Are you the one your friends turn to when they need someone to plan a flawless dinner party? Are you the logistics guru in your family? Could you single-handedly coordinate a Taylor Swift concert tour?
If so, you just might be born to be a Virtual Assistant (VA).
What Does a Virtual Assistant Do?
For those who don’t know, a VA is a freelance professional who remotely performs all kinds of administrative, personal or even creative services for their clients.
Think of a VA as an organisational gun-for-hire, or an all-you-can-do guru.
If your curiosity about being a VA is piqued, and you want to understand what they actually do, then this article is here to help shed some light. Let’s take a dive into the typical day of a virtual assistant.
As always, the day begins to a symphony of alarm clocks – yes, plural. After all, VAs are only human. It could be worse though- working from home means less time in the Tube and more time asleep. One of the great perks of being a VA!
Think of a VA as an organisational gun-for-hire, or an all-you-can-do guru.
Morning…
Once our virtual assistant has extricated themselves from the safety of the duvet and completed their morning routine, it’s time to tackle the day’s duties.
First item on the agenda? To load up Kirmada, of course (after making the coffee).
Kirmada’s Workspaces allow our amazing VA to organise and access all of their clients and projects into discrete groups, all in their own web browsers, but under one roof . This way, the VA can immediately pick up from where they left off the day before, and get stuck into their clients’ outstanding tasks first thing in the morning.
Next, the VA’s second task of the day is to check the calendars.
Clients always have meetings, appointments, calls and all sorts of other commitments which they cannot miss – and it’s the VA’s job to stay on top of this merry-go-round and muster their clients to their required appointments like a sheepdog herding cattle.
Our noble VA thus schedules the email reminders for today’s appointments, and takes mental note of the day’s agenda.
After completing this necessary task, the VA’s next step, unsurprisingly, is inbox management. The inboxes must be scoured and cleared for any fresh client requests, and at all times henceforth the VA must keep a watchful eye on their email notifications lest they miss an urgent task.
With new emails cleared and the inbox monitored, the VA finally gets to work on their clients’ more bespoke tasks.
This is where the flexibility and versatility of being a virtual assistant really asserts itself – clients’ tasks can be anything from graphic design or scheduling social media posts to creating a travel itinerary for an upcoming business trip.
This is often the most enjoyable part of the job, and the VA is in their element.
Noon…
After a well-deserved lunchtime pitstop, and perhaps a brief wander outside for some fresh air, our VA gets back to work.
The inbox is monitored, meeting reminders are sent, calls with clients may be made, Kirmada is purring with activity.
As the afternoon rolls around, the VA looks to Kirmada’s timesheet function to see how many hours they’ve dedicated to each client – they’ve indeed accumulated nicely. It’s been a prosperous day’s work, and the VA has Kirmada to thank for properly capturing the value of their time and skill, ready for invoicing.
And Night
It’s now 4:55 pm, and it’s time to bring the day to a close.
Although it is always difficult to keep one’s eyes away from the email inbox, our VA ties up the day’s loose ends.
Not that this is difficult to do – thanks to Kirmada, all the day’s work is saved in various workspaces, ready to be continued first thing next morning.
It’s been a prosperous day’s work, and the VA has Kirmada to thank for properly capturing the value of their labour.
With this peace of mind, our heroic VA closes their laptop and feels another moment of appreciation that it’s 5pm and they’re not having to brave the peak hour work commute.
The job of a Virtual Assistant really does have its perks!