A Day In The Life Of A Virtual Assistant

Many times, people will ask what I do and when I tell them I am a virtual assistant, they look at me bewildered. I proceed to tell them that I assist clients with work virtually. And still, I see the confusion in their eyes. Questions revolve around working for more than one person and how I manage to balance the different work on a daily basis. I explain my day and week are like a jigsaw puzzle where I find time for all of my clients’ tasks throughout the day. 

As Sarah Clarkson so eloquently described in our last blog:

“Simply put, a virtual administrative assistant is an independent professional who provides critical support services to businesses and entrepreneurs from a remote environment. Virtual administrative assistants, or VAs, are highly-skilled contractors that can help a company with a wide variety of tasks, ranging from administrative and technical to marketing and even creative work. By taking care of essential, recurring, and at times tedious tasks, virtual administrative assistants free up a manager’s time so that he or she can focus on growing the company and generating revenue.”

Sarah described in depth what a virtual assistant is and how he or she works. But to delve further and to help people understand that I do not work for one client but many, I will describe the jigsaw puzzle that is my typical day as a virtual assistant. 

Power Hour

I have written about my Power Hour (PH) in the past. To refresh your memory, my PH is the same time every day (usually early morning) when I reflect on how my day ended yesterday and I take an in-depth look at what needs to be done today. Currently, my Power Hour includes assessing the needs of the  4 clients I work with. Two are major where I am actually an employee for their businesses. They are my priority. For both of them, I have routine weekly tasks. Those happen on the same day, every week so I am able to predict that work easily. One of my smaller clients is strictly a social media client and I know that her work happens on Friday for about 2 hours. That, again, is predictable.

Time Blocking

It is all the work in between for the other 3 clients that makes my life a jigsaw puzzle. Time blocking is an important skill I learned long ago. Time blocking is when you dedicate certain hours of your day to certain tasks. That time is dedicated to a particular project or client. To help complete my jigsaw, during my PH I determine what work needs to be done in the time block for each client. 

For example, for Freedom Makers, I onboard new Freedom Makers daily. I move them from the initial step of onboarding to their final call. Each morning, I dedicate one hour to this onboarding process. It is during that time that I will not only deal with the onboarding workflow I have established but I will answer any emails I have in my inbox that pertain to new Freedom Makers.  In addition to that hour dedicated for onboarding, I have a set schedule of when I will do the onboarding calls. I set aside two hours for 4 days out of the work week for those calls. Therefore, they are not sprinkled all over my calendar.

Daily Calendar

My daily jigsaw puzzle is also made easier by the weekly, routine meetings I have for clients. For both Freedom Makers and my other major client, I have operations meetings that are set in stone each week. I know when they are and when my preparation for them must be complete. Therefore it is essential to have an excellent calendar to remind you of your routine and pop up meetings. Sometimes my allotted or time blocked time needs to be adjusted for scheduled meetings. That is why the PH is so important. By taking the time each morning to review what is on tap fo the day, you can adjust as necessary. 

I keep both a paper calendar with my to-do list of tasks as well as a Google calendar that not only has my schedule by time but I also add tasks to it by making them all day events. For example, if I need to send cash totals over to our CFO for my one client, I have that marked as an all day task on the day of in addition to being in my paper to do list on that day. Since it is an important task, I want to be sure that it is completed on time. 

In conclusion, my jigsaw puzzle of a workday becomes much clearer as I rely on tools like my Power Hour, time blocking and my daily calendar. There are definitely days when emergency work pops up and I attend to that as necessary. But overall, I can predict my days and the work I need to do by taking the time to review and plan in the mornings, blocking out time dedicated to just one client at a time and keeping a well organized and thorough calendar.