Episode 151: 6 Reasons You’re Overworking as a Virtual Assistant and What You Should Do Instead

Full Episode Transcription:

(00:07):
Y’all. Overworking is a serious problem that I see with a lot of virtual assistants, whether they’re brand new or they’ve been working as a virtual assistant for a while. This is something I’ve struggled with a lot as well. When I became a virtual assistant, I knew it was my ticket to be home with my daughter full-time, so I had to make it happen. This meant that I ended up spending every moment I could working on my business rather than focusing on my daughter. I kind of ended up doing the opposite of my intentions when I started my virtual assistant business. It was just this exciting thing that I could put my attention toward and make a difference for my family. So I was kind of the perfect candidate to create an overworking habit. I’ve struggled with this concept of overworking, and I’ve also seen so many of my Teacher Turned Freelancer Academy students struggle with it as well.

(02:13):
So in today’s episode, I’m gonna go through the six reasons that you might be overworking in your virtual assistant business and how you can overcome them. Reason number one, one of the reasons that we tend to overwork is that we don’t have a clear schedule for when we’re gonna be working for me. Every extra second that I had, I was opening up my laptop or working on my phone trying to get some work done. But the problem with that was that I found myself working even when I didn’t really need to. I was sticking my daughter in front of the TV just so I could get more work done. I wasn’t really spending a lot of quality time with my husband. I didn’t have any sort of schedule at all around when I would work. The second reason that I and so many people I talk to overwork is that not only do they not have a clear schedule for when they’ll work, but they don’t have a clear schedule of what they’re actually going to need to do during the time that they’re working.

(03:15):
It’s so important to decide ahead of time what you’re going to be doing when you’re going to be working and follow through on that. Otherwise, you’re at risk for overworking. So what you need to do is get out a paper planner and start writing down, when are my work blocks? What am I going to be doing during that time? And stick to those things. Even if you finish them, if you still have extra time in your work block, great, but don’t pick up your phone or your laptop later when it’s not supposed to be your work block. Set those boundaries for yourself.

(03:54):
The third reason that I hear a lot is that so many virtual assistants say, I just have too much stuff on my to-do list. Now, y’all, we all have a to-do list that’s a hundred miles long. You have to prioritize your to-do list and focus on the top three tasks for each day. You wanna organize them by needs done in order to make income would be nice to do, but not urgent and can be outsourced or deleted.

(04:28):
Now, the fourth reason that so many virtual assistants overwork is because they don’t hold their boundaries. I’ve talked about this before, but when I was first starting my virtual assistant business, I had a client who expected me to work on Christmas day. I was resentful of that. I’m like, why are they asking me to do these things? So last minute on a holiday, the birth of Jesus and overstepping my boundaries, but you guys, it’s because I was letting them. You have to set clear boundaries with your clients and don’t let them be overstepped. What I like to tell people is just because someone sent you an email when they had time to send it, it doesn’t mean that you need to respond to it right then and there.

(05:14):
Okay? If you’re worried, you’re gonna forget, type out the email, but schedule it for the future. That way they don’t see you responded asap and think that that’s a normal thing, so you can kind of still respond quickly, but your clients won’t know that you’re doing it. It’s kind of a workaround so that way you don’t forget if you’re worried about that. All right. The fifth reason that so many virtual assistants overwork is because they make other people’s problems and priorities their own. I would make my clients lack of planning my problem all the time. If I was on vacation and they had an issue pop-up, I would leave my family and go try to help them figure it out. This is not what you wanna do. If you’re busy doing stuff and a last minute project comes up, give your client some options of how you can navigate that, but don’t work on your plan time off.

(06:12):
Don’t let that happen. You need to choose how you are gonna move forward with the client, but the consequences of them having issues arise, that probably was their fault anyway, because they didn’t get you what you needed in order to work efficiently. That’s not your problem. You need to set deadlines for them, and if they don’t get the stuff to you, then that’s their problem, not yours. Now, sixth reason virtual assistance overwork is because they feel like their client is in charge when in fact, it should be an equal partnership. So there’s a leader and a guide and they collaborate and they work towards the same goal and no one has more power than the other. If you feel like that you have to do what your clients tell you to do when they want to tell you by their deadlines, then there’s a power imbalance that needs to get fixed.

(07:09):
All of this is solved through consistent planning, through communication, through setting boundaries for yourself and for your clients. So this is something you should be implementing in your virtual assistant business from the get-go. All right, so real quick, let me recap for y’all. The first reason that virtual assistants send over work is they don’t have a clear schedule for when they’re gonna be working. They also don’t have a clear schedule for what they need to do when they actually sit down to work. The third reason is they just have too much on their to-do list. Fourth is that they don’t hold their boundaries. Fifth is that they make their client’s problems their own, and then six is they feel like their client is in charge. They feel like their client is their boss. All right. I hope this episode helped you. I’m so excited for you guys to check out the free workshop we have coming up this Thursday, January 19th at 6:00 PM Eastern time.

(08:12):
We’re gonna be talking about the number one way to quit teaching in six months or less. If you haven’t already guessed, that’s through virtual assistance, but I’m gonna be sharing with you the five Ps that you need in order to be a successful virtual assistant. You can find all of the info, all the dates and times, and all of that over at ariannavernier.com/free-workshop, or click the link in the show notes. There will be a replay available for those who register, so make sure you get signed up for that before this Thursday. All right, y’all, I love you so much, and we will see you next time.