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On Video:
Links Referenced:
- Year End Review Series
- The Gift of Time Episode
In Words:
Hi and welcome to The Business of Being a Virtual Assistant. I am your host, Tiffany Parson and you’re watching and listening to episode number 2-0-9. First and foremost, Happy New Year! I am so glad that you’re joining me for today’s episode.
If this is your very first time watching or listening, I have been a virtual assistant since 2008. It’s hard to believe that it’s been that long and time has just flown by so quickly. If this is your very first time. I’ve been in this for a long time. I am a veteran in the industry and the majority of that time I worked by myself and then in 2020 I started a team and that has been the best thing that I could have done for my business at that point.
It’s been 12 years being a virtual assistant, being you know running things by myself and I really was looking for a change. And so while people were making pivots, moving things online, I had already been online for 12 years, I decided to pivot and build a team so that I could train, which is something I love to do.
I love doing training. I train my team and grow and help them, you know, develop based on the services that we’re offering. And it has been absolutely wonderful. Now this episode, that’s not what this episode is about. I want you to start thinking in this new year, what’s something that’s gonna be new or different that you want to do for yourself, for your business?
What changes do you know, you need to make based on how things were going that last quarter of the year? If you haven’t gotten a chance yet to listen to the last three or four episodes that I did, where I talked about the year in review, be sure to go back and listen to those episodes.
I have a couple of quick tips, we’re gonna be in and out of here today, but I want to talk to those of you that are working outside of your home while building your virtual assistant business.
When I first started I was working a full time job and then I would build, work on client projects at night. And initially I wasn’t sure if I was gonna, it was gonna be a business or really kind of put myself in the freelancer category and it probably was not until maybe a year or two into it, that I felt like more like a business owner and wanting to, you know, develop it into a business.
I’m saying that to say if this is your first time watching, you’re not sure about being a virtual assistant, but you want to do projects here and there, you can certainly get started as a freelancer and then you know, let it grow from there. And you definitely, this is definitely something good to do while you are working another job, whether it’s full time or part time because you need to give it time for the clients to come. Right, it’s a business, any business requires time for clients to come. So this way you have income while at the same time building your own business.
There are two tips that I have for you.
The very first one is this, you want to make sure that you set dedicated time to work your business, dedicated time.
I realized at the end of 2021 looking at the quarter, I was exhausted, feeling scattered and it wasn’t because I had a whole lot of things to do.
It’s just I was feeling all over the place and part of that was that I let my schedule just go, I’m just you know kinda flying along, holding on with the schedule, let it go right. But when you’re working outside of the home, I’m working more outside of my home more than I have in a long time.
And so I realized okay I need to go back to what I did initially when I first started and that is to set dedicated time for my business and it’s been working wonderfully.
What I do is I get up early, I set my alarm clock early on certain days, not every single day am I getting up at six o’clock in the morning or five o’clock in the morning but on certain days I get up early and I spend two hours getting things done. It might be emails, client work, I might need to kind of brainstorm some things I’m clearest in the morning, but also when I have time totally dedicated and when I don’t I’m not trying to think about a bunch of different things.
This is what happens when we multitask and for the longest time. I thought well I can, you know, do several things at once but while you can literally do multiple things at once, you can’t think about multiple things at one time. For example if I am doing email support but I also need to try to think of something that you could do dual, create a graphic.
You’re doing email support, creating a graphic or maybe you’re doing customer service, you’re answering the phone and you also schedule social media or doing a graphic, something that doesn’t require you to think. You can do one thinking thing and a non thinking thing, like not too deep. Right. And that will work at the same time.
But if you’re having to do things that require your brain power, you can’t multitask that. I needed clear brain space and that’s what the two hours was for, the clear brain space. This kinda touches on the whole the gift of time episode which a lot of you really, really liked that episode.
If you haven’t listened to that one, go back and listen to that one as well. What I’ll do is put these links in the show notes. If you go to tiffany parson dot com, that’s where you’ll see the show notes for everything.
But anyway, set dedicated, set dedicated time in two hour blocks.
Oh my gosh, it was like a whole new life. Hold on. I’m like, yes, this is exactly what I remember when I didn’t have a choice when I was in corporate America and I did not have a choice.
I only had a couple of hours to get things done every single day and I worked it like crazy and that’s where you may be right now. Or you may be in a situation where you’re full time in your virtual assistant business and you have so much time on your hands that you’re letting things kind of slip through.
You don’t have a set dedicated time, do that, set dedicated time for your business, decide what two hours it’s gonna be or what days it’s gonna be and stick to it. Now, I realize there may be days or you won’t be able to stick to the set time block, but at least commit to the day and know, okay, I need to get a couple of hours in and get it done.
The second tip I have for you is not to overthink things.
Right, just like recording this podcast.
We just came home from running errands. They’re expecting snow sometime this weekend, so we’re getting all this stuff for that and came home and I realized okay, it came to me an idea of what to come to you and talk about.
It was almost as if dialing a friend and calling up and having something to say. I was like, let me just run upstairs, I’m already dressed and turn my phone recording on and just go ahead and jump right into it.
If I had sat down and started thinking about the episode and like, okay, let me think, let me sit down, let me write a note. Then this would be delayed.
But, by just going ahead and jumping right into it, get it done. I wrote some real quick notes while I was setting up and here we are right into the episode.
You can take this, that tip with you just in things you have to do around the house. If you need to, you know, wash dishes, unload the dishwasher or whatever it is, something real quick. Put laundry in, fold laundry. Just if you think about it too long, you will put it off for even longer.
So stop doing that.
Set dedicated time for your business and it doesn’t have to be seven days a week. Hey, you need rest, you need a break, you want to have fun, you have a life, be realistic, you know what you need to do.
I have my schedule here, I do 6:30am. To 8:30am, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. I have my little cheat sheet here for my new office hours and then Monday and Wednesday 6:30pm. To 8:30pm. Those are my days. Those are my time blocks. Of course it can go over, but this gives me a base and some of the days may be a little flexible like this morning.
I just could not get up early. I had a rough day yesterday and so I slept in and I did it a little later. It was more like midday today, right. But the point is having that day and getting the things done. So I hope that helps you. I hope you have a wonderful start to your new year.
That’s all I have for you today. Next week I’ll have a few community announcements and let you know what were the top episodes in 2021. I’m just curious what it look like in regards to Facebook, Youtube and the audio podcast. We’ll see all of that next week. Thank you so much for joining us. Come back again next week.
You have a wonderful and fantastic day!
Much love,
Tiffany
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