As a virtual executive assistant, your boss delegates administrative or creative tasks to you. Some of them are tasks you do every day and much of your day becomes a routine.
There may be daily or weekly graphs and reports to generate, phone calls and emails to make, planning travel arrangements, scheduling meetings, and taking notes of them to record and distribute.
You may have many assignments and feel like you can't deal with all of them. Or you want to be more productive and be able to do a little more. Anything that you do regularly should be considered for optimization. Optimizing something you do once a year isn’t as fruitful as optimizing something you do each day.
Creating effective processes helps you boost your productivity, so it helps your boss. You can get your work done faster and more accurately while creating enough breathing space for yourself to take on more significant responsibilities. Everyone wins.
Use these methods to get more done in less time and make yourself indispensable:
1. Focus on the most important tasks first. Developing a process for making a great pot of coffee is a worthwhile endeavor, but it might not be at the top of the to-do list. Look at the most important processes.
- What are the things that must be done correctly?
- Also, consider the things that must be done regularly.
2. Go through the current process step by step. Go through the current process you’ve been using and study the steps. Avoid judging the process just yet. Do everything the way you would normally do and take careful notes.
3. Ask yourself what steps can be streamlined. Look at what you’ve just done and ask yourself how the process can be more efficient. Are there steps that can be combined or removed altogether?
- If you have questions, make sure to ask them. It might be that you’ve been wasting your time on certain things that don’t matter.
4. Revise the process and again question if you can make improvements. Make your changes and run through the process again. Look for ways to improve them. The key is to get excellent results with a minimal amount of time and grief. It might take several tries to find the best process. It's okay if you don't get it right on the first try.
5. Look to delegate some or all the responsibility. If you have your boss’s ear, you may be able to move this responsibility to someone else’s plate.
- Avoid using this strategy to lessen your overall workload. You’re simply working yourself out of a job. Instead, use the additional free time to take on more meaningful tasks and make yourself even more valuable as an employee.
6. If you’ve saved time with your revised process, look for the most effective way to use that time. Continue to make yourself more relevant to your boss and company. When it’s time to cut back, you’ll be one of the last people they would consider letting go.
7. Rely on the process but avoid being a slave to it. As you continue to do the task over and over, you’re bound to find new ways to streamline it even further. If your process needs to be perfected again, do it.
- As new technology and job requirements develop, it may be necessary to go back and take a hard look.
Processes are a part of any job. Streamlining and perfecting a process is a skill that can make you more successful and valuable to your boss and company. Make your life easier by doing your job better and quicker. Your career will benefit.
If you'd like to become a Virtual Executive Assistant, check out our latest job openings.