A Day in the Life of a Full-time Virtual Assistant

Video Transcription:

Hello Wanderlusters! 

It’s super fitting for this week because I’ve taken my business on the road (as much as I can during this crazy pandemic). You will get insight into a day in the life of a VA, and how whole work/life balance actually works.

Is working from home too good to be true?
Is Digital Nomad life for someone else and not for you?

I would love to hear if you resonate with… the Digital Nomad lifestyle is just for the rich, famous, and the beautiful, you could never have it.

It 100% came up for me. Before I started my virtual assistant business I tried to become an Instagram influencer, I started three blogs, and I even tried a YouTube channel. I thought I would never make it because I am not like the rich and famous. I’m not a model! 

That’s when I landed on Virtual Assisting. 

I’m going to paint a picture of a day in the life of a full-time VA, side hustle VA, and a traveling VA.

Scenario 1:

Full-time VA

This is your only source of income. You do not have it as a side hustle. What does your day look like?

It’s really really awesome!

Here’s the thing: your day as a virtual assistant is going to look very different for everyone because you can live and design the day that works best for you! I’m going to paint a little picture for you. My goal for all the women who I coach in the Laptop Freedom Program is always time-effectiveness. The more effective you are with your time, the more free time you have in your day, and that’s always the goal as Virtual Assistants.

We want independence. 

We want to be independent from schedule, location, all of these things. The average worker in an 8-hour workday actually does only four hours of work, so as virtual assistants if we can actually do eight hours of work in 4 hours, we’re done by noon. This is amazing!

Let’s say you have three clients: Client A, Client B, and Client C.

Calendar blocking and having a clear to-do list are the most important things. This helps you stay organized with your clients and be effective with making sure you do all your tasks.

What does calendar blocking mean?

Calendar blocking in this situation means that you designate certain times of your day to each client and nothing else. You don’t overlap them, so you can find a rhythm with your clients. For example:

Client A

This is my biggest client and I definitely need to give them 2 hours at the beginning of the day and get it all squared away.

Client B

This is my second biggest client. Maybe I do a couple hours for them in the afternoon.

Client C

In fact, I only work on their stuff two days a week.

Getting organized is the first thing that you do that day (or maybe you get organized the night before), so that when you wake up you go to your morning routine:

• Meditation
• Coffee
• Walk the dog
• Yoga
• Send kids off to school

 Whatever it is, your mornings are dedicated to you waking up and getting the house all settled.

You start to work on Client A’s stuff first:

• Square away their email marketing campaign
• Respond to these emails
• Complete that one website maintenance request they had

Done.

For me, my brain shuts off between 3 and 5. My brain is like, “it’s happy hour, we are not working!” Therefore, I know to schedule my day around the 3-5 window. My brain doesn’t work then, and I’m not getting anything done during that time.

Working out your day is a work-in-progress. You are discovering when you work best and how you want to shape your day.

So now you’re in your afternoon.

Maybe you go for a walk.
Maybe you are like me and you go skiing.
Maybe you go for a round of golf.
Maybe you go out for lunch with another VA bestie.

So that’s the afternoon.

After lunch / drinks / whatever you enjoyed during the afternoon, you work on Client B’s projects:

• Hashtag research
• Follower engagement on their social media
• Send them a wrap up synopsis in slack

Done.

You have dinner.

You might be someone who works really well at night. You decide to go in to Client C’s work. You create the one image they needed you to make for their Facebook Group.

Done.

Design your day in a way that works best for you to maximize effectiveness and efficiency!

Maybe now you’re able to shape your day so that instead of grocery shopping at 5 p.m. or 6 p.m. when everyone else is grocery shopping and it is crazy busy, instead, you go grocery shopping at  11 or 10 a.m., when it’s really quiet.  

Maybe there is that yoga class that you really want to go to or that spin class, where the instructor is awesome, but it’s at a weird time. You can work your day around that!

The nice thing about virtual assisting is it is flexible. We are making this shift that a lot of us are not used to. 

We are used to designing our life around our work schedule. Our parents did that, our teachers did that, our friends are doing that, and we’ve been doing that. It is what we know. Work comes first, and then we shape life around work. We say no to hobbies and we say no to family events because of work. 

Making that shift to life first and work will fit around it… When I shifted over to full-time virtual assistant… it was a BIG change.

I was now working from home, which I wasn’t doing before.
I was working while I was traveling, which I’d never done before.
I was working for myself.
I was picking and choosing who I got to work with.

All of these other variables.

Slowly, I got more flexible, and I’ve been able to figure out when I actually do work best. For me it’s first thing in the morning. I wake up and I’m super ready to work. Also, at the end of the day when the house is quiet, everyone’s settled in, and they’ve had dinner. 

Between 3 and 5 p.m.?

Forget it!

My brain totally shuts off, and when I reflect back at my 9 to 5 jobs, that was still true. I remember between 3 and 5, I would be looking at the clock and thinking my brain is out… it can’t.

With Virtual Assisting, I was able to learn what works best for me and my schedule.