One of the things that ‘busy’ people often lament is the lack of time. Well there is only so much time available. If you find yourself wishing you had more time, it would be a good exercise to look at exactly where you are spending yours.

Here are 6 places that you can focus on to help ‘find more time’ in your day.

Set office hours. Whether you are working part-time or full-time, it’s important to select some office hours and set them. By setting hours, you are telling people when they will be able to reach you. Your family and your clients will be happier knowing exactly when you are working and when you are not. Some virtual professionals work around their family activities. And while this is doable, and even encouraged, it’s important to still figure out what that looks like on a regular basis (confusing your clients and partners with odd hours and last minute days away is not the way to build your business). For instance if you often help at your child’s school, try to figure out a regular routine for that and set your business hours around that. If your children come home from school and ‘need you’ starting at 3 pm every day, be sure to end your business hours by the time they get home. If you are transitioning from a full time job to your new virtual business, set some time aside during the business day to return calls and emails (once is plenty). When your office is ‘closed’, be sure not to be working, as well. You owe it to yourself.

Set boundaries. By setting time that you will be ‘in your office’, you are effectively setting boundaries – for your clients, for your family, and for yourself. Boundaries are important, because there is nothing worse than having your clients or partners expecting to hear back from you within an hour of a call or an email… and not getting back to them during that time. Boundaries are important from the very beginning of any client relationship. Let them know your response times, and how to reach you in an emergency. Also be sure to indicate what constitutes an emergency! Planning regular production calls with support personnel each week can help with boundaries, because everyone is on the same page with what work will be done over the coming week, and you can let them know any scheduling issues while on the phone. And it goes without saying that your family will be happier if you are not checking email every five minutes when you’re supposed to be watching your son or daughter in the school play or on the hockey rink!

Schedule time and get organized. Getting and staying organized is sometimes a challenge when you are trying to balance work and family life. I start every morning by putting together a task list for the day. I figure out when I will do each item and then I set my day up to take care of everything. I am lucky to have a full time virtual business, so my business hours for clients are 10 to 4 from Monday to Friday. I go into my office each day by 9 and leave at 5, and try to shut the door when I am finished for the day. So any household things typically get done outside of those hours. I try to disrupt my family as little as possible, so if I have extra work to do, I start earlier or work after they have gone to bed (which actually isn’t that often at all!), but their routines are disrupted as little as possible. The extra hour on either side of my business hours lets me organize my own business things. It’s not perfect every day, but it’s a good system and it works well. Knowing what is going to get done, and when, is one of the most important parts of my business.

Manage email, the phone and meetings. Email can be the biggest drain on your time during the day. However, phone calls and meetings can be equally disruptive. I have regularly scheduled phone calls with my clients each week, which mainly take about 15 minutes. Other than that, I don’t take phone calls unless they are scheduled. If my clients need me they know to email me or to leave me a voicemail and I’ll get back to them when I have some free time. Of course there are exceptions… but this is my boundary and all of my clients respect it. It helps me to keep on task with whatever I am doing for the day. Meetings are the same – if they are to be a half hour, then I leave the meeting after a half hour to go on with my day. Keeping this policy in place helps me to keep my day organized and helps me from falling behind on what I have planned to do for the day.

Get support and delegate. If you are planning to have a successful virtual business that will allow you to work less and make more money, you will at some point need to get support to help you process client work. So start early! If you do a lot of one thing for your clients, then find someone who you can start to work with you help you with work overflow. You will be able to take on new clients more easily if you already have someone in place to help you when necessary. Alternately, you can get someone to work with who does things that you do not do (ie for me it’s client liaison work and graphics) so you can offer your clients a full service experience. As you start to work with a client, develop procedures for the things you do for them. Get them on paper, and then when you need to delegate the work to one of your support people, you will already have your procedures in place. This creates better flow and a lot less supervision. You can work with VAs or other virtual professionals, depending on what kind of help you need.

Avoid multitasking. I used to be really proud to say I could handle more than one task at a time. I don’t think I worded that correctly. I can certainly juggle a lot of different things in a morning, but I only actually do one thing at a time. Multi-tasking is only effective when one item has your full attention. If you try to do three different things simultaneously, you will end up spending more time on each of them because your attention is divided. I break my work up into 15 minute segments. If I am working on one client’s work, I put everyone else’s away for that length of time. I get it done faster, I can schedule the next task for that client, and then I move onto the next. So that’s what I consider to be multitasking – doing many things during the course of the day, and juggling the time to get them all done when they need to be done. But never doing more than one thing at a time. Concentration is key, and when you are billing clients by the time you work on their task, it’s important to give their work your undivided attention.

If you really look at each of these areas, and write down where you are spending your time, you will see that you can buy back a lot of wasted time. Why do I know that fixing these areas will ‘find you more time’? Because I’ve been guilty of all of them at one time or another, and I have seen the difference it can make to get them in order. See for yourself… try just one (like the email one or the phone calls!) and see how much more productive and organized you will be.

Your VA Mentor is here! I have put together a training and mentor program for new Virtual Assistants, to help them get set up for success.

I am extremely proud of the course materials I have been putting together over the last few weeks (truthfully they have been coming together in bits and pieces over the last several years … it is so great to be able to pull them together and polish them!), and I know that my students are going to get some amazing information in this course – not to mention the bonuses I have planned for them!

You can get more information about the program itself (and me!) at my website: www.yourvamentor.com.

I feel very fortunate to have a very successful VA business, and I am happy that I can share my knowledge of the VA industry with people who are just starting out. I am excited to share my tips and tools and guide them through the process of getting set up in a professional manner so they can sign those clients!

My business has boomed in the last year and I now take new clients only by referral. I have hired team members to help me get it all done. I have developed systems and procedures for everything I do so that I can be sure that my clients are getting the best support they deserve, and so that my team feels confident as they work on new projects.

I am looking forward to sharing my strategies and how I built my business with my Your VA  Mentor students. The first class starts tomorrow night (Wed May 19) and registration is still open until noon tomorrow. You can choose to pay all at once or choose our convenient payment plan. Another session will be scheduled soon, but act fast, because the early bird price will not be available much longer!

(If you are an established VA, ask us about our affiliate program … you can earn great commissions for referring people to us!)

I use Laurie Bornstein’s philosophy about clearing clutter when I need to get things like this done:

1. Start small – tackle one small thing at a time and you will get more done in a shorter period of time.
2. Clear out one full item (whether that is a desk drawer, shelf, email folder, computer folder, etc.) and then only put back the things you need. Decide where the other items belong and get rid of what is unnecessary.
3. Move on to the next item and repeat the procedure!

It’s really simple and it really does work. It breaks the task down into manageable chunks and it helps you to keep focused on the task at hand. I cleaned up one whole computer and moved a number of items from a second computer to my laptop.

When you work from home it can very easy to get distracted by things that are not work-related, or are non-billable time. I have mentioned in my previous posts that I am getting back to my perpetual learning mode, and it can be a distraction to have course material on my work computer, so I moved it so I can’t access it during business hours.

Little things like this can really go a long way to helping you focus on the task at hand when you are working virtually.

Take the time to clear the clutter out of your way, and be prepared to be more productive!

I have already shopped for a new office chair, which I have needed for way too long. I have already set up my music selection which I love!

I have a great filing system for my email, computer files and paper files, but I am looking forward to purging, purging, purging much of this that is no longer necessary to keep on file. I’ll give my recycle bin and my shredder a workout, that’s for sure!

I will clear the clutter that has accumulated in my office. I have two desks in my office and one of them is a catch-all for all kinds of paper. I clean it off occasionally, but now I will want to work at that desk, so I will have to make sure that I have a better way of managing the stuff that ends up there now!

Of course as I purge, I am finding all kinds of gems that I have printed or saved over the last several months ‘to read when I have time’.  The collection of free ebooks and reports and mp3s is really mind-boggling. Luckily my computer filing system is good and I am having no trouble going through them, picking out the important pieces, and purging the rest. I will probably share some of these with you as I weed through them!

I always thought that electronic copies of things were more environmentally friendly, but my computer hard drive disagrees! I have recently done the same with email lists that I belonged to that were not serving me. It’s important to keep the flow of information that comes in front of you relevant and pertinent, in order to maintain your focus and clarity.

As I brighten the space around me by clearing the clutter in all of these areas, I am making really tidy room for the client work that is on the horizon! Looking forward to it!

I did come across an interesting article about napping though. It does in fact boost brain power and I particularly like the reference to the brain email inbox. Have you ever felt like you are on communication overload?

In any case, I am still focusing on ME time over the next couple of weeks. I am enjoying a lot more quality time with my husband and my son and we are even going on a ski trip in a couple of weeks. (Well, there will be people skiing around us, anyway.)

ME Time is really important in general, but when you run your own business and work from home, you can only be GREAT for your clients if you make sure to take care of yourself first. By taking care of yourself, you will be much more prepared to take care of others.

Note to self: book facial and pedicure (spring is on the way and if you know me, that means sandals!!) and maybe even a haircut and a massage. I deserve it!

I have recently finished working with my last on-site client and am now back home in my office five days a week. This is a great change for many reasons, and I am looking forward to settling into my new routine!

When you work from more than one location, it can be difficult to focus on your task list. It takes great organization and often requires putting in extra hours to keep on track because of all the stopping and starting.

I have a very full client roster these days (yay for my clients!) and so juggling time away from my office during business hours was sometimes very difficult to manage. I found myself working very early in the morning and very late at night, often, just to keep the workflow going smoothly.

I am very happy to be back home full-time, and focused on scheduling my time any way that suits me.

As I look around my office, I know there will be change ahead of me. I have a great email system but I know I will tweak it. I have a great filing system but I know I will change it. I have other things that I have no systems for. I know I will develop those. For those of you who know me, that’s an exciting phase for me! I love systems!

In my business, there will be even bigger change. I look forward to blogging regularly and tending to my social networks, and even getting a newsletter started. I am revising my service offerings and focusing on my ideal client. I am building a team of people that will help me take care of my clients’ needs and help me grow my business too.

It’s going to be great, and I am happy to jump in with both feet!

It’s nice to be back home!

It seems like just yesterday, and yet it was so long ago. In fact, the world has dramatically changed so much since then. See my previous post to get an idea of what happened over the last 10 years!

It makes me wonder where we might be in another 10 years, or even five years … or even next year!

Where will I be? Well, I have been putting a lot of thought into that lately, that’s for sure. I have been working with my business coaches, Paige Stapleton and Brian Stark for several months now (love them!!) and we have been carving out my path for the future.

I am embarking on the new year with much transition planned. With Paige and Brian’s help, I have been able to obtain focus and clarity for my business, the likes of which I could not have obtained on my own. Their guidance and support has been invaluable to me and I know it will continue to be as we get things together for my business transition.

Don’t worry, I’m not going away! Quite the opposite, actually! I am focusing on fewer service offerings and narrowing down my niche, so that I can provide more streamlined services and support to my ideal clients, while growing my own business at the same time.

It seemed like the right time to do this, and while it is a lot of work to get it all together, it has brought me comfort and strength at the same time. It has built my level of confidence in what I do. It has helped me to identify what I do best, what I enjoy doing the most, and who I most enjoy working with. It has helped me concentrate on the things that matter most to me. It has helped me get to know myself as a business person.

Do you have a business coach? If not, I would highly recommend it. You get a toolbox of goodies that helps you analyze and streamline your strengths, and you get your very own personal cheerleader. Who doesn’t want that?

So I wish you all the best of the remainder of the holidays and keep an eye out for the new and exciting things on my horizon. I hope it will inspire you to take the time to focus on your own business as the new year begins. You will be glad you did!