Welcome to another episode of the podcast that teaches you how to be a ridiculously good virtual assistant.
If you are asking yourself, I am so busy with VA work, I feel like I’m running to catch up all the time? you are in the right place.
Today we are talking about one of my favourite topics – time management.
Today’s Quote: “Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.” Peter Drucker
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Connect with Tracey D’Aviero, VA Coach and Trainer
Episode Notes:
The quote for today I think is especially relevant when we talk about time management: “Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.”
And I think that is particularly true when you run a virtual assistant business.
Because when you work for yourself, there is no one standing over your shoulder telling you what needs to be done next. There is no manager handing you a schedule. There isn’t necessarily a set time when your workday begins and ends.
That freedom is one of the best things about being a VA. It can also be one of the most challenging.
I always say that when you are a VA time is money – it is your time, and your client’s money. So it really is kind of more important than just time management when you think about it, because it doesn’t just affect you – it affects them.
As a VA, you suddenly have client work, emails, messages, meetings, bookkeeping, marketing, social media, proposals, networking, professional development, your own business administration, and probably a whole list of things you would like to get done soon, someday, or farther in the future.
Your time has to be split up between your family, your home, appointments, errands, dinner, maybe kids, maybe pets, maybe a million other things that have absolutely nothing to do with your VA business but still need your attention.
One of my current time fillers is renovating our ensuite bathroom – it has been ignored for a long time, cleaned, but not deep cleaned, so we have mildew spots in the ceiling and cracks in the tub wall, leaking faucets – that sounds terrible ha ha, but it’s the stuff that still needs to get done, and if we don’t actually find the time to do it, like anything, it gets worse – and takes longer to fix.
Maintenance is important! I think I’m saying that out loud so I hear it, but I hope it helps you too!
Today I want to talk about how to manage your time like a pro as a busy VA.
And when I say “like a pro,” I don’t mean that you need
to become obsessed with productivity or squeeze every possible minute out of
your day. That would probably make things worse, to be honest.
What I mean is knowing what deserves your time, protecting that time, and making intentional decisions about what you are not going to spend your time doing. It’s a much different approach.
You Don’t Have a Time Management Problem
First, consider this: You probably don’t have a time-management problem. You probably have a priority problem. Or a boundaries problem. Or a capacity problem.
Maybe your business has gotten busy, grown, but your schedule hasn’t adjusted with it.
All of these are very different problems.
For example, if you have five clients who all expect you to be available whenever they need you, no amount of fancy scheduling is going to magically create more hours in your week.
If you have committed to doing 30 hours of client work but only have 25 hours available, you don’t have a calendar problem. You have a capacity problem.
And if you spend three hours scrolling social media because you are avoiding something uncomfortable in your business, you don’t necessarily need a better productivity app. You might need to deal with whatever you are avoiding.
What Is Causing You To Feel Like You Don’t Have Enough Time?
So before you start looking for another time-management system, you need to actually ask yourself what is causing me to feel like I don’t have enough time?
With regard to my bathroom – we used to have a biweekly housecleaner. You’ve probably heard me talk about her before. We waited forever to invest in her services because we figured it was money we didn’t need to spend. Until we spent it, and man it made all the difference! When she retired we got another one, and then she retired. I think we need younger house cleaners lol.
Anyway by that time the schedules in our household had changed and most days someone was home other than me. So it made it problematic to bring in someone to clean when someone who lived here needed to sleep in because they had worked the night shift.
So we didn’t bring back the cleaner. And naturally we didn’t do that amazing job cleaning every 2 weeks that they did, so here we are now having to spend more time to fix the problem than it would have been to either pay someone new or just dedicate a little time to doing what they did.
I know, I’m all about my bathroom this week !
In terms of business, it’s the same thing – I used to try to send out my invoices without investing in a paid service to do so. I couldn’t justify spending $40 or more dollars a month to generate invoices when I had Microsoft Word and Paypal, and only a few clients.
But what I did realize was that it took longer for me to generate the invoices, I had to do it all manually – and often I would put it off because I was busy at the end of my client’s months getting their stuff out – so I sent my billing out late very regularly.
When I invested in FreshBooks, I couldn’t believe how much time I saved. Sometimes investment is the key. It wasn’t a time management problem for me in the end, it was a poverty decision. The $40 was way worth it!
The important thing is to find the real problem and then fix it.
It’s really helpful to map out the things you need to do and then think about what actually needs to happen. Because when you do that list, it’s probably going to be enormous, but when you prioritize things properly, things look SO much better.
Categorize Your Business
Break your business down in to three categories:
First, there is client work. This is the work that you have promised to do and that generates your income.
Second, there is business development. This includes marketing, networking, follow-up, sales conversations, creating content, nurturing relationships, and other activities that help you bring in future clients.
And third, there is business maintenance. This is your bookkeeping, email, organizing files, updating your website, creating processes, professional development, and all those other things that keep the business running.
All three matter. In fact they are all essential to the success of your business. But they do not all require equal amounts of your time every day, or every week even.
If you are fully booked with clients, you may need to spend most of your available work time on client work. But you have to find time for the other stuff too.
If you are struggling to get clients, however, spending six hours reorganizing your Google Drive probably isn’t the best use of your time. What is your time better spent doing in this case? Networking.
And if your business is growing quickly, you may need to deliberately carve out time for systems and processes so that everything doesn’t continue to live in your head.
This sounds obvious, but it is surprisingly easy to lose sight of. We usually migrate to the easiest things to check off our list, instead of the most important or the ones that will move us forward faster.
Cleaning up your inbox feels productive.
Reorganizing your Canva folders feels productive.
Making a beautiful new spreadsheet feels productive.
But productive and valuable are not always the same thing.
A professional time manager will ask you, “What will make
the biggest difference?” This is a question we should ask our clients all the
time – and don’t forget to ask yourself the same thing.
Not what can I get done, but what actually matters?
That brings me to the next point – where is your time even going?
If you think you know, you probably don’t – especially if you are running out of it on a daily basis.
Here’s something you can do to find out.
How To Make Changes To Your Time Management This Week
For one week, I want you to pay attention.
You don’t need to track every minute, but for one week, be more aware. Write stuff down. Notice how you are spending your business hours.
How much time are you really spending on client work?
How much time are you spending answering email?
How much time are you spending in meetings?
How much time are you spending on social media?
How much time are you spending on your own marketing?
How much time are you spending switching between tasks?
And how much time are you spending doing things that you
honestly can’t explain? All of this adds up, quickly.
I can see you: you sit down to answer one email, which reminds you of something else. So you open another tab, then you check a message, then you remember you have to send something to a client. An Instagram notification pops up. Suddenly 45 minutes have disappeared, and you haven’t finished the email you started with.
Manage Your Time Better With Buckets
This is why I recommend that you create buckets of time – with a start time and a stop time.
It can be a 5 minute bucket, a 15 minute bucket, even a 1 hour bucket. And you decide what has to get done in that bucket of time, then you do it.
No more task switching – changing from one thing to another all day long isn’t just tiring, it adds hours to your day because you aren’t focused on what actually needs to get done. Never mind the fact that you are probably losing client billable time when you are doing things that way.
But a dedicated bucket of time is tangible – it has a start and stop, it has specific tasks in it, and you won’t miss billing your client for it at the end of the day.
Before I started blocking time in buckets like this, I would run at what felt like breakneck speed all day, going from one task to another, one client to another, and at the end of the day I would total up my billable time (I worked 10 to 5 most days), and I would have 4.75 or 5.25 hours to bill my clients. And I had no idea where the rest of my time went.
Being clear on what you are going to work on for x period of time, and then sticking to that, helps you make more money – the right money – and helps you understand what you can actually get done in a day. I used to WAY overestimate that. Now I don’t.
Another important time-management skill for VAs is learning to say no. I know that can be really hard sometimes, especially if you are newer to business. We feel like they are paying us so whatever they want they get.
But you can’t get helpful if you can’t say no when you need to.
You will absolutely become overwhelmed if you don’t learn how.
Saying no might not be actually saying no, it might just be saying, I can get to that next week. Or that’s not in our current scope of work but I can do it separately and add it to your next retainer.
It’s about managing your schedule – and the clients will definitely understand this when you speak about it this way.
Your clients will all be different, and they will have different preferences, systems, deadlines, communication styles, priorities, and expectations. Your job is to figure out how to navigate all of them so that you are working efficiently and they know what’s happening, and when.
You can leave space for unexpected requests in your calendar, that’s totally fine – I’m not saying always say no. But when you have the space, you can fill it. Don’t jam your calendar trying to get everything done fast.
Not every task is urgent. Not every task is even important, or necessary. You’ve heard me say this many times.
Work with your calendar, not against it. There is no perfect schedule. You have to build yours so that it supports you and what you need to get done.
Don’t Forget Your Personal Stuff
And don’t forget your personal stuff. If you need to schedule in 20 minutes to fix a leaky washer in your faucet then do it! It can be at the end of your day or on the weekend, but make sure you that you prioritize the things that are important to you.
So many VAs leave their personal life out and then try to find time for stuff like that – we might book in Johnny’s soccer game or dinner with mom, but not the household stuff that only we will have to deal with at some point.
You created your VA business to give yourself more flexibility. Consider it all and schedule your day around the things that matter to you.
If you want to pick your kids up from school, schedule around that.
If you want to exercise in the morning, schedule around that.
If you want to have lunch away from your computer, schedule it.
If you don’t want to work evenings, make that a boundary.
You don’t have to earn the right to have a life outside
your business. The business is supposed to support your life, not the other way
around.
Having said that, you need to earn enough money in your business to support the lifestyle you want, of course.
So charging appropriately, communicating well, doing what you say you will do, mastering time management, these are all things that will make you a ridiculously good VA – and your clients will be happy and keep coming back!
Don’t Forget Systems
Finally, I want you to think about systems.
Because if you find yourself doing the same thing over
and over again, there is probably an opportunity to make it easier.
Maybe you answer the same client questions repeatedly: create
a template.
Maybe you onboard clients the same way every time: create an onboarding
process.
Maybe you are constantly looking for the same information: organize it.
Maybe you recreate the same documents: create a template.
Maybe you spend 20 minutes every week trying to remember what you need to do: create
a recurring checklist.
You don’t have to build a complicated business machine.
Just start with the things that annoy you.
If you catch yourself saying, “There has to be an easier
way to do this,” pay attention. That’s usually a clue.
And as your business grows, those small systems can save
you enormous amounts of time.
So if you want to manage your time like a pro, here is
where I would start.
Know what actually matters.
Track where your time is really going.
Group similar tasks together.
Use your calendar to protect priorities, not just appointments.
Learn to say no.
Pay attention to your actual capacity.
Leave breathing room.
Protect your personal time.
And create systems for the things you do repeatedly.
You don’t need to become more productive every single
day. What I mean by that is you don’t have to get MORE done – you just have to
be more intentional.
Sometimes the answer isn’t doing more, it’s doing less of
what doesn’t really matter. It’s charging appropriately so you can work with
fewer clients. It’s holding a boundary, or letting go of a client who really is
not a good fit.
Sometimes it’s simplifying something. In fact, it usually is.
You get to make all the decisions in your business. You get to decide when you work, who you work with, what you offer, what you charge, and what you don’t do.
So let’s circle back to today’s quote: “Until we can manage time, we can manage nothing else.”
Master your time management and you will be managing your business, and your life better.
Do You Need Help?
If you need help figuring that out, get in touch with me.
You can go to YourVAMentor.com/links to find out how to work with me.
I’d love to help you become a ridiculously good virtual assistant.
Time management is one of the BEST things you can get better at. Time IS money and when you master is, you will wonder how you ever did things any other way.
That’s all I’ve got for you this week.
Thanks so much for tuning in – I will see you next time!
