There are plenty of tips and tricks for successful time management out there. Just googling the phrase will throw up list after list of tried and tested time management ideas, and some of them really do work!
However, as your business grows, you may find yourself in a situation where no amount of tips and tricks will be enough to help you manage your workload. There will always be meetings to go to, phone calls to take, admin to see to… the list goes on.
With this in mind, we’re confident that the secret to successful time management is getting someone else to manage it for you. Now, we know what you’re thinking – how can you possibly find someone to do that? And how will they go about it?
Enter, Virtual Assistants.
The purpose of a Virtual Assistant is to support your business from behind the scenes – that includes helping you manage your time and your workload. But how do we do it?
The Secret to Successful Time Management
To support you with time management, a Virtual Assistant can:
Help you pinpoint where you’re spending most of your time
As Virtual Assistants, we like to get to know our clients first before we begin working with them. Within these introductions, we help them to pinpoint what they’re currently spending the majority of their time on. For some clients, piles of admin mean they run out of time to focus on business growth, or others find credit control to be incredibly time-consuming.
By identifying these time-consuming tasks, our clients are then able to establish what they need to delegate in order to improve their time management. If they feel it necessary, they can delegate these tasks to us, or they can delegate them to other members of their team who have the necessary skills to get the job done to a high quality.
Help you prioritise your workload
When you’re running a successful business, everything seems like a priority. Some tasks may be more urgent than others, but you’ll still feel pressure to get everything done as soon as possible, which can have a negative knock-on effect on your time management. You may end up beginning work early or finishing late just to fit everything in.
When you invest in a Virtual Assistant to take certain tasks off your hands, you’ll be in a far better position to prioritise the tasks still on your to-do list. For example, if your Virtual Assistant is now responsible for your content creation and admin, you’ll be able to schedule in time to complete your most urgent tasks, as well as extra tasks that will help your business grow but may have been overlooked before due to your heavy workload.
Reduce the need for you to multitask
It’s always tempting to multitask when your workload is heavy, and you’re short on time. The pressure to make a start on all of your essential tasks builds up, and you find yourself doing little bits of everything. While this may make you feel like you’re being productive, it’s actually a bit like spinning plates – you’ll eventually drop one!
Multitasking also makes it more difficult for you to complete tasks, meaning that overall, productivity is reduced when you’re focused on more than one task at a time.
Investing in a Virtual Assistant means removing tasks like credit control, admin, content creation or data entry from your to-do list so that your focus isn’t being pulled in a million different directions. You’ll be left with a manageable amount of tasks that you can give your full attention to, meaning you’ll be able to complete them in a shorter amount of time and to a higher standard.
Ensure you stick to your daily schedule
Creating and sticking to a daily schedule is one of the most popular time management tricks. Blocking time out for particular tasks and setting boundaries and deadlines for completing work should work in theory – but what happens if there’s not enough time on your schedule to get everything you need to do, done?
In the same way that Virtual Assistants reduce the need for you to multitask, they can also help you to stick to your schedule by reducing your workload. Again, they’ll take vital tasks off your hands, leaving you with a schedule that is both manageable and achievable.
Schedules that are filled to the brim and near impossible to stick to can lead to feelings of frustration and demotivation. Investing in a Virtual Assistant eliminates these concerns and leaves you feeling capable, in control and motivated to get your remaining tasks done.
Allow you to be flexible
While your workload may be manageable sometimes, there may be other times when it becomes overwhelming. Investing in a Virtual Assistant service that offers flexible working packages allows you to be flexible in your time management.
If your workload is exceptionally heavy one month, you won’t need to work hours and hours of overtime to keep on top of it and potentially add to your workload for the next month if you can’t squeeze everything in. A Virtual Assistant will step in immediately to reduce your workload. On the other end of the scale, if your workload is lighter one month and you feel your to-do list is manageable, your Virtual Assistant can step back and leave you to it.
Flexibility in the support we provide really does take the pressure off, especially if your workload becomes heavier unexpectedly.
Successful Time Management Support at The Edwards Company
Here at The Edwards Company, our main aim is to make life easier for our clients. Whether that involves sharing advice to help them manage workload and time or taking time-consuming tasks like credit control, content creation, admin or data entry off their hands, we’ll go above and beyond to support them in the best way we can.
Not only do our services ensure tasks are completed in a timely manner and to a high standard, but we’ll also help you when it comes to prioritising tasks, sticking to your schedule and reducing the need to multitask.
For more information on our Virtual Assistant services, please do not hesitate to get in touch.