task management

Are You On Your Way to Burnout?

How’s it going in your business? Are you stressed? anxious? nervous? excited? tired? BUSY? When we are asked this question, often the answer is BUSY. We don’t ever mind sharing that, but we would probably be less inclined to use any of those other words to describe how things are going if someone asks. Why is that? Isn’t it normal to be stressed or excited in business? The point of being an entrepreneur is that we have a fire lit in our bellies that we want to work towards every day. But the truth is, we often just keep those feelings inside and share that we are ‘busy’. To me, when you filter the response you give people, that could… Read More »Are You On Your Way to Burnout?

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Favourite Tools for VAs: Slack

Slack is a new way to collaborate with your colleagues or your clients. It’s a simple, hashtag based communication system that helps keep your conversations organized, and your to do lists too. I have started using it recently with one client, and we really find it easier to keep things organized that using email, which was our only previous solution for collaboration since there are only two of us working together. I like the simplicity of setting up a hashtag (called a channel) and keep all of the relevant information about that topic together in the same thread. I like it better than checking email – I’ve set it up on my phone so I can log in and check… Read More »Favourite Tools for VAs: Slack

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How Big Is Your To-Do List? Get More Done Today!

Oh, the dreaded task list. How big is yours? Mine can get unruly sometimes. When I have a ton of things that I need to get done, I tend to do a ‘brain dump’ and build a big task list to see all of the things that I need to plan to do. But did you know that doing that can actually make things worse? If you are anxious about having too much on your plate, having it all written down in front of you can actually make you more anxious. Sound like you? If it does, then I have a suggestion for you. Stop putting so much pressure on yourself! Just do one thing. No, I mean it. Right… Read More »How Big Is Your To-Do List? Get More Done Today!

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Amp Up Your Productivity with These 5 Tips

Do you ever just look at yourself in the middle of the day and realize that you are not being productive? Maybe you are busy, doing lots of things, but you still feel like you are kind of going around in a circle, or just running in place? Busy time is not always productive time. I get people asking me all the time how to be better organized and how to get more done. Those two things go hand in hand for sure, but you don’t have to be organized to be more productive every day. (It helps!) Here are few tips that I use regularly to make sure that what I am doing is productive work, and not just… Read More »Amp Up Your Productivity with These 5 Tips

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Your VA Mentor: Simple Tips to Help You Manage Multiple Clients

Simple Tips to Help You Manage Multiple VA Clients

This week I received an email from a VA who said that with all the training that people offer for Virtual Assistants, she hasn’t found anyone who teaches how to work with multiple clients. She had some specific questions about how to manage her client work. I understood that she was asking how to collaborate with clients and make sure that you had boundaries and procedures in place to ease the flow of work back and forth. She replied that it wasn’t what she was looking for. So we dug a bit deeper, and that’s when we got to her real question: how do you put systems in place to manage your workload during the day? Her specific example was… Read More »Simple Tips to Help You Manage Multiple VA Clients

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Slow Down! You’ll Get More Done

Many small business owners I meet respond to the question ‘how are things?’ with an all-encompassing, chest-thumping ‘busy!’ Of course we are all busy. We all have things to get done, and things to schedule around those other things too. It can get out of hand. My advice? Slow down! When we stop moving at such a ferocious pace, we can slow down and actually be aware of what is going on around us. The holidays is a time when we seem to have even less time, as there is much to do personally as well as in our business. I notice the urgency in the emails I receive at this time of year – last minute holiday sales, and… Read More »Slow Down! You’ll Get More Done

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Boundaries Help You Build a Better VA Business

“You teach people how to treat you.” Boundaries are essential to any successful business. There are boundaries that are necessary for many parts of your business, but in terms of client boundaries, you need to really think about many things, and you need to set your own policies or boundaries to manage the different personalities that will be working within your business. It’s critical in a virtual business when you are working with more than one client, to be able to articulate how you work with your clients. It’s true that you teach people how to treat you – by the way you set them up, by the way you interact with them, and by the way you react to… Read More »Boundaries Help You Build a Better VA Business

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