Smartlife

A virtual assistant can make a world of difference in your ability to get things done — but it can seem like you need a virtual assistant just to hunt up someone to help you.

Thankfully, there are plenty of services that can automatically provide you with a VA, and while you may have a few more constraints than if you do a search on your own, sites like those listed below can dramatically speed up the process.

1. AssistU: In addition to training virtual assistants, AssistU maintains a registry

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When it comes to understanding software or navigating through a website, a screencast can be a much more effective tool than a simple screenshot. Videos are so much more powerful than pictures and the same holds true with screencasting.

A screencast is a digital recording of what appears on a computer screen and it may also be known as a video screen capture, complete with audio narration. At times, some professionals choose to use on-screen actors, superimposing their video feed into the screencast itself.

You could try your hand at…

As summer nears an end and fall approaches, the change in seasons introduces a number of pesky to-dos. Thankfully, many of these items can be outsourced, freeing up more time to enjoy the autumn leaves — or whatever it is that you do.

1. Winterize your home: Many handyman services offer a package deal where they come to your home and get it ready for cold weather.

When you have children, one of the most important things you can do is spend time with them. Using your outsourcing skills to get projects off the table so that you can do just that simply makes sense. One of the best reasons to eliminate the time-consuming tasks that wind up on your plate is family, after all.

The process of finding and hiring a new employee can be a lengthy one. But there are few steps that can’t be outsourced, at least in part. Here are 25 HR-related chores — from recruiting to writing job listings to hiring freelancers to creating an internship program — that can help you find a new employee without spending too much time on the process.

Over the course of the day, you do a lot of communicating — from making phone calls to sending emails, it may seem like all you ever do is communicate. And, for some of you, that’s absolutely the case. However, there are ways to streamline how you communicate by outsourcing different aspects — such as managing contacts, answering phone calls, and clearing your inbox — to the many professionals and tools at your disposal.

1. Managing contacts: There are a number of different tools out there that take address books

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