There’s no boring day for a Virtual Assistant. 🥴
Every day, there are 🔥s to put out and meetings to schedule. And if you don’t build some structure around your life, life and work will eat you alive.
So, here are the routines that keep my sanity intact and help me perform my best as an EA.
- Morning routine - My rule upon waking up is no phone, no laptop, and no food for the first hour. The first hour of my day is focused on me and is considered my personal launchpad for the day. These intentional activities that I do during the first hour set the tone of my day and have helped me regulate my sleep patterns and improve my productivity.
- Pre-deep work routine - After 9 years of working remotely, I realized the importance of having a pre-deep work buffer as the bridge I cross from personal time to deep work. When I sign in for work, the first 1 hour is dedicated to checking my Slack or whatever tool is used for internal comms, email, and Asana (task management tool). During this time, I organize my tasks based on the overall goal/objective of the day. Doing this has tremendously helped me work on important tasks aligned with the goals of my executive and the business.
- End-of-work routine - To wrap my day up and close the loop on tasks, I make sure to send an update to my client on things accomplished that day, progress on projects I’m overseeing, the blockers encountered, and things I plan to work on tomorrow. This helps keep my boss/client informed and ensures that everyone's on the same page.
- Shutdown routine - I allot 1 hour of the day for my shutdown routine. I use this time to wind down, review how my day went, plan the next day, stretch, and then stare at my ceiling until I fall asleep. 😃
It has taken me years to figure out the daily routines that work for me. There has been lots of trial and error yet here they are now. I follow these religiously because I've seen how doing so improved my overall well-being - focus, and productivity primarily - and led to performing my best as an EA.
And I strongly believe that to be an effective EA or VA, you’d have to be able to manage your own time and life too.