by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Jan 4, 2013 | Delegation, Entrepreneur, Social Media
Welcome to the first week of 2013 and what a productive week it was: new clients, consults and projects!
As a Virtual Assistant, part of my day is content curation and this affords me the opportunity to do quite a bit of reading. While some days it seems like a digital overload and my bandwidth has far exceeded it’s elasticity. I love to find relevant content to put into play or share with my network to help demonstrate the positive growth opportunities that can be achieved via outsourcing.
I am very passionate about it and not just because it is my business, but because it works; because it is true; because there is “science” to prove it. With 168 hours in the work week, it is important to choose your activities and projects that make the most sense for yourself and your business. The Sales Blog said: “Successful people spend their time where they create value. They delegate, eliminate, or defer activities where they cannot create value.”
Three of my favorite topics are time management, productivity and delegating as they all support you, your organization and goals for success. This theme seemed to be very prevalent across many news platforms and blogs this week which further supports the evidence that in order to experience growth, you need these key elements.
Weekly Words of Wisdom
“A clear vision, backed by definite plans, gives you a tremendous feeling of confidence and personal power.” Brian Tracy
“As a business owner it can be difficult to let someone else take care of your baby, but it is almost always in the business’s best interest to create a team with diverse and useful skills to improve processes.” Curt Finch
“If you want to make good use of your time, you’ve got to know what’s most important and then give it all you’ve got.” Lee Iacocca
“Smart outsourcing means remembering just because I can do something, doesn’t mean I should be doing something.” Trista Harris
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” Jim Rohn
Weekly Relevant Content
The Productivity Issue Fast Company: an incredible compilation of resource articles
Delegate and Know When to Let Go of Small Business Operations Small Business Trends
30sec Tip: Identify Your Peak Hour of Productivity Life Hacker
4 Fantastic Time Management Quotes & How To Put Them Into Practice Pick the Brain
80% Is Good Enough: Grow Your Business By Delegating Forbes
How To Outsource Your Most Dreaded Tasks Fast Company
My New Productivity Tweaks for 2013 Ray Edwards
These are just a few of the articles that delighted me this week. They truly are eye candy or should I say brain candy for me and further exemplify the clear need for time management, productivity tools (plans) and delegation in order to experience personal and professional growth.
Wishing you a successful and productive 2013.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Sep 11, 2012 | Delegation, Time Management, Virtual Assistant
As an entrepreneur, your success depends on you, your time and your efforts. Yes, you have heard me say this before, but when we choose to manage every task or project that comes across our desk, we become less efficient, effective as well as stressed out because things are not getting done. Our high priority tasks fall by the way side while we end up doing busy work or more mundane tasks that are essentially a waste of our valuable time.
The actions you take today determine the outcomes of tomorrow.
Delegating the non-income producers is a sure fire way to strike up your productivity and output, generating a spark in your bottom-line. Your virtual assistant can be a tremendous asset to you and your company. Starting with a strong foundation and understanding is key your mutual success.
When partnering with a virtual assistant:
- Know your core genius and delegate other low payoff activities, leveraging your valuable time on essential business functions
- Share your long term and short term company goals as well as those for your VA partnership
- Provide a clear outline of project details, expectations and deadlines
- Define your most desired and effective means of communication
- Utilize your virtual assistant as a brainstorming partner, your own personal sounding board
- Understand that a virtual assistant is not an employee but a business colleague, a collaborator, helping to ensure your business goals are met
- Don’t be afraid to ask about other service solutions just because your need is not listed on their website
- Be prepared to use a variety of web-based tools that will help streamline your communications, social media and project management
- Develop a rapport and positive working relationship with open communications and accountability
- Provide feedback on all projects
Your turn!! What do you feel is most important when working with a virtual assistant?
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | May 21, 2012 | Delegation, Organization
We are repeatedly bombarded by data overload via our push notifications, social media notices, text messages, phone calls, e-mails, Skype chats and news alerts on a daily basis. It is marvelous to always be connected, in touch and just a mere keystroke away. You are never alone and continuously up to date in both your personal and professional life. But there is a hitch and that is the negative impact it has on our concentration.
As a technologically in-tune society, we must learn to filter the urgency of our incoming communications in order to remain dedicated to the tasks at hand. The constant interruptions have a pronounced impact on our productivity and efficiency level, never mind time management. If we continue to allow outside distractions to compete for our time and focus, we are unable to give our absolute attention to our present moment and activities.
Computerworld reports that we are now living in a world of “interruption technology.”
Learning to unplug and tune out can present a challenge for many, but as an entrepreneur, it is paramount to your success, effectiveness and time management. Researchers at the University of Kent in Australia monitored the eye movements of 100 people using an eyeball-tracking camera. They asked the participants to read a section of text on a computer screen, before disturbing them with one-minute messages – like phone calls. The research subjects were then told to resume the original reading, while the eye-tracking camera analyzed how they did so. The investigators discovered that there was an average 17% increase in the total time it took to read the whole passage on the screen.
Psychology lecturer Ulrich Weger was quoted as saying: “I wasted time by reading emails whenever they came into my inbox. I noticed that once I had started reading the name of the sender, I read the first line of the text. Once I mastered that, I continued reading the entire message, and once I got to that point, I felt compelled to respond because there was no point in leaving an already half-finished task. Then sometimes I needed extra information to answer the message, so had to add other tasks.” Which meant it was harder to get back to the original task.
Now just imagine all of the alerts and communications you receive during the day; probably much more than what was instituted in the above research. If there was a 17% increase in the length of time it took to read the passage, can you imagine how your output is affected with a continual barrage of steady disturbances?
Here are a few tips to assist you in halting unnecessary diversions:
- Schedule time on your calendar to tune out and turn off
- Let others know you are “off limits” during certain working hours
- Close the door or put on earbuds
- Silence your Smartphone
- Just say NO to social media! (Facebook and Twitter updates are always accessible).
- Shutdown everything that notifies you of an alert, sound, or other announcement (your e-mail will still be waiting for you).
- COMMIT to your decision to focus and jump in with gusto
- Once your project is completed, come up for air, stretch, respond to voicemails, text messages and other communications.
- Grab an energy snack to refuel for your next session
Remember, being offline is an industrious act toward completing your projects, achieving your goals and remaining on task. You will see a considerable increase in your productivity as you continue to shield yourself from outside disturbances.
Turning off isn’t just for the business world. We are electronically tethered 24/7 and this crosses into our personal boundaries. It becomes too much when we allow technology to consume our time and energy away from the present moment, sacrificing the things that truly matter.
How do you tune out and limit distractions?
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | May 2, 2012 | Delegation, Organization
Decrease desktop clutter.- File or discard papers and folders.
- Purge outdated materials, manuals, scraps of paper in your drawers.
- update customer management database with ALL client/prospect data and discard associated paper.
- Assign a place for everything and keep everything in its place.
- file as you go, don’t wait until “sometime” to put things in their place.
- Organize your workspace for maximum productivity.
- Reserve your inbox for action items.
- Create email folders to organize your inbox and sent emails.
- Break down large projects into smaller tasks, and prioritize them. Block off time each day until the project is completed.
- All projects and tasks should have clear goals, objectives, and deadlines.
- Plan your To Do list for the following day before you leave work.
- Break your To Do list into categories
- Must do with deadlines
- Open-ended tasks (i.e. reorganizing files)
- Enter calls and appointments into your calendar.
- Take a break to refresh and refocus, without interruptions.
- Set aside 1 hour per day for NO technology: you do not answer phones or respond to emails or engage in office communication. You take this time to regroup and work on pressing issues, modifying your To Do list, and working on projects.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Apr 19, 2012 | Delegation, Executive Administration
One of the most important lessons a business owner can learn is that you do not have to do everything, nor are you able to. Communicating your vision to others and empowering others to take an active role within the organization is important. Empowerment can only come if you effectively delegate projects and responsibilities to others. When delegating make sure the person you are giving responsibility to knows exactly what is expected and has the interests and skills to successfully complete the task.
Delegation is giving others the authority to act on your behalf, accompanied with responsibility and accountability for results. Three basic but major skills needed to be an effective delegator are:
1. Trust – You must believe in the people you delegate to.
2. Honesty – You must be honest with them in what your expectations are.
3. Communication – You must clearly articulate what you need done.
by Ace Concierge | Virtual Assistant | Mar 30, 2012 | Delegation, Executive Administration, Time Management
To focus ON your business rather than IN it!
Delegating to a virtual assistant is actually a low cost, high impact solution to your admin and concierge style needs.
May I invite you to consider if you outsourced just 4 hours per week, or 16 hours per month of the back end office details that you must currently attend on a daily basis, how much time you would gain to focus on income generating activities? As you know, when we attempt to manage some of these tasks, allotting 5-15 mins per each, it usually does take longer. Add up this time spent throughout the day and these initially small projects can equate to larger time robbers that keep you from doing what you do best, what only you can do.
There is a large ROI when you choose to delegate on a virtual basis. One of the cost savings of utilizing a virtual assistant is that you only pay for project time and there are no extraneous cost factors. What might help you to further investigate the value of a virtual assistant is a short but eye-opening exercise. For just one week, keep a log or spreadsheet of every task you work on, if you were able to complete it, the time spent …etc and at the end of the week, review your list and see how much time was spent generating revenue and how much time was spent on projects/tasks that could have been successfully delegated.
If you had spent say 15 hours on admin tasks:
• Is that truly your expertise?
• Is this where you generate income?
• What would have been a better use of your time?
• Could you have been more focused on the customer’s needs?
• Would you have had more time for business development?
• Worked ON your business rather than IN it?
Ace Concierge will:
• Increase your productivity
• Enhance your time management
• Improve your efficiency
• Give you back some of your work life balance
• Manage the back end details so you can manage your business
• Be one call, one text, one tweet away for assistance
Think about your options. Ask any questions. Review the data.
