Jeff Widman, a man of many talents (including helping us create our GTD Facebook Fan page) has a fantastic article about using a virtual assistant. It’s a great read, with many useful tips & templates for a building and maintaining a successful virtual team. Here’s an excerpt:
What I’ve learned from having a virtual assistant:
- How to be very explicit with my instructions
- I’ve grown in my judgment of what should be outsourced and what is faster for me to do (hint: it’s almost always faster for me if it’s a one-time thing. But if it’s a repetitive task, it’s probably worth teaching her.)
- I get a heckuva lot more done–she not only removes time, she removes annoyance–that mental friction that comes from having to do tasks that I downright hate (like scheduling meetings.)
- She not only takes care of things for me, she does them better and faster than I ever could. Face it–just as you’re uniquely talented at some things, you’re uniquely flawed in others.
- How to teach my employees to teach themselves–it’s rewarding when my VA says she’s learned a ton from working with me!
Utilizing a VA is the greatest improvement in productivity you can establish since implementing GTD!
We have been using a number of VA in our company for the last few years. I agree that you must be explicit in your instructions. I have found that creating screen casts to show how you want a task performed is the best way to communicate with your VA. Especially if he or she in in another country. I use Screen Flow on my mac and the moview are up loaded to an ftp site for distribution. Also you can communicate via skype and use the share a screen function to communicate the desired outcome of the task. Use your “Waiting for” list to track the tasks and the completion of them.
Great article – thanks for the tweet
Sounds like a great idea. How do you go about finding a good one? I don’t know anyone else that uses a VA.
Interesting points. I’m about to take the VA-hiring plunge myself so I’m making a list of tasks that I want help with or intend to outsource entirely. This task list and order of priority will shape the type of talent that I hire and in what order.
Shawn @ MindOfChampions.com
Those of you considering using a VA – bravo! Now make sure you CYA – 3 Musts Before Hiring a VA: http://blog.legaltypist.com/?p=1486
Andrew,
I used elance.com to find my VA.
Mike
Andrew,
If you are in the UK then the following website might be a good place to start:
http://www.vact.co.uk/index.html
Although the site is primarily aimed at people who want to be VAs, they are sure to be able to give you advice. I have emailed them in the past and they were very helpful.
I looked into becoming a VA myself a year or two ago (though haven’t yet taken the plunge due to the recession) and there are a lot of good ones out there. I hope that you find what you are looking for.
Sarah
Nice article. By organic one could pop out many things. Best Regards
To find a VA in the UK, the best place to go is http://www.ukava.co.uk as they feature a directory for you to search
Another great place to find a VA in the UK is the Society of Virtual Assistants http://www.societyofvirtualassistants.co.uk
I would not recommend anyone to hire a virtual assistant through Elance because of the cheap hourly cost because you will only be served with service the amount you are paying for. I would recommend submitting a RFP to IVAA or VANA. A lot of high quality virtual assistant will respond to your RFP.
A good virtual assistant will add value to your business, save you money and enable you to concentrate on building your business. Think about how much you value the service you provide to your clients. You would not wish to be perceived as the cheapest but as the best. Small VA organisations will give you a personal and professional service. Please try and avoid the ‘typing pool’ syndrome if you value your own work, output and business.
A Virtual Assistant can do many of the administrative and time-consuming tasks in the company and the company can simply enjoy the outputs.
[Editors note: Bob did not mention it, but he is associated with CatchFriday. Reminder to all posting on GTD Times–in our effort to provide fair and balanced information to our readers, please disclose if you are related to the service or product you are commenting about.]
re: bullet point #4
There is nothing like having someone to outdo you. Online transactions work best when you don’t have to have an assistant who has no initiative nor the knack of doing an efficient job.