Smartlife

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.

The key to successfully outsourcing tasks is effective communication: if you aren’t able to clearly describe the tasks you want completed, it’s only a matter of time before a virtual assistant can’t complete a task to your satisfaction.

Talking about tasks

When you’re laying out a new task or project for your virtual assistant, it’s important to be specific. Say that you want estimates on a new fence for your home. Rather than telling your virtual assistant that you just want a new fence, tell her the type of fence, criteria for companies to do the installation — location, testimonials, etc. — and other details.

When you work with a personal assistant, you have to choose which tasks you’ll delegate and which you’ll choose to tackle yourself. On the surface, it may seem like an obvious decision — surely you’re vital to getting the majority of your work done. But when you look at the wide variety of services different virtual assistants offer, you’ll realize that there are plenty of others who can get things done for you. The challenge becomes figuring out which tasks to delegate.

If you plug “virtual assistant” into Google, the results you’ll get are overwhelming. There are thousands of virtual assistants out there who are more than happy to take on your to-do list. Choosing between them can be a little difficult, but there are several basic ways to shorten the list.

Start with what you’re looking for

You probably have a few tasks in mind for your virtual assistant before you even start looking.