The Sounding Board

In researching work styles, my assistant and I both found some interesting quizzes available to help you determine your work style. I found this quiz at iVillage. While this quiz is intended for those of us working for another company, it does offer some insight into solutions for some of the more problematic aspects of your work style, regardless of if you answer to yourself or someone else. I took the quiz and (not surprisingly) I was dubbed a “perfectionist.” Not surprising, considering my line of work & my commitment to my clients. Here are some of the suggestions offered to help “fix” my perfectionist tendencies.

“The Perfectionist fix
You need to set more realistic goals without compromising your high standards. The way to accomplish this is via some welcome distractions that can help you put work in perspective.

• Write a list of top taskseach day to remind youself what your true priorities are and refer to it every time you finish one of the tasks. This can help you stay on track instead of going off at the deep end over small tasks.
• Learn to delegate. It can be hard to trust underlings but if they don’t learn from experience, how can they improve? The more confidence you have in their ability, the more likely they are to succeed.
• Keeping a photo of your loved ones on your desk can help remind you to leave work on time.
• Start a whiteboard with each of your projects listed on it, along with the deadlines and budget for how much time and money to allocate.
• Get a comfortable chair that will encourage you to put your feet up occasionally. During these breaks call a loved one, scan a magazine - relax!
• Consider taking some of your meetings outsideof the office or meeting rooms. It’ll help you relax and focus on the real nitty-gritty of the meeting. An agenda for the meeting will also help you to focus rather than getting bogged down by minor points.”

Hmm….I could do some of those things. Delegating is the one thing on that list that I am currently working on. I just recently brought in an assistant to help with my business. My biggest struggle has been learning to let go of certain things & trusting my assistant to do what I hired her to do. (Gee, now I understand exactly what my clients struggle with when turning over their administrative tasks to me!)

What is your work style? What improvements can you make that will help YOU work with, as opposed to against, your work style?

Stay tuned….our next discussion will help you identify what to look for in an assistant who can compliment your work style & help you make some of those improvements.

I had a conversation with a new client earlier this year that I thought would be valuable to share. His major concern was not what operating system I use, or what my credentials were. His main concern was how could I help him without adding to his to-do list. He had already spoken to a few other VAs, all of whom almost immediately started telling him about the various technologies they could use to help him. The problem? He was already snowed-under with work, hence the need for an assistant. The last thing he needed was to learn some new software or gadget just so that he could work with his assistant. He said he didn’t want to have to ’study’ in order to work with someone. The whole point of brining in an assistant was to lighten his load, not add to it.

Obviously, if you’ve reach the point in your business that you need an assistant, this client’s comments probably ring very true. It’s simple common sense, really. If you need help, you need it now, not in a couple of weeks after you’ve learned how to use some new piece of software, right? Adding a learning curve before you can feel any relief isn’t something most business owners want.

It’s understandable that many VAs look for any opportunity we can find to share our knowledge & experience. We, as a profession, thrive on finding new & more convenient ways to help our clients. When we find something that works wonders for a particular client or situation, our first instinct is to share that new-found niftiness with other clients & potential clients. You have to forgive us a little, if we seem a little overzealous to share these nifty gadgets & timesavers we find. It’s sometimes easy to forget that not everyone has the time to ‘tinker’ with new software. If you’re already completely overwhelmed, the thought of ‘tinkering’ with new stuff may just be more than you have time or patience to deal with.

This is why initial consultations are such an important step in finding just the right assistant for your business. It’s during that initial conversation that you’ll learn how your VA works & whether or not you will see eye to eye on what you’re looking for in terms of help. This is where you’ll discover if your potential new assistant is going to expect you to conform to their work style, or are they willing to work with you on YOUR work style. The best option is a healthy balance of both - someone who can compliment and/or improve your current work style at a pace that works best for both you AND your assistant.

Stay tuned…later this week, we’ll explore work styles & how to determine what you need to look for in terms of an assistant who can compliment your unique style.

That was so incredibly easy it’s not even funny! I wrote my last post directly in Word, clicked publish & POOF! There’s my blog post!

I’ll be tinkering with this new toy a little more over the coming days, so forgive me if there might be some ‘hiccups’ in the next few posts as I try out formatting, fonts, and other adjustments to see how they turn out.

If you’d like to try out this nifty little feature, you’ll first need to make sure you’re using MS Word 2007 as I’ve never seen this feature in previous versions of Word. Once you have Word 2007, here’s what you need to do:

1. Open Word
2. Click the little Microsoft icon in the top left corner (the one that lets you print, publish, open, close, etc.)
3. Select New
4. Click New Blog Post
5. Follow the prompts to find your blog provider, fill in your post URL (it will show “http://<Enter your blog URL here>/xmlrpc.php” in the dialog box, just replace the <Enter your blog URL here> part with your blog URL) then enter your user name, and your password.
6. Write a post, click Publish & you’re off!

There is an option for handling pictures, but I haven’t tried that out just yet. First I have to figure out how I want to manage pictures & find a hosting option for them. (Loading them on my main site server takes an awful lot of room after awhile!)

Word’s new blog feature works with Windows Live Spaces, Blogger, Sharepoint blog, TypePad, and Wordpress, but has options for ‘other’ blog hosts. If you use one of those blog hosts, it should be a breeze to set up Word to post to your blog. If you try it out & find anything (good, bad, or indifferent) worth mentioning, feel free to drop me an email at sandi@virtuallyyoursllc.com and tell me about it!