When I used to look at other successful men and women, I would ask myself…”Where do they find the time to get it all done?” Or….”How do they do it all?”
Well, the simple answer is THEY don’t do it all. They do something that I used to be the pits at…ask for and receive help.
The most successful business people know that “Owning Your Own Does Not Mean Doing it Alone.”
I admit, I used to be a work-a-holic. My daily personal and career to do list was a mile long.
I used to try to get it all done by myself…and in one day. Then I would beat myself up for not getting it all done or done faster. Filing, marketing, answering email, cooking, cleaning, calling clients, lead generation, sales, networking, running errands…on and on.
Then…finally, I started “offloading my overwhelm” – that is, finding great people to do the stuff I did not have time or did not want to do, or was not good at. Admittedly, it was a slow process at first. I had to make a lot of what I call “mindshifts” but, step-by-step, I got rid of the most time consuming, unproductive, tasks that just drained me of my enthusiasm and entrepreneurial spirit. Interestingly, by actually doing these tasks myself, I was also draining my bank account, because I was not spending the time I needed to on the most “value adding things” for my business. Once I offloaded 80% of the things I was doing that were not adding value to me or my business and focused on the 20% that did, my entire life and business changed for the better. Some tasks were offloaded to “in house assistants” that worked just a few hours a week; other tasks were offloaded to virtual assistants.
So what are “virtual assistants”?
Virtual assistants are people who work for you remotely from their homes or offices. You can have them do things for you full time, from time to time or just a few hours a week.
And the interesting thing was, it cost me a lot less than I thought it would. For example, I am not someone who particularly likes to cook. I know how, I just don’t want to. So…I now have someone who comes in and cooks for me once every two weeks. She grocery shops, plans the meals – to my and my husband’s liking – prepares them, cleans up and freezes them. Presto, I have two weeks of healthy gourmet low calorie meals all for less than it costs me and my husband to go out to dinner 3 times over that same 2-week period. On top of that, with the time it takes to cook breakfast, lunch and dinner, she saves me at least 2 hours a day. That’s, 56 hours a month! I now spend that time working more productively on my business or doing something else I love.
Now, I offload as much as I can. You would not believe how much…even checking my email (yikes!).
So, pick something that is a time consuming waste of time for you, and commit to finding a way to offload it. If you enjoy cooking, pick something else, but ask yourself…”Who else can I get to do this for me?” When you ask the right questions… the answer comes. And…I promise…you can get it done for a lot less than you think.
Allie Longoria is a SMARTY Peer to Peer Expert, multi-dimensional Entrepreneur, automatic marketing and automatic business expert and coach. She is a former trial attorney, owns real estate all over the country and runs multiple businesses including, WEWomenOnline.com, a worldwide resource, network and community exclusively for Women Entrepreneurs who market and sell their products, services and causes Online. To register for her upcoming Peer to Peer class “Doing it On Your Own Does Not Mean Doing It Alone” click here.
