Virtual Assistants-VA

Virtual Assistants in short VA, otherwise known as Administrative Assistants and in the online community, they are called as Virtual Assistants. VA's or Virtual Assistants work from their own offices, using their own equipment, providing services to businesses, entrepreneurs, executives, and busy people. Assignments are usually communicated through e-mail, phone, fax, or mail. Whatever the project, information is easily transferred between client and Virtual Assistant.

Working with a Virtual Assistant saves time and money! You also land up with the following benefits:
*You don't have to buy another computer, or make room for another person in your office.
*You don't pay taxes.
*You don't pay "benefits," such as health and dental insurance, sick leave and vacation time.
*You only pay for the time you use a Virtual Assistant, and a full-time commitment is not required.
*You don't worry about the staff commuting to your office and being late due to traffic or problems on your public transit system. Since the Vas work from home and assist you right away.
*You've got after-hours support when you work with Virtual Assistants. Burning the midnight oil for tomorrow's deadline? Call the VAs and they will work with you and get things done for you! You know what’s said,’ Four hands are always better than two!’

A Virtual Assistant can do the following without you having to bother hiring various people to do those same tasks. Here are a few things which a Virtual Assistant can help you with:
-Appointment setting
-Article submission to online article directories
- Bill paying
- Blog updates
-Bookkeeping
-Business letter writing -
-Calendar management
- Coordinate customer mailings
- Create sales reports
- Database entry & maintenance
- Desktop publishing
- Editing -
-Email (send single or batch documents), manage or sort incoming email
- Fact checking
- Faxing documents
- Format documents, reports, e-books
- Handle class or TeleSeminar registrations
-Invoice management
- Meeting scheduling & organization
- Newsletter creation, management and distribution
- PDF file conversion (creating files in Adobe Acrobat)
- Presentation creation (e.g. PowerPoint, Quicktime, Real Player)
- Press release distribution
- Proofreading
- Proposal creation
- Reminder services
- Research (Internet or other)
- Respond to customer emails/phone calls
- Schedule appointments or interviews
- Special project assistance
- Specialized industry service (e.g. medical transcription, real estate VAs)
- Spreadsheet creation
- Survey coordination
- Telephone assistance
- Transcription from audio
- Translation
- Travel arrangements
-Typing
- Venue booking
- Website routine maintenance
- Word processing ... and much more!

Get Important Things Done On-time! –Simply means GTD

It’s the beginning of the week—Monday morning and inevitably our mind goes to those unfinished tasks that we haven’t had the guts to touch, or some of the pending. Many a times we try avoiding and rather conveniently try to palm it off on someone else. At times we succeed simply because luck favors you. Most often it doesn’t work this way. You need to take stock of those scattered thoughts, instead of simply trying to evade tasks that need your attention.
It’s quite simple! Follow GTD—which in other words means “Getting things done!”
What we need to do is again very quite easy. It may sound tough – but it’s quite practical.
The first thing that you need to do when faced with numerous tasks is to divide the tasks into three groups.

• A- Critical: must be successfully completed to succeed.
• B- Important: must be 80% completed as a group to succeed.
• C- Useful, but not necessary.

This really helps. This is where time management comes in.

Three keys to time management are:
Remembering---Remembering the tasks to be performed.
Setting priorities--Able to prioritize.
Motivation: Having the right motivation.

Once you are done with this you are now ready to manage the time factor in your life. We can simply call this “TIME AUDIT”

Time is equated with money. Many a times we find ourselves running short of cash and in a similar fashion, we find ourselves running short of time. To understand where your time has gone, it is important to assess how you actually spend it. One way of doing this is by keeping simple operating records, and for this you will need a "yardstick" to evaluate your utilization of time. For this purpose, a schedule is included where you can record activities and accomplishments during a typical week; this should give you a start in observing your time usage more objectively. When you have completed this time chart, now attempt to locate your time budgeting problems.

Time management begins with the use of a calendar or planner with daily lists and taking the time to write down everything that you must do, so that it gets done. For example you sleep seven hours a night; you have around 119 hours a week do everything that you need to do. That, of course, includes everything from eating, business meetings, attending some events, social activities, personal hygiene, time-in-transit, telephone and television time, and everything in between. You must use all 119 hours a week to schedule everything that you must do. Now comes the biggest test--sticking to your schedule! This should give you a fair idea of where your real priorities are.

Remember--Good time management is essential to success!
Planning your time allows you to spread your work over a session, avoid a 'traffic jam' of work, and cope with work tension. You may find yourself with too many deadlines to meet, all of which may occur at the same time, and unless you plan ahead, you'll find it impossible to manage. To meet the demands of your business you need to spread your workload over a session. Work out what needs to be done and when. Work out how to use your available time as efficiently as possible.