The results are in and they aren’t good. Australians are more time-starved than ever. It’s estimated that 76 percent of Australians are too busy to eat lunch at work. When it comes to sleep, the average Australian between the ages of 25 and 64 gets less than eight hours a night. As a result, we aren’t doing too well when it comes to managing our stress levels and well-being. The Australian Psychological Society has also found that over a quarter of Australians experience significant levels of stress in their lives.
While part of the stress we experience can be attributed to our modern day lifestyles that demand we juggle children, work, and family without dropping any balls, a significant part of it can also be attributed to the so-called ‘Cult of Busy’. This trend is nothing new. In, fact, it was identified as early as 1985 by writer Barbara Ehrenreich. It’s become a point of pride to be constantly busy and to always be multitasking one’s activities. Spending time doing nothing is considered wasteful, and comparing packed schedules has become a competitive affair.
When it comes to the ‘Cult of Busy’, the area that gets impacted the most is our work lives, and this is especially true for the self-employed entrepreneurs among us. Most Australians who work for themselves are already accomplished at managing their time, a skill that you’re forced to develop when you make all the decisions and having the final say on everything. When the inevitable time comes that you need to bring in assistance, it’s only natural to be concerned that the person assisting you will share this attitude.
At VAssistme Australia, we’ve helped many people find outsourced Virtual Assistants. In fact, we’ve covered, in detail the specific problems that employing a Virtual Assistant can put an end to, as well as what can be expected from the outsourcing process involved in hiring one. Our clients found that employing someone who works with flexibility in their set hours does wonders to save time, getting many of the most important administrative tasks done while they are sleeping. The trick of this is learning to manage one’s time around the unique Virtual Assistant system.
When working with someone who may even be in a different time zone, time management isn’t just beneficial, it can change your whole operation or It could be no different to having a Personal Assistant stationed at a desk outside your office just a few short steps away. You would contact your Virtual Assistant through Skype or email instead of face to face. Each communication, just like it would be in your office, would interrupt their working process meaning that you should plan these interruptions carefully where possible. This in itself will encourage you to plan your work properly and in advance – never a bad thing when it comes to being organised!
The wonders of technology more than compensate for having a dynamic part of your team outside your physical space, which is what we’ll discuss in our next blog post…
