A virtual EA’s purpose is twofold –
- Make you more effective
- Stop you doing low-value tasks
Let’s go through both of these and discuss what a virtual EA could be doing for you. Remember, all Linked VA’s are trained specifically for their role. If you require any skills that are outside of what may be considered ‘standard’, just have a chat with one of our team, and we’ll see if we can help.*
Make you more effective
Your virtual EA should run your calendar, emails and appointment scheduling and manage any reactive changes. This mean that when something urgent comes up, or if you’re sick and need to cancel or move appointments, your EA will handle it.
You EA will also help keep you focused on the things that are are either urgent or of a high value. The result is you’re not being distracted by important tasks that don’t need to be done immediately, or done by you or ‘medium-value tasks.’
Importantly, medium-value tasks often don’t get done because you’re – rightly – focusing on high-value tasks. Then the medium-value tasks cause stress and a last-minute rush, reducing your effectiveness even further. Your EA will make sure tasks are completed in line with priority, or assigned to someone else.
Your EA can also help keep you on track with specific weekly or daily requirements. This could be follow-up with key clients, gym visits, or remembering important dates. It may mean consolidating reports from different departments or booking time-sensitive meetings and tasks.
Stop you doing low-value tasks
An easy measurement for high-value vs low-value tasks is high-value tasks make you feel energised and excited, while low-value tasks drain your energy, suck all the joy out of your day and make you dread coming into the office.
Have you worked out how much time you spend each day or each week on tasks that aren’t revenue-creating or value-adding? Those admin jobs that need to be done by someone and then become a distraction from the work that makes your business successful?
How much time do you get to stop and think each day?
How much (genuine) strategy planning do you do each month?
How much quality time do you spend with your team regularly?
These high-value, low perceived return tasks are usually the first neglected when things get busy. Ironically, they’re also tasks that help keep a business on track and growing. What other high-value tasks that ‘technically’ don’t need to get done are you not doing because your time is being taken up with transactional work that anyone could do?
It’s scary how quickly we can fall into unproductive habits. Worse, these habits make us feel productive because they take our time. This is time we could (and should) be spending not only on high-value work, but with our families, improving ourselves personally and actually taking some time for ourselves for once.
If you’d like to learn more about how a virtual executive assistant can help you be more effective and enjoy life more, click here to lean more or email [email protected].
*If we have the training or expertise available, we’ll discuss the process. If we don’t, and of the skills are mandatory for the role to be effective, we won’t be the best fit for you.