Most #entrepreneurs and #business owners start out with the vision of having freedom from the rat race of working for someone else, feeling more independent and having a better work-life balance.
The reality is that most people end up finding themselves with more admin than ever, from booking their own travel, scheduling meetings, managing their bookkeeping and feeling like they are a slave to their inbox.
It can feel relentless, not to mention frustrating, when you’re spending time on things that aren’t in your main skill set, or helping your business grow.
Here are our top 5 tasks, you can #delegate today, to free up your time and focus on what you do best:
1. Email Management
Feel like you can’t keep on top of your emails? Or that you’re spending all your time responding to emails and not focusing on the tasks you need to?
Email management can be one of the biggest stresses for business owners.
A Virtual Assistant can fully manage your emails, from responding on your behalf, flagging important emails and filing – keeping your inbox tidy and manageable.
Not only can this save you at least an hour a day (for many, a lot more), it can also give you the headspace you need, to focus on your priorities.
2. Diary Management
Diary management is another huge contribution to stress, not to mention a time zapper!
On paper, diary management sounds quick and easy…agree a date, send a calendar invitation…job done.
In reality, setting up one meeting can take a lot more time than you’d hope…from liaising with all attendees to get a date and location that works for everyone, booking meeting rooms/venues/confirming conference call information, sending maps/booking confirmations and ensuring that everyone has contact information and agendas etc.
Then there’s checking that there’s enough time in between meetings, including travel time and comfort breaks and checking that the meeting is still going ahead, a few days before.
And after that, there is always at least one meeting that needs to be rescheduled!
Before you know it, you’ve spent the best part of an hour of your time on one meeting and feel like you’re at the point of no return!
A Virtual Assistant manages diaries every day and is experienced at setting up meetings and scheduling your time in a logical way, minimising travel time or ensuring you have some time to focus on your key projects.
3. Travel Bookings
Many business owners find themselves booking their own travel, as they know where they want to go, they feel it can be quicker to do themselves and it’s a task with an end result that they can tick off their list.
A Virtual Assistant, can look for the best deal, ensure you have included relevant frequent flyer memberships, manage your full travel itinerary and have your boarding passes downloaded, ready for your flight.
They can also manage your visa applications too!
What could you be doing instead of spending time on Skyscanner or inputting your passport details?
4. Invoicing and Expenses
Are you on top of your invoicing and expenses? Do you know what invoices need to go out and when, and what has been paid?
Or are you putting off invoicing, or even not recharging for your expenses as it’s not worth your time?
A Virtual Assistant can manage your invoicing process and ensure that all expenses are accounted for and recharged back to your client, etc.
5. Project Co-ordination
Do you have lots of projects on the go that you find difficult to keep track of, or do they just keep getting pushed back, because you don’t have the time to focus on it?
A Virtual Assistant can co-ordinate and manage projects for you, manage specific tasks, keep you accountable for tasks that only you can do and report on important milestones.
Delegating project co-ordination, will mean that tasks won’t bottle neck with you and you can manage the important aspects from a high level, instead of getting involved with the detail.
So many business owners try to do it all and then berate themselves when they struggle to get everything done.
Working with a Virtual Assistant can give you time back, so you can grow and manage your business.
Get in touch to find out how our Virtual Assistants could save you time.