Time Management for Business Owners

One of the questions I am asked the most by clients who are interested in working with a Rock Solid VA is, “How much time does it take to ______?” or “What can my VA get done in 10 hours per week?”?

We get it… it’s hard to know what you need when bringing a teammate into your business.? Maybe you want to fine tune your brand, expand your social media reach, or build a course but you aren’t quite sure how many hours it will take your VA to help you with those things.? This is such a difficult question to answer but we’ve got a few guidelines and tips that will help you get a clearer idea of just how many hours certain tasks and responsibilities take!??

Let’s jump in!

Every person’s needs are different so let’s explore this a bit and really talk about time management for you and your team!? As business owners, we need to make the best decisions to ensure a great return on any investment we make and this short blog post is going to help with that!

(Ok, hang with me for a second - even IF you don’t like the next sentence!) Ha!

To get a good handle on this, it starts with tracking your time. As business owners, we often find ourselves popping in here to answer an email, popping in there to post on Instagram, and fitting our business tasks into the nooks and crannies of our lives. We are squeezing things into places they don’t belong - like family outings, dinner time, coffee with friends… the list is endless, right? The result is that we don’t even realize just how much time we are working on different tasks for our business.?

How long does it truly take to do the tasks you will delegate to your virtual assistant? ~and dare I say it… to do them better than we are with our “nook-and-cranny” work style?

How long does it take you to:

• Create your overall marketing strategy?? (skip to the next question if you’re not strategizing but posting on the fly!)
• Create 3-5 graphics + write copy to post on social media each week?
• Draft a blog post??
• Pull content for an email blast?
• Send contracts, questionnaires, & invoices over the course of a week?
• Schedule your Pinterest pins?
• Repurpose content from a YouTube video to a blog post?
• Engage with your audience in all the comments and DMs?

I’ve got a challenge for you!?

Use a timer! Just for one week… just for 5 business days. ?(I won’t even ask how much you’re working on the weekend!)? Find out how long it truly takes you to do the tasks you can’t wait to pass off.?

1. Find a timer. Toggl works great and it’s super simple!? There is an app you can get on your phone to be sure you’re capturing every minute spent working!
2. Log your tasks as you do them for one week. When you start a task, start your timer. Even if it is a “quick task”. Log it. Make sure you note what you are doing. Your entries may be, “Writing a blog post”, “creating a graphic”, “answering comments”, etc…
3. At the end of your 5 days, analyze your records and see how many hours per week it takes you to complete the tasks you want to give to your VA. This will help you have a realistic idea of how many hours you will need for your VA to accomplish the tasks.

You’ll be surprised at your results! We often underestimate how much time and energy we are pouring into these tasks every week!? Not only is this a great way to get an idea of where you’d like to begin timewise with a VA, but it will also help you begin considering what your time is worth!? This is something I love to discuss with our potential clients - it’s an eye-opening exercise for sure!

We would love to know your thoughts in the comments!