by The Happy WAHM
Are you a procrastinator, or are you just good at applying Parkinson’s Law?
But first, what is Parkinson’s Law?
According to Wikipedia, Parkinson’s Law is an adage that “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
In short, if you are told to do a task this morning due in two hours, you do it and submit the completed task before the two hours is up.
But if you are given a week to finish the same task, you are not likely to do the task today, but rather wait until the sixth, or worse, the seventh day to complete the task just on time for submission.
And I know how this can happen because I’ve done this a lot of times before.
As a virtual assistant, my email is my office. That’s where all my tasks come in. And believe me, there are days that I don’t even want to look at it. Just looking at the subject lines make me tired on some days.
So, in the old days when I was feeling lazy, I would log in, open all the emails one by one, and if I happen to read one that needs an urgent reply, I would tackle that task right there and then. Then I would go back to opening the other emails, mark the not-so-urgent ones as unread, and take a note to come back to it later as my day progresses. When I get to open something that says “this is not urgent” then I just put it in another folder to be attended to much later.
After I’ve gone through all the emails, then I would start going back to the ones I have marked as unread and needing to be attended to within my working hours.
We are still on my lazy day, right?
So, because I was being lazy, I leave the ones marked as not urgent for another day. And that is bad. Because whatever I leave undone today adds up to the ones I’m going to do tomorrow. My clients would not stop sending me tasks in the next days just because they have sent me a task that would be due in a week.
Good thing that I am on the stage of my life and my career that I no longer entertain laziness. And if I ever get tempted to give in to the urge, I know how to circumvent it.
Plus I have learned how to use Parkinson’s Law in a positive way.
Let’s go back to what Wikipedia says: “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”
So if I give myself just a little time for each task, then chances are, I can finish my tasks faster because I will be on a deadline, and my goal will be to beat that deadline.
In a way, I’m borrowing a bit of the Pomodoro technique, without strictly following the six steps in the technique. Identify the task, set the timer, and work on the task. I am timing my tasks, and timing my breaks, as well.
And here’s a good news! If you are like me, who has been wanting to learn more about the Pomodoro technique in-depth but could not afford the course, then today is a happy day, because Francesco Cirillo will be releasing a book on the technique in August next year! I’ve already pre-ordered my Kindle copy, so if you’re interested, just click on this link.
But going back to Parkinson’s Law, I guess you can also apply this to using your time wisely when on social media. I know this to be effective because this is what I do.
So let’s say I’m on Facebook. My page has become part of my office, too, because people message me on the page to inquire about my services. Or even on messenger. And it is so easy to get into the trap of browsing through your personal feed. You see an interesting video, you click on it, and before you know it, you’d have watched three more videos that have nothing to do with your reason for logging in.
What I do is that when I log in, I don’t look on my feed, but rather go straight to messages. After I’ve attended to the messages, I then go through my notifications. I allow myself 15 minutes to do these. But set my mind to finishing everything in 10. Then log out. Log in again on my assigned break and do the same thing. Only after I have attended to all my office tasks do I allow myself to browse through my feed. Sometimes I don’t log out at all, but put Facebook on another window and keep it minimized. But the main idea is to only be there within the set time. If I know I have 20 minutes, then I strive to finish in 10.
And that’s it! That’s my productivity tip for today. And keep in mind that you have to take yourself seriously to make this work. The goal is for a job well done in less time, not to rush through your tasks for mediocre output that might cause you to lose clients.
Do you have questions, comments or feedback about this post?
Please leave a reply below, or post them on my Facebook Page.
Like this:
Like Loading...
by The Happy WAHM
I became a WAHM because I had to.
I was forced to leave my corporate career to care for our premature son. The plan was I would take care of our son for two years until he is given a clean bill of health by the neurologist. But barely a month into WAHMing, I knew I would never go back to corporate. I was like a fish in a bowl that was thrown into the sea.
Today, family, friends, and acquaintances ask me random questions like…
So you’re a VA? What is that?
What does a VA do?
Can I be a VA like you?
Can you help me become a VA?
Nobody asked me WHY.
Why I do what I do. Why am I so happy doing what I do.
I have conducted a number of workshops on how to become a Virtual Assistant, how to become a WAHM, how to stay sane while WAHMing, and in my last classroom workshop, I shared my VA Success Blueprint. In all these workshops, I ask this question…
Why?
Why do you want to work from home?
And I have received answers like…
I’m tired of commuting to and from work.
I want to earn in dollars, too.
I want to be present for my child’s milestones.
I want to own my time.
These are all good reasons. And the answer to your BIG why will play a big part in determining what niche best fits you. You need a driving motivator to help you develop skills and abilities that will fulfill your BIG why. You are going to design and build your business around your reasons for wanting to become a WAHM. Or a VA. Or a graphic designer. Or even a product-based business. Whatever niche you plan to be in, your motivator will help you develop a long-term and profitable business.
As a long-term WAHM and VA, I’ve been in enough fora and online courses to gather people’s top motivators for becoming a WAHM.
Flexibility
Having the power in your hands to make time for both work and family. You can make time for yoga (or Zumba), take up a hobby (crochet, anyone?), attend a parent-teacher conference (unless you are also homeschooling like us), and still be productive at work.
Independence
Not having a boss look over your shoulder anytime. Having the freedom to be creative on how you approach work. Being able to create systems and processes that work for you so you are more productive and happier with your work.
Mobility
Being able to work anywhere. Work at home, in a cafe, in a hospital lobby, I’ve done all these. Geez, I even brought my work one time in the cemetery, on All Saints’ Day. Migrate to another country in a heartbeat, and bring your job with you.
Earning Potential
The more skills you have, the more opportunities you have for earning more. The harder you work, the more you are rewarded. This does not happen in employment where your salary is fixed. And even your annual salary increases have caps.
Lifestyle
Choose when to work, where to work, and how hard you have to work. Be a part-time soccer mom while still maintaining a full-time status with your client.
Family
Being a hands-on parent. Being present for each and every one of your child’s milestones. Or maybe you want to homeschool your kids. Or be your parents’ caregiver.
Health Challenge
When you cannot commute to and from work every day, or have limited time and mobility to work outside the home. (I used to have blind transcriptionists.)
All these motivators are good to start with.
Sustaining a WAHM life, living it long-term, is another matter. And that’s why you need to have a strong and solid conviction on why you want to be a WAHM.
Let me share with you an example.
About four years into WAHMing, I had a former officemate approach me, asking to help her become a virtual assistant. She was my staff in my corporate life. I worked with her side by side for years, so I knew she could be a VA. So I trained her. Our agreement was that I would find her a client when she’s ready. And I did.
On the day that I signed the contract for her, she quit. She said it’s not for her. So she went back to employment. And to this day, she’s still working outside her home.
Yes, she wanted to become a WAHM. But maybe the life of a WAHM is something that she’s not ready for. Her reason for wanting to become a WAHM was not strong enough for her to weather it out.
You may want to become a WAHM for a wide variety of reasons, but there should always be that one great reason that will keep you going each and every day. Because believe me, it’s not a walk in the park. And it’s not for everyone.
And so I ask you, have you determined your BIG why? Do you have the skills to support your passion? And is your passion supportive of your skills?
If you answered YES to the questions above, then you are ready to become a WAHM.
Do you have questions, comments or feedback about this post?
Please leave a reply below, or post them on my Facebook Page.
by The Happy WAHM
It’s past the middle of October, and because I always do my goal setting in November each year, I thought it’s a good time to share with you what I have learned to be the top 10 virtual assistant skills that will be most in demand in 2018.
When I started out as a virtual assistant back in 2006, not many people know what it takes to become one, much less understand what a virtual assistant does and how the system works.
It worked to my advantage because I basically had no competition. Clients were mostly from the US and Canada, and the virtual assistants back then were the locals, meaning the empowered American and Canadian women who started this revolution of working from home. Offshore VAs like myself were very few. And independents like myself were just a handful. Most of the virtual workers I came across with during those days were actually working for companies. Companies find the clients, and they just assign projects to the virtual workers.
In my case, I ventured on my own. I went to Craigslist and scoured through the ads. I built my own website (a hideous one, I have to admit, because I did that at the time that I really had no technical experience), and sold myself to clients based on my corporate experience, my command of the English language, my passion for learning, my get-it-done attitude, and my sense of humor.
Today, the Philippines is one of the top sources of virtual workers, and the community of virtual assistants is growing exponentially. Workshops are happening almost every week, offered by just about anyone who has a working knowledge on the topic. There are even enterprising ones who offer workshops based on theory, without any hands-on experience at all.
The surge of the virtual assistant population is understandable. More and more people are opting to work from home. Mostly mothers who want to spend more time raising their children, and those who are just tired of battling traffic every day.
What this population growth means is that competition is getting stiffer, and the only way to stay in the game is to keep up with what the market demands.
The virtual assistance niche has been going through some shifts in the past years. When I started out, I was a general VA. Then came the time that I felt that the market was focusing more on specialized skills. Specialized niches pay more, and less stressful. While I continued to offer my services as a general VA, I spent time, money and effort on mastering a niche, and carved out some time from my daily schedule to allow myself to offer shopping cart set up as a project-based service.
Late last year, there was another shift. Clients now look for virtual assistants who can do multiple specialized niches. Say hello to the versatile virtual assistant.
So now, if one has to take on a client who has an online shopping cart, the virtual assistant has to know how to manage the website, manage the shopping cart, write and edit the copy of product description and site content, provide customer service support, edit graphics, manage social media… the list goes on.
Clients, especially the small business owners, are looking for people who can do it all, or at the very least, not afraid to learn every aspect of the business and be part of the operations. As a virtual assistant, these small business owners are my ideal clients, because there is an opportunity to grow.
In the workshop I recently attended, I learned that these virtual assistant skills are what will be most in demand in 2018.
- Project Management Skills
- Systems Thinking Skills
- Online Community Management
- Online Marketing Funnels
- Writing & Editing Skills
- Content Production & Marketing
- Multimedia Editing Skills
- Online Events Management
- Marketing Technology
- Website Management
Presently, I’ve been doing a lot of systems thinking, website management, project management, and writing and editing. What I would really love to learn are multimedia editing and marketing technology. I know how to do online community management because I’ve done a little bit of that before, but it’s not something that I would like to offer as a service. I also know content production, but I would like to focus my effort on that towards my own business, not the clients’. 🙂
So how about you? Are you ready for 2018?
Do you have questions, comments or feedback about this post?
Please leave a reply below, or post them on my Facebook Page.
by The Happy WAHM
This is going to be a self-serving post, but please bear with me.
I call myself a business coach. No formal certificates to go with the claim, just me and my accomplishments as an entrepreneur, and the knowledge gained from the online courses I paid hard-earned money for just so I could learn how to organize my thoughts and processes and put them together in a coherent order.
I started out as a Virtual Assistant, and I have since registered my VA service as a business. So I’m a taxpayer, and still running my business from the four corners of our humble home, together with my husband.
Being an autodidact helped, so it was not long before I was also offering services outside of virtual assistance, like web hosting, website set up, theme customization, and online shopping cart set up.
Virtual assistance is a lifestyle. Some days I plan how our family will spend the day according to my workload, and some days I plan my workload depending on our family activities. Same thing with house chores. Like I can forget about house chores when I have deadlines. Or I can do house chores all day when I know that items in my inbox are not due in the next twelve hours.
Then came the time that I decided to take up a hobby. Because really, working from home can be draining. I needed a reset. And there were thousands of pesos worth of yarns in the house that were untouched. So I decided to take up crochet. And I was hooked, pun intended.
But a hobby costs money. And people who know me know that I’m big on financial management. I always make sure that I’m not spending more than we can afford. So I created another opportunity for me. I started selling my finished projects, and in a few months, I registered another business. So I now have a second TIN, ending in 001.
I’m known in the VA community because I’ve been conducting workshops on how to become a VA since 2013. So when I came out with my crafts business, people have been inquiring if I also have workshops on how to launch a crafts business. That’s how Hobbies to Business came to life.
I’m a results-oriented person, and after doing the classroom workshops for three years, I felt that I was not seeing my desired results, that of seeing my finishers soar in the VA niche.
Paying for a workshop in a classroom setting means an attendee gets what all the other attendees get. That is good up to a point where you get the general idea of what works and what does not. But when one factors in the circumstances of an individual, the general idea may not work anymore.
So I decided to switch to one-on-one coaching. I felt that creating a plan tailored fit for a particular person will give more bang for the buck.
But why coaching? Why not just mentor?
Uhmmmm… Because I also have a family to support. And creating a plan takes time. Time that I should put to use in putting food on the table, providing for the needs of our children, preparing for our retirement, and on a good day, resting.
Not to mention earning back the thousands of dollars that I spent (and still spending) on learning all the things that I could not learn for free.
And this is why my coaching is not free. Of course, I still mentor when the coaching period is over.
The big question now is: Do you want need to be coached by me?
And why do you need a business coach anyway?
Here are eight reasons why.
You need help getting started.
You have the skills, the qualifications, and the time to be a VA, but you don’t know how to get yourself out there. You don’t know how to find clients, or better yet, you don’t know what type of clients will be the best fit for you. A business coach who has been there and done that can steer you to the right direction.
You need a push to the next level.
Most people I know launch into the virtual assistance niche and just stay there. Three, four years into the niche, and they are still chasing clients, instead of having clients chase them. A business coach can guide you how you can move up to the next level. Just let me know your goals, and I can help you create the steps to reach them.
You are stuck.
You can get to a point where you get antsy where you’re at. You’ll feel tired and may even feel like giving up and start on another path. Or you can be just bored with the repetitive motions you go through each day. A business coach is someone you can discuss your thoughts with and help you find clarity to get you moving forward.
You have a “shiny object syndrome.”
I know this because I’ve been there. I would see social media posts of what other virtual assistants are doing, and I’d think, hey, I want to do that, too. When this happens, I lose focus of where I’m at. That is a dangerous attitude to have, and fortunately, I caught it early and was able to avoid doing it again. As your business coach, I can help you steer clear of this issue.
You need to have more balance.
You may find yourself working more and more for the success of your business and neglecting your family, or it can be that you’re spending more time with family that you don’t have enough time to spend on your business to make it successful. An experienced business coach can help you achieve a lifestyle that will allow you to enjoy both family and business. And throw in a hobby into the mix, too!
You need to find your purpose.
If you got into the virtual assistance business without knowing your “why” yet, a good business coach can help you find at least three of them. Knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing will allow you to focus on your unique selling proposition and identify your target audience.
You need a sound action plan.
Every business needs one. A business coach won’t make it for you, but they can help you narrow down what is essential and what is not, making your plan easy to implement. Because really, a great action plan is nothing if you cannot implement it.
You need accountability.
A virtual assistant is not an employee. A virtual assistant runs an independent business so there’s no one looking over your shoulder to see if what you’re doing matches your goals. Having someone to call you out when necessary is crucial to the success of a business.
You need a cheerleader and a friend.
That’s actually number 9, and I only said 8. But who’s counting? And yes, personal experience says we VAs need a friend. Working from home can be lonely. Lucky for me, I got to hire my husband, so I have an officemate to have coffee breaks with. Or give me a massage. And then there are days when I give my daughter a project, so I have someone to “bully” in the office. But some of us don’t have the perks I have.
I told you this post is self-serving. But only if you will hire me as your business coach. If not, then this is just another one of those informative posts that I put out there for my readers.
All 8 of them.
And if today is your first time to visit my blog, I thank you and welcome you with open arms. And I hope you’ll come back.
But seriously, if you’re interested in knowing more about my coaching service, just go to this page. Or book a 15-minute call with me via Skype.
Remember, you can always DIY your way to success. But what if you can cut your learning curve in half?
And that is what this post is about.
Do you have questions, comments or feedback about this post?
Please leave a reply below, or post them on my Facebook Page.
by The Happy WAHM
I’ve gone ahead and did it!
I created a Facebook Group that I can connect to my Page and this blog.
Been wanting to do this for a long time now, but have been dilly dallying because I’m afraid of the responsibility of managing a group. But it has to be done.
My dream is to build a community of people whose views on family, creativity and success resonate with mine. I need a platform where I can speak to people directly and encourage them to interact. I have a story to tell, and I want to encourage people to tell me theirs, too.
But here’s the thing.
I don’t need want a big community. The goal here is not to have a thousand members. The goal is to be able to interact with people and for all of us to be comfortable with each other. Comfortable enough to ask for help. Comfortable enough to be real.
And I really want to help others find their footing on this thing called WAHM-ing. That’s hard to do in a big community. I can spread myself so thin that I might not be able to help at all. So I’m going to build my tribe slowly. And be as real as I can be. My audience will find me.
This is my happiness project. And I hope you’ll join me.
Do you have questions, comments or feedback about this post?
Please leave a reply below, or post them at my Facebook Page.
