Smartlife

If you ask any book publisher, library or archivist, they will tell you decisively: Paper is out.

Documents of all kinds are going digital. In fact, digitizing paper documents is already a multi-million dollar industry. Large, small, public, and private companies are all trading in their archaic paper-based filing systems for database-driven digital equivalents.

But, there didn’t seem to be a personal solution for digitizing documents. There are plenty of “syncing” services and “cloud based” accounts that can help an individual organize files that are already digital, but has anyone…

The new iPhone 4S is finally out, and if you didn’t know that, thank you for choosing us as the first website you read or thing you did after coming out from under the rock. We’re flattered. With every tech site posting the exact same iPhone 4S pictures and posting the exact same iPhone 4S specifications — under the egocentric delusion that they’re the only website their readers check (or that it matters who has it) — we’ve decided to look at what the iPhone 4S features really mean.

The…

By now, you’re familiar with the benefits of outsourcing your tasks and projects to virtual assistants. Previously, Smartlife wrote about how to choose a VA and how to choose which tasks to delegate. Actually finding a reliable VA to handle your to-dos, however, is easier said than done.

One reliable source you can turn to is a company like TaskUs that can manage the delegation of tasks to virtual assistants for you. Another way is to go directly to the VAs…

I thought the first task that I outsourced made perfect sense. Despite my assumption, it took half a dozen back-and-forth emails for my virtual assistant to figure out just what I was talking about. Outsourcing, when you first start, might be a little bumpy. You may need to get used to the pattern of back-and-forth communications and troubleshooting your outsourcing setup if you run into problems.

Troubleshooting by the checklist

When I run into problems with my outsourced tasks, I look for how the problem occurred. From there, it becomes a matter of figuring out how to prevent a repeat of the same problem.

One of the more confusing aspects of outsourcing personal tasks is the number of ways you can structure payments. Are you expected to pay a virtual assistant hourly? By the task? Some combination? And what is the typical price charged?

By the hour

Many virtual assistants work on an hourly basis — I think this arrangement is the easiest option for both those doing the outsourcing and those doing the work. It’s easier to track work and payments on an hourly basis.

Some virtual assistants are more than happy to handle tasks for you that require personal information. But is it really necessary to go around handing out information like the password to your email or your credit card number?

How personal is too personal?

You may want your virtual assistant to purchase something on your behalf. Most assistants will want your credit card to make the purchase. Perhaps you want your virtual assistant to respond to emails for you — but she’ll need to get into your email account to do it. Most of us aren’t comfortable handing out that sort of information, for good reasons.