When I left my job in May 2016, I admit I had an idealistic view as to what working from home would entail and how my life would pan out working as a Virtual Assistant. Any preconceptions I might have had, however, were soon washed away by the reality!!
That is not to say I would have it any other way, but it has certainly been a steep learning curve.
So this is how my day went today:
6.30am – Drag myself out of bed (I am not a morning person!), quick shower, feed my four cats, make the pack lunch and drag daughter out of bed around 7.15 (she is not a morning person either!). A quick cup of tea and breakfast and I am sitting down at my desk for around 7.30 – 7.45 latest.
7.45 – This part of my morning varies depending on the busyness of my day. I sometimes have the luxury of working through my emails and catching up on admin bits and pieces which is great as I can then start my day on top of the game. However, it more often or not involves clicking on my Toggl timer and starting my client work. Now some people like to have their “power hour” before they start their day to day work. For me, it is more effective when I know that I have all my client work done, I can relax and the creative juices can flow. So, most days, I will start my day by checking emails for an Executive Coach client, replying and making appointments (her diary is bonkers!)
8.25am – This is when I hear the usual cry of “Mum, are you ready??” from my daughter. “Yes” I reply, before getting up and then having to wait for her to get ready before dropping her at school.
8.50am – Time to make a quick cup of tea, shove a load in the washing machine and settle down once more to concentrate on client work, toggle timer on, and I am ready to go.
9.30am – A quick client call over the phone to discuss appointments that are coming up and items that need dealing with on the back of these.
10.00am – A coaching session of my own (always need to keep up with that personal development!) and a long discussion around the language being used on my website and in my social media content. I am in the middle of doing a website review and as always, when you are working on your own business, you cannot see the wood for the trees.
12.00 noon – Feeling hugely relieved having been able to now see said wood for said trees, I resume work for clients. This time, organising some networking meetings and completing behind the scenes admin relating to this.
12.30pm – A flying visit to the kitchen to grab some lunch, bring it back to my desk and carry on spending the next hour catching up with various tasks, such as website maintenance, updating some client lists, producing some personality profiles, sending out a survey for a training day, the usual!
1.30pm – A zoom call (I love Zoom!) with a client, who due to half term, I haven’t caught up with for a couple of weeks, so loads to chat about, we spend the next hour or so working through the to do list and they update me on what has been occurring.
2.30pm – Finish call, quick peruse of emails to see if anything has come in the needs handling immediately and I notice a missed call and message from another client. Time to call them back, quick discussion about a couple of issues. And I then find myself in the luxurious position of having a bit of breathing space (this does not happen often), so time to grab a drink and sit outside in the sun for 10 minutes as it just to happens to be a nice day.
3.00pm – Time for my power hour or two, it depends on what I have planned in. Today is blog writing, so here I am on my sofa writing this blog for you and wondering whether anyone is going to find it interesting! I hope so, but you just never know.
3.30 – 4pm – Daughter arrives home from school or has requested a pick up (usually weather dependant!) and we have a quick chat about her day, whether anything scandalous has happened and finally we get down to whether she has homework, and with that comes the usual negotiating of how long a break she has before she actually starts this. Once this is resolved, it is back to work, in the meantime having chucked the washing out, realised I haven’t taken anything out for dinner and it is still in the freezer.
4pm – Now this part of my day can vary depending on how the rest of it has gone. Inevitably things don’t always go to plan and whilst I have accounted for this in my diary, I like to spend the time making sure that I have ticked everything off the list that I wanted to get done for the day, whether this is for my clients or myself.
6pm – Take a break, off to cook tea or eat it if I am lucky enough that someone else has thought about it!
7 – 9pm – This is the time that I would generally work on my business, so this week I will mostly be reviewing and updating my website.
I have agreed with my family (as they were moaning that I am never paying attention) that I would work a Monday and Thursday night and then a Saturday morning if necessary, Tuesday is Spinning night (urghhhh!) and Wednesday and Fridays I finish work at the reasonable time of around 6pm. This seems to work, so this is our routine.
So, this is a typical day, interposed with networking meetings, face to face client appointments, training and the myriad of other things that seem to take up my day.
Busy, yes, but I love it!
If you would like to chat about how you could be part of my day, please give me a call on 07977 640119 or drop me a line at emma@theumbrellatree.co.uk.