I always get this question - should I hire a VA? When is the right time to do so? If you’re asking these questions, you probably need one. But if you’re not convinced, check out the 8 signs I listed below.
1. Almost half of your day goes to recurring tasks.
We all have recurring tasks and these seem small. Each task wouldn’t really take that long. Some even just minutes. Whether it’s daily, weekly or monthly tasks, these pile up and before you know it, half of your day has passed by and all you did were these maintenance, routine tasks. Your to-do list has become predictable. Ask yourself, should you still be doing that? Where could you have spent those hours on instead? What higher leverage task could you have finished if you didn’t spend half of your day on these recurring tasks?
2. It’s getting harder to prioritize.
As you try to build your company, you’d need to do more and more things. You have to gear up for a launch, prepare your marketing plans, create systems, connect with people, update your product and anything you can think of. A whole bunch of bigger and harder tasks will come flying through the door. Do you see yourself battling between equally important tasks and projects? Chances are, you’re spending your time on #1 so you’re having a hard time figuring out what to do first with the time you have.
3. Your plans and projects barely get started.
You’ve thought of a lot of projects that can move your business forward. You’ve listened to your customers’ feedback. You have so many plans laid out to make your business better and bigger. Yet, nothing ever gets started. Look at your day. Where does your time go? Look at those projects, what are their roadblocks? Is there something that you need to do but is tedious? Chances are, your projects would consist of smaller tasks that are tedious. Wake up, you need someone to help you out.
4. You’re pulled in too many different directions.
As you continue to grow, you need to address a lot of things. Staying relevant, addressing your customers, answering feature requests, getting some PR going, maintaining your systems, your marketing, troubleshooting problems. The list goes on. Do you find yourself wishing you could clone yourself? Do it. Get a VA.
5. You have become reactive.
With everything that you are doing and with everything that needs to be done, you can barely prioritize. So instead of having plans, you are geared towards addressing whatever urgent thing that comes on your plate. Does your day seem like all you do is react to whatever problem there is? If you answered yes, you’ve lost control of your day. You need someone to help you get that back.
6. You’re starting to miss important emails and appointments.
And since you’re now reactive, emails start to pile up. You don’t have time to see which emails need your real and urgent attention. So you miss out on important emails. Check your inbox, do you have tons of unread emails? If you read through them, do you see an email that could have been a great opportunity for your business to move forward? In addition, you miss out on your appointments or have become constantly late. You’ve probably been so engrossed with reacting to what comes through your door that you just literally forget. Time to get someone to sort through those.
7. You are exhausted but feels like you haven’t moved forward.
Now after what seems like a very long day of hustling and doing everything that you could, at the end of the day, you find yourself exhausted but stagnant. Look back through your day and ask, did I actually do something that helped me and my business move forward? Or did I just spend my day doing recurring tasks and putting out fires?
8. You’re missing out on life.
To add salt to injury, you miss out on actually living your life. You don’t have time to go out with friends, to spend time with your family, to spend time with yourself. While it’s true that building a startup has that phase wherein you pour in almost all the time you have in it, have a step back and re-evaluate. How long have you been doing this? If you can’t even seem to remember, then it’s too long.
If you can relate to any one these signs, then you need a VA, stat.
