how to manage stress

Set Healthy VA Boundaries to Avoid Stress and Burnout

Have you ever felt that your clients are interrupting you, or seem too demanding? Many VAs I know have trouble with clients having expectations that they can’t meet. They struggle to make deadlines. They work morning, noon and night to get client work done. They are tired. And not very happy. Sometimes it starts because you allow clients to break your boundaries. Sometimes you don’t have boundaries to begin with. Either way, the key to happy clients and being a happy VA is setting healthy boundaries. Just because we are support professionals, does not mean that we have to do everything the client asks for – when they ask for it. What we need to do is provide the best… Read More »Set Healthy VA Boundaries to Avoid Stress and Burnout

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Looking for the Upside During Challenging Times

The world has been slowed to a crawl because of Coronavirus. How are you coping? When things aren’t going the way we want them to in our business – we don’t have enough clients, or we don’t make enough money, or we burn ourselves out because we don’t charge enough (or can’t say no to a client) – it is easy (oh so easy!) to get down. It is easy to let the bad stuff overtake your mind, and your thoughts. With a pandemic, many things are out of our control. It can be even harder to see the upside. You might realllly have to look for it some days. Here are a few tips that might help: 1. Talk… Read More »Looking for the Upside During Challenging Times

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Do This 3 Times a Day and Watch Your Productivity Soar

Do you get to the end of every day and still have a long list of things to do?  Or worse, do you work later than you planned too often because you still have so much to do at the end of your day? Have you ever considered why that happens? We often blame it on our task lists being too long to start with … but it’s probably not that at all. When you regularly run out of time before your daily tasks are completed, first check how much you are putting on your to-do list. If it should have been manageable enough, then it’s time to look at exactly how you are spending your time every day. Manage your schedule instead… Read More »Do This 3 Times a Day and Watch Your Productivity Soar

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Following My Own Advice

Certain times of year, picking up email can get tiresome. I notice that the busiest time for my inbox usually begins before American Thanksgiving, and continues all the way till the end of the calendar year. Before the ‘holidays’ as the US refers to them, things are relatively calm. (In Canada our ‘holidays’ usually refer to Christmas – from say the 22nd till the day after New Year’s Day). This year I have more email to manage than normal – since I purchased GAVA and CAVA, that it totally okay with me! And I am also slowing down my client work and transitioning some clients to new VAs, so my inbox is slowing down for that kind of work. So… Read More »Following My Own Advice

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How to Manage Your Stress Level

Being a solopreneur can take its toll on your body, and your mind. There is always an incomplete list of things that need doing. There are always better ways to do the things you do daily. There are always other people who seem to be doing things better than you are doing them. Or at least it feels that way sometimes. When you get up in the morning, are you still excited to get your day started? If you are, that’s amazing. Hold on to that feeling! (I’ll get back to you in a minute!) If you are not, you are among a very large group of people feeling the same way. (No kidding, you are not alone!) So what… Read More »How to Manage Your Stress Level

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3 Tips to Keep VAs Focused and Productive

I have seen it happen a million times. You are trucking along, and things are going well. Business is booming and you have a full day of great tasks and the daily grind doesn’t seem like such a grind. But then, somewhere, somehow, things get out of hand. Maybe you have a client doing a product launch, or entering their busiest time of the year. Maybe it’s summertime and your family life is adding pressure with their demands. Maybe you are stepping up your own marketing and trying to fit it in to your daily routine. Whatever the reason, you wake up in the morning tired, you run all day long, and you drop into bed at night knowing that… Read More »3 Tips to Keep VAs Focused and Productive

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Making Lemonade with Lemons In Your VA Business

You know those times that you look at something in your business and just go ‘ugh’? You know the things I mean … either you are looking at revenue that is lower than you expected, or expenses that are higher than expected, or working with a client you don’t adore, or doing tasks you don’t really enjoy. You know, all those things that make you stop and go ‘ugh’! Well the good news is that you are in charge! It’s your business! You can make changes any time you want to. And no one can tell you that you can’t make those changes. Really! How often do we NOT stop to realize that? We are the boss! So I say, when things get you down (big or small),… Read More »Making Lemonade with Lemons In Your VA Business

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Do You Feel Like You Are All Alone in Your VA Business?

Do you ever feel like you are all alone in your business? It’s such a common feeling – because we are mainly solopreneurs, we spend a lot of our time on our own. Busy times take us away from the social atmosphere of working online and we can get lonesome, quickly. It happens to me all the time. If it happens to you, you are not alone! I’m not really talking about wanting to socialize though, not really. I’m talking about making decisions in our business on your own. Spending your own money on expenses. Feeling down about revenue if you aren’t making as much as you want. When we think we have to be an island, that’s when things… Read More »Do You Feel Like You Are All Alone in Your VA Business?

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