I’m learning to celebrate the small victories. I’m gonna write that down because maybe you’re struggling with that too; about how to celebrate your small victories and yourself. So I’ll share that in another episode, but I’m going to write it in my notes, so I have it for later. Anyway, thank you so much for listening, for watching. You have a wonderful, fantastic day/afternoon/evening; whatever timeframe you’re watching and listening to this episode. I will see you next time!
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