Is it time to clean up your office?

Before you read any further, look around your office/desk. Now STOP! Is your desktop clean? Do you have files or papers in your "inbox"? Where's your calendar? Have you looked to see what you need to accomplish today, tomorrow, or next week? Do you have calls you need to make or meetings you need to attend (either virtual or onsite)?

Before you can actually begin to work, you need to get organized. It may be difficult at first, but once you're even partially organized, you feel better about your work.

First off, you may be busy but you need to figure out a day to just do nothing but clean. It may not take you a whole day, but you should still block off the entire day. If you get things cleaned up in less time, GREAT! You'll at least know what you need to do after your area is clean.

Now, say tomorrow is the day you've chosen to clean and organize. Start with the desk. Take a look at everything on your desk and start putting it away where it goes. If there's papers laying around, put them in a pile. Once you've completely cleaned off your desk, file those papers. Put them where they go. Now you should be feeling better already!

Next step...get a piece of paper out. If you use a Franklin Covey planner or something similar, get it out. If you use an online calendar, pull it up. Write down (or type) everything you need to do and then start prioritizing it and putting it in the appropriate date that you need to do it. If you have little reminders of birthdays, anniversaries, meetings, etc. lying around, write/type them in your calendar. Write/type any VA meetings you have or Websites you need to visit (the VA Revolution should probably be at the top of that list ;) ).

Wow! You're on your way to feeling better about your office, your work assignments and are ready to roll!

Work/Life Balance

In thinking through what this weeks message should be, something was brought to mind that all VAs go through --- work/life balance.

It's hard for Virtual Assistants to stop their work because it's right there in the home. You feel you're "with your family" because you're in the same house. Why should they get upset that you aren't sitting right next to them watching TV or outside playing with them? You're there. They can come into the office anytime they want to talk to you.

As business owners, we need to set time aside for our family and ourselves.

Now, how do you figure out how much time you're working and how much time you're spending with your family/yourself? Get a small notebook. Keep track of the time you spend in your office or working and right it down. Right down how much time you spend with your family each day. Keep this going for one month solid - that includes the weekends for us that can't keep away from the computer ;). At the end of the month, calculate your hours. If you aren't spending at least 60-70 hours per month with your family, you're spending too much time working. If you calculate it out, that's approximately 2 - 2 1/2 hours per day. That's really not a lot of time to spend with the people that are the reason why you're working.

If you're not spending at least that much time with them, you need to be rethinking things a little. If you're spending that much or more, you've definitely figured out how to balance work/life.