Reader Question: Why isn’t my assistant saving me time?

secretary-main

I just got a personal assistant, but they aren't saving me any time. What am I doing wrong? Several people have asked me about this. There are many different issues that could be involved, but I see a lot of people who hire an assistant and then can't think of what they wanted them to do. Either that, or it turns out their original ideas are all things that really can't be handed off to someone else. Here are some of the things I have had assistants do for me. Some of these tasks can be done virtually, but many of them require physical presence. I'm leaving out most of the things my assistant helps me do for clients and trying to primarily give you some ideas of how your assistant … [Read more...]

Tasks Everyday

I briefly spoke with Suvidh from TasksEveryday about their virtual assistant services. A full time VA from them runs $1116.20 per month.  For a MBA, the cost is just under $3,000 per month. They were featured in a short piece on CNN and the video is on the front page of their site. … [Read more...]

Virtual vs. Inperson Assistants

It is hard to beat having someone you can send to the store with your grocery list or wait in line for you at city hall.  Maybe I just lucked out, but my non-virtual assistant is really cutting down on the amount of running around I have to do. … [Read more...]

Non-Virtual Assistant Story

Jed has a post about using a non-virtual assistant to facilitate going to a show in Chicago. … [Read more...]

Controversy over Virtual Assistants

My posts on virtual assistants generated more controversy than anything else I've written and got me called an ignorant coward. Check out the comments and add your opinions. … [Read more...]

Offending the Entire VA Industry

angry-post

Let me start off by saying that this is a long post, but I wanted to share the story of my experience interacting with virtual assistants other than India over one of my previous posts. If you are an easily offended virtual assistant, you might want to skip this. If you think you might ever want to use a virtual assistant, read on. Ok, so I haven't offended the entire industry--just a subset of the people on the Virtual Assistant International Group. My Ultimate Guide to Virtual Assistants generated a lot of input from virtual assistants. Most of them were telling me that I could get much higher quality help if I was willing to pay more money. The idea that paying someone four times as … [Read more...]