One reason programmers dislike meetings so much is that they’re on a different type of schedule from other people. Meetings cost them more.

There are two types of schedule, which I’ll call the manager’s schedule and the maker’s schedule. The manager’s schedule is for bosses. It’s embodied in the traditional appointment book, with each day cut into one hour intervals. You can block off several hours for a single task if you need to, but by default you change what you’re doing every hour.

When you use time that way, it’s merely a practical problem to meet with someone. Find an open slot in your schedule, book them, and you’re done.

Most powerful people are on the manager’s schedule. It’s the schedule of command. But there’s another way of using time that’s common among people who make things, like programmers and writers. They generally prefer to use time in units of half a day at least. You can’t write or program well in units of an hour. That’s barely enough time to get started.

When you’re operating on the maker’s schedule, meetings are a disaster. A single meeting can blow a whole afternoon, by breaking it into two pieces each too small to do anything hard in. Plus you have to remember to go to the meeting. That’s no problem for someone on the manager’s schedule. There’s always something coming on the next hour; the only question is what. But when someone on the maker’s schedule has a meeting, they have to think about it.

For someone on the maker’s schedule, having a meeting is like throwing an exception. It doesn’t merely cause you to switch from one task to another; it changes the mode in which you work.

I find one meeting can sometimes affect a whole day. A meeting commonly blows at least half a day, by breaking up a morning or afternoon. But in addition there’s sometimes a cascading effect. If I know the afternoon is going to be broken up, I’m slightly less likely to start something ambitious in the morning. I know this may sound oversensitive, but if you’re a maker, think of your own case. Don’t your spirits rise at the thought of having an entire day free to work, with no appointments at all? Well, that means your spirits are correspondingly depressed when you don’t. And ambitious projects are by definition close to the limits of your capacity. A small decrease in morale is enough to kill them off.  Read more..

We’re all bombarded with statements from the bank, personal credit cards and business credit accounts.

We must keep receipts needed for tax purposes, and then there’s invoicing, accounts payable, reconciling and generating end of month, quarterly and end-of-year financial reports.

* How much time do you spend on bookkeeping activities?
* How much is your time worth?
* Do you have a clear understanding of accounting?
* What is a journal entry?
* Do you know all the ins and outs of your accounting software?
* Do you actually enjoy bookkeeping?

It makes sound business sense to pay someone else (at a much lower rate than your marketing time is worth) to provide bookkeeping services for your business.

I’ve seen many business owners continue to struggle in this area. Some people are told to save everything, so that’s exactly what they do. They then show up at my office with a grocery bag containing all their receipts. What a disaster!

Keeping your accounts in order is much easier if you consistently manage the process on a weekly, or monthly basis rather than leaving it to the end of the year.

Now, with so many transactions being captured through on-line banking, it’s easy to delegate and monitor accounting duties.

“As a rule, we find what we look for; we achieve what we get ready for”
James Cash Penney

The solution

Get organized and find a virtual bookkeeper.
Here’s my system:

1. Since I want to know where my money goes every month, I save all my receipts.

2. I have two envelopes on my desk, one for personal items, and the other for business. I label the envelopes with the months when the transactions took place.

3. Once the month is over, I seal the envelopes and send them to a private clearing house for scanning

Within two to three days, I will receive a confirmation e-mail. This tells me that the scanned receipts are now available as a CSV file. The scanning clearing house also returns my original documents and includes a postage paid envelope for my next shipment.

I then send a copy of the confirmation message to my virtual bookkeeper. I can either e-mail a PDF statement, or scan my bank, credit card, and any other statements at the end of the month.

My bookkeeper imports and enters all of the transactions into our online version of QuickBooks. If my virtual bookkeeper needs added information about a particular transaction, she just logs in to view the details of my scanned receipts.

Once everything has been settled, we have a 15 to 20 minute conference call to discuss transactions that needs additional clarification. This process is far more flexible and superior compared to a bookkeeper that drives to our office to collect everything, and then drives back.

Everyone one of us was lucky enough to receive the same deposit today.  What I am really talking about is not $86,400 dollars, but 86,400 seconds of time everyday each of us are alloted.  All of us have the same bank that makes the same deposit, and at the end of the day the balance that is not used does not carry forward to the next day. If that is the case, wouldn’t it make sense to use up as much as you can on the things that matter most, or can create the most leverage in our lives and in business?

Do you know the value of your time? Do you know what you are really good at in your business? Do you know what generates the most revenue in your business? Over the last several years, I have learned many ways to be far more effective with my time.  Using the principle of leverage, delegation, and automation.   

For the purpose of this post though, I just want to go over the basics to show you a way to figure out the value of your time. To figure out what your time is worth take your annual salary, “75,000″ chop off the last 3 zeros, then divide it by 2.  This breaks sown to roughly $37.50/hr. 

So if that is the case your time (in the case of the example) is worth $37.50/hr, I want you to start thinking of activities you could have others do for your that you could hire someone to handle.  I found a site www.DoMyStuff.com just this last year that was pretty cool was of having people actually bid on your tasks.  There is www.AskSunday.com for tasks that you might only need from time to time.  They will work on a task up to 20 minutes.  I found this was great when I was looking to find a store that carried a certain toy I was looking for for my son.  I had them call a bunch of store in the area to see who still carried it and what the cost was.  Another source might be to search for someone on www.craigslist.com.  Moving forward for the new year you might consider outsourcing ALL the stuff that you do not like to do, or that which does is not revenue related.  Start experimenting and see what works for you.

Please let me know your comments, and please share your experiences you’ve had with personal outsourcing.�

Working with SimpleBackOffice as one of the Virtual Assistants for a  number of years gave me lots of experiences with different clients and  help me gained some expertise on various tools needed as a Virtual Assistant in helping different clients in their own fields. Different clients have different needs and degrees of expertise.       I worked with clients in various Administrative work. Researched, Emails, contact website management, property listings, follow up letters,  incoming and making outgoing calls in behalf of the clients, set up the phone system with the voicemails and voice transcription that will also create work orders to facilitate the work needed, set up in a  Microsoft Mail Exchange Server within their company for  calendar, contacts and task sharing .   Now the client spend more time in concentrating to bring in more business since they can easily check each others calendar for appointments  and contacts and share task with just a click of the mouse. The work I did helped gave my clients to have more time for their business and personal life. 

I also book keeps for various clients in different industries like Doctors, Brokers, Real Estate Agents, Brokers, Consultants, Coach, restaurant business, salon and small business .   Many of my clients  before either pays for additional staff to do the bookkeeping or doing the recording themselves . Usually they either have with  back logs in the recording  of their  Income and Expenses or have no  books or records  at all.  With SimpleBackOffice  very affordable rate  many client were able to save money and use that savings in the business. I help them save time and money and the peace of mind that all is being taken cared of. Now their attention   is more focus in income generating activities in growing their business. 

Nowadays, virtual assistants are the people many business owners are raving about. If you own your own business and need help with everyday administrative duties, but have yet to find someone to help you, a virtual assistant is just what you’re looking for. You might be wondering what a virtual assistant is, however. The Alliance for Virtual Business provides the best definition of virtual assistants, a definition that includes how they work and what they can do.

“Virtual Assistants (VAs) are independent entrepreneurs providing professional administrative, creative, managerial, technical, business office and/or personal support services. VAs use the most advanced means of communication, and the newest and most efficient and time saving office products and work delivery, regardless of geographic boundaries. Virtual Assistants work from their own offices, on a contractual basis, and abide by an established Code of Ethics requiring integrity, honesty and due diligence.”

By this definition alone, you can already tell that a virtual assistant works exactly like a regular employee, one who works somewhat like a telecommuter and without one particular job description. Virtual assistants can perform a multitude of tasks, which makes them widely known as jacks-of-all-trades and skilled multitaskers. They can do everything from accounting work, writing, marketing, responding phone and e-mail inquiries, setting up appointments for you, to research, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Basically, whatever you need to delegate, they can handle it for you, and you can also train them for the tasks which need a little extra skill for them.

The reason why virtual assistants are capable of all these duties and more is that they usually have a solid background in business and invarious industries, with most of them holding a college degree. As you can see, virtual assistants are no mere “assistants.” They are valuable additions to your business, and at the very least, you can also encourage them to contribute ideas to your business.

Probably the main attraction of having a virtual assistant is that it frees you from the mind-numbing, time-consuming administrative tasks which are indeed important for your business to stay alive, but certainly a headache to do if you have other major projects to pay attention to as well. Things like scheduling meetings, answering phone calls, notifying suppliers, and updating your directory of contacts don’t require your exclusive attention; when your virtual assistant knows exactly what you need and are looking for, he or she then becomes something like an extension of you, able to do the work you would normally do exactly the way you would do it.

Virtual assistants abound on the Internet, and you can easily find them by doing a search on search engines like Yahoo! and Google. Of course, you can always turn to an online staffing agency. These agencies, one of which is SimpleBackOffice (www.simplebackoffice.com), already have virtual assistants waiting to be deployed to help you with your business. You simply have to inform such companies about your criteria and the type of work you need to do, and you will immediately be directed to the virtual assistants who can accomplish the tasks you require. These agencies will also help you find an immediate replacement in case your partnership with the original virtual assistant doesn’t work out.

In order to find the right virtual assistant for you, you must already have a list of duties that you are willing to delegate and will therefore need your potential virtual assistant to perform. You should also have a list of requirements in the virtual assistant you’re looking for, as well as a set of questions that will help you determine who you can best work with. You can find out what the skills and software proficiency the applicants for the job possess, how many hours a day or a week they will be able to work with, the communication options you will be using, and if they require any training at all in order to do the work for you. You should also learn more about his or her working history as a virtual assistant. You can also specify if your virtual assistant should be based in your country or in other parts of the world; virtual assistants are everywhere and no matter where in the world they are, there will always be one who is most suited to the tasks you will set. The process is akin to screening a full-time employee for working in your company, except for the fact that you are able to cast your net a little more widely with the world of virtual assistants available at your fingertips.

Don’t forget to talk about pricing and payment options as well. Virtual assistants generally charge fees that are lower than the ones you may normally pay a regular full-time employee, and they don’t need you to set up additional office space, purchase equipment, or provide them with medical benefits and social security. Rather independent business owners who work on their own might balk at the additional cost of hiring a virtual assistant; if you’re one of these people, take the time to consider the the cost versus the benefits a virtual assistant will give you. If your assistant will work for you for 10 hours each week and you pay him or her $15 per hour, that’s $150 out of your pocket, but ten hours added to your schedule, which leaves you plenty of time to work on aspects of your business that make you money, certainly more than $150 a week.

Once you find your virtual assistant, you can begin training him or her for the tasks you require. This type of training need not be a complicated process; you can train your virtual assistant simply by detailing exactly the type of work you need done and by testing the various software you’ll be using to communicate. You can also run a quick trial period for him or her to get a handle on the duties first, and also for you to get to know your virtual assistant better and determine if the work he or she performs is up to your expectations.

Remember that since you and your virtual assistant are communicating over the phone and the Internet, you will not have a chance to supervise every aspect of the work being performed. Micro-managing is hardly advisable for a job on a virtual basis, and many virtual assistants tend to be independent workers with little need for constant direction and supervision. In order to ensure nothing but the highest quality of work, what you can do instead is to request daily reports on jobs that have been completed, including the number of hours it took to finish each task. When you notice that your virtual assistant made a mistake on a particular task, all you need to do is inform him or her about the mistake and request that corrections be sent to you as soon as possible.

You may be worried about sharing the details about your business and operations with someone you don’t even know, let alone seen. Virtual assistants make the same leap of faith as you do, trusting that their skills will be put to good use and that they will receive fair payment and treatment from you. Virtual assistants are entrepreneurs like you, and one of their foremost priorities is to ensure that they do a good job, which will reflect well on them and the kind of work that they do, making sure that their services will be in demand and respected.

With their skills and trustworthy qualities, it’s no surprise that virtual assistants are in higher demand these days. Learn how to let go of everyday tasks and hand them off to a skilled virtual assistant, one who is a perfect fit for your company and your personality, and start building your business the way you want to.

No matter what type of business you’re establishing, whether it’s a real estate company, a retail store, or even an online-based business, you’re in danger of feeling burned out at some point, and most times you will feel overwhelmed by all the nitty-gritty details–from responding to inquiries via phone or e-mail to scheduling meetings–that you’ll find that you barely have enough time to pay attention to the fundamentals of your business, such as product conceptualization and your business strategy. Now you may not like the idea of someone else doing the work you’re so familiar with, but even you have to admit that you need to increase your staff if you feel like you’re already struggling under the avalanche of work. Think about it: If you had an assistant, your schedule would become easier to manage and you can start focusing more on growing your business.

If you’re already thinking about the hassle of having to interview and screen possible candidates for the job, then you might want to think twice about that and consider getting a virtual assistant. A virtual assistant (VA) is practically a must-have in businesses these days, since VAs offer solutions for businesses and, in a nutshell, make the lives of many business owners easier with their expertise.

A virtual assistant can work full-time, but without the benefits, taxes, social security, and health insurance typically given to full-time employees. A virtual assistant is actually more of an entrepreneur rather than an employee, because a VA provides a service to you. VAs are normally paid by the hour or per task, and because most times, they’re needed only for a few hours of work, they can take on as many jobs as possible and work with different business owners simultaneously.

A virtual assistant has the edge over both temps and full-time employees. Temps can be extremely costly to train and hire. Temps also look for a more permanent position and will therefore not suit your needs if you’re really only looking for someone to work for a few hours each day or even each week. As for full-time employees, that will entail more investment from you in every way, providing equipment and office space for them as well as giving all the employment benefits; it is said that when you hire an employee, you’re not just paying for his or her salary–you pay double or triple that in all other expenses including the benefits. A virtual assistant won’t require you to face all these additional details, and many of them can work at a rate of at least $15; the more experienced VAs can charge well over $30 an hour.

By the very title of the position, you might already know that virtual assistants work virtually, that is, over the phone, via fax, and the Internet, mainly using instant messaging software such as Yahoo! Messenger and Skype, which both allow for real-time communication and webcam use for face-to-face interaction. VAs are highly proficient in using computer software and generally have extensive background in different industries and positions, and will therefore be able to bring their skills to work for your benefit. A virtual assistant will be able to provide you with many services, from word processing, Internet marketing, to bookkeeping, among many other tasks. Apart from all these, you can also train your VA to do more work related to your business, elevating his or her position to one that is more actively engaged in your company’s work, yet without lending additional burden to you.

Today, many virtual assistants have their resumes and portfolios available online. You can find the perfect virtual assistant by looking up “virtual assistant” in search engines or by making use of the services provided by staffing websites such as SimpleBackOffice (www.simplebackoffice.com). SimpleBackOffice has an extensive database of virtual assistants trained to meet the needs of any company and perform multiple administrative duties. You will be matched with the virtual assistant whose skills you require and who meets your criteria. Once you’ve found the right virtual assistant, you can then discuss rates and payment options; most will accept deposits via Paypal, direct electronic bank deposits, or money transfers through services such as Xoom or Western Union.

Remember that it is always best to have a trial period first for the virtual assistant you hire to find out if he or she is someone you can truly work with and get a handle for the procedure you will be following. The idea behind getting a virtual assistant is to be able to work smoothly and effortless with someone you can trust, even if you two are working together over electronic lines rather than face to face.

Today, everything from time to trends to technology is moving faster than they ever have. In your business, time is a key element which you may not always have, and when you focus on doing other administrative things that aren’t making you the amount of money you deserve, you lose a lot of time, which you won’t be able to get back. Of course, administrative duties are an important part of your business; without them, you would barely have a business to run! However, it doesn’t mean that you should spend a large chunk of your time and attention on these tasks.

If you are looking for extra assistance in your business. consider getting a virtual assistant. Virtual assistants can help clear your backlog of tasks and free up more of your time so you can focus on what’s really important. Virtual assistants can provide assistance to companies of all sizes, clearing their schedule by doing tasks such as word processing, bookkeeping, and, as is the trend these days, blogging and maintaining accounts of social networking websites.

A virtual assistant is an independent contractor providing administrative services for your company, so hiring one will result in great savings for you, because you don’t need to provide health insurance, social security, and other benefits. True to the title, a virtual assistant works on a virtual basis, communicating with you over the phone and via e-mail or other means over the Internet. A virtual assistant will save you the time and effort you’ll put into interviewing potential applicants as well.

When you find the right virtual assistant for you, he or she will be able to handle administrative duties for you, and very soon, you’ll find that you’ll have a lot more time to spend working on your business now, doing what really counts instead of using up precious hours doing what you could have someone else handle for you. Administrative tasks are very important indeed, but most times, they are responsibilities that don’t require you yourself to handle them. A virtual assistant is exactly the right type of person to take care of these details, leaving you free to focus on the core of your business.

So you want to be a virtual assistant. It probably sounds like a cushy job, getting paid quite nicely while sitting at home (or anywhere, really) in front of your computer and only doing what you’ve been instructed to do–and all for just several hours a week. Believe it or not, however, being a virtual assistant presents quite a challenge, not least because you have to have the skills and capabilities necessary in order to perform a variety of tasks. Currently, virtual assistants are in high demand by many business owners because they present impressive skill sets, great savings, and fresh ideas to these business owners. Yet as a virtual assistant, you have to realize that you are far more than being an assistant to a business owner. You are yourself a business owner, and the service you offer is your main product, which is why you have to clearly define what you do, charge reasonable yet fair rates, be willing to learn, and have the skill to market yourself in order to get more clients.

One of the challenges facing virtual assistants is convincing business owners that they need help in the first place. You will have to clearly outline the benefits you will be providing as well as the service and the ideas you can offer. Speaking of these services, virtual assistants have developed reputations as multitaskers and jacks-of-all-trades, but this doesn’t mean that you have to offer every possible service on the planet just to make yourself more marketable and employable. You’ll be spreading yourself too thinly this way, and it will leave you very little time to improve the main skills you’re offering. Focus on the services that you can do best and build your reputation on them.

Don’t forget to clarify exactly what type of work you can do. Some people assume that working with a computer over the Internet means that you will be providing online technical support. This is perfectly fine if you ARE indeed offering tech support, but if you’re not, emphasize only the services that you will do so you won’t be lumped with work in which you have little to no experience doing. You can do this by building your own website containing your work information and the services you offer, or by sending your potential clients a list of services and clarifying exactly what types of tasks you don’t perform.

As a virtual assistant, you are indeed very much a multitasker. Not only do you have to handle accounting, marketing, and administrative work for the people you’re working with, but you also have to do all these things for your own business–at some point, you’ll probably start thinking that you yourself might need a virtual assistant! Keep everything balanced and organized by seeking help from a coach or an experienced virtual assistant who can help you learn how to juggle all your tasks.

Staying in touch with people who work the same job as you will also keep you in the loop when it comes to your job. Other virtual assistants out there will be able to help you have a good set of working procedures to follow to make your work easier to perform, and you can always learn about new trends and new software you can use. At the very least, your fellow virtual assistants can help widen your social circle and you will have some colleagues to see you through as you build your own business and career.

As you can see, being a virtual assistant is not a task for the faint-hearted and the lazy! Ask yourself if you’re indeed ready for the long haul and if you do have many skills to offer; only then will you be able to determine if becoming a virtual assistant is the right thing for you.

Small business owners are some of the busiest people in the world, and they put on different hats for each of the duties they’re supposed to perform, too. Small business owners typically don’t have a lot of people working for them, so they usually work as the marketing specialist, accountant, and customer service representative of their own companies, among many other responsibilities. If you’re a small business owner, then you know how grueling this can be and have probably considered getting help from someone you can take on as your assistant. You might be worried about not having enough money for one, but the truth is, you could save more money when you have an assistant.

No matter how you earn your income, whether you provide a service or sell a product, there is still work that needs to be done that will let you get the money, and there are other everyday duties in your business that need attention as well. Getting an assistant will allow you to do the tasks that actually make you money and keep you from expending effort doing the daily grunt work of running a business.

If you spend 10 hours each week on activities that generate income, and spend more than twice that time on business operations, like responding to e-mails or accounting, then you’re not exploring all the other money-making possibilities available to you because you’re spending time on other tasks. You could be making more money than you already are if you get an assistant. If you’re worried about the costs, a virtual assistant may be the person you need. A virtual assistant works on a virtual basis, meaning only over the Internet, phone, or fax, so you won’t have to worry about paying a full-time employee and providing all the employment benefits. You just have to pay for the services you require, and virtual assistants usually charge reasonable rates for their services.

For example, if your virtual assistant works for 20 hours each week at an hourly rate of $30, that amounts to $600. That might sound a lot to you at first, but if you consider that you can use those 20 hours making thousands of dollars, then the extra investment would we worth it.

Virtual assistants can be easily found online, particularly when you look at online databases of virtual assistants, but you can also ask your fellow business owners if they can recommend one or know where to find one. When you look for a virtual assistant, make sure that you have specified the skill sets that you require to make your search easier. When trying out a virtual assistant’s services, be sure that he or she is fine with doing hourly work without a contract on the outset so you can see how he or she completes the tasks.

Virtual assistants provide numerous services, but one of their major benefits is giving you the time you need to grow your business the way you’ve always wanted to–without getting tangled up in the little details.