Productivity guide for using virtual assistants and calendar syncing tools

e » Background research components of new marketing initiatives or analysis of current marketing results Don’t expect miracles from a single VA, but don’t expect too little, either. Let go of the controls a bit. Don’t assign crap tasks that end up consuming rather than saving time. It makes little sense to spend 10-— 15 minutes sending an e-mail to India to get a price quote on a plane ticket when you could do the same online in 10 minutes and avoid all the subsequent back-and-forth. Push outside your comfort zone—that is the entire point of the exercise. It is always possible to reclaim a task for yourself if the VA proves incapable, so test the limits of their capabilities. Remember Brickwork’s suggestion: Don’t limit yourself. 3. Identify your top five time-consuming non-work tasks and five personal tasks you could assign for sheer fun. 4. Keep in syne: scheduling and calendars. If you decide to have an assistant schedule appointments and add things to your calendar, it will be important to ensure what you both see is updated. There are several options: BusySyne (www.busysync.com) I have two Gmail accounts: one private account for me and one for my assistant, where general e-mail is sent. I use BusySync to synchronize her Google Calendar with iCal (Mac calendar) on my laptop. I have also used SpanningSyne (www.spanningsync.com) successfully for the same purpose. WebEx Office (www.weboffice.com) Share your calendar online while masking personal appointments. Can be synchronized with Outlook, and also offers document sharing and other assistant- or team- friendly features. I suggest you compare this to synchronizing your Outlook with an assistant’s Google Calendar. => COMFORT CHALLENGE Use the Criticism Sandwich (2 Days and Weekly) Chances are good that someone—be it a co-worker, boss, customer, or significant other—does something irritating or at a subpar level. Rather than avoid the topic out of fear of confrontation, let’s chocolate-coat it and ask them to fix it. Once per day for two days, and then each Thursday (M-W is too tense and Friday is too relaxed) for the next three weeks, resolve to use what I call the Criticism Sandwich with someone. It’s called the Criticism Sandwich because you first praise the person for something, then deliver the criticism, and then close with topic-shifting praise to exit the sensitive topic. Here’s an example with a superior or boss, with keywords and phrases in italics. You: Hi, Mara. Do you have a second? Mara: Sure. What’s up? You: First, I wanted to thank you for helping me with the Meelie Worm account [or whatever]. / really appreciate you showing me how to handle that. You’re really good at fixing the technical issues. Mara: No problem. You: Here’s the thing!® There is a lot of work coming down on everyone, and I’m feeling! a bit overwhelmed. Normally, priorities are really clear to me!® but I’ve been having trouble recently figuring HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_013888