So here we are, on the last day of January, and Christmas seems like a distant memory. While a new year presents the perfect opportunity to make plans and start afresh, it’s all too easy once you’re back at your desk to get swept away in the return to the usual routine. You may find yourself falling back into old habits before pausing to take stock of what works well for your business and what hinders productivity and success. Even if you have sincere intentions to make improvements, it can be easy to drop the ball with these once more pressing matters take centre stage; before long your best-laid plans could be relegated to the back burner indefinitely or evaporate altogether. The same challenges emerge time and again, preventing your business from moving forwards in the ways you had originally envisaged. If any of this sounds familiar, don’t be disheartened: it is possible to break the cycle if you’re willing and able to apply an element of structure to your aspirations. With a more strategic approach, you can improve your chances of making your goals a reality, which can ultimately pay dividends for your business and peace of mind.
Perhaps the best place to start is by asking yourself if you already have some goals in mind for 2022. If you’re stuck for ideas, you could consider what bothers you about your current working practices, what you’d like to build on or where you see your business headed. Depending on what appeals, your list could be as basic as a brief outline of targets or as complex as a set of broader, long-term goals, each comprising distinct objectives based on specific actions.
Effective goal setting requires an honest and analytical mindset within which you can explore your business’s current trajectory and identify exactly what you’re aiming for. A critical approach will also enable you to think practically in terms of what is realistically attainable and the individual steps required to achieve your desired outcomes. It will prompt you to consider whether, for example, you have the necessary resources in place for each goal, such as time, cash flow, personnel, equipment, materials and working environment, or perhaps to question whether each goal will represent progress and value for your business in real terms.
For those so inclined, a useful tool for goal setting is the well-oiled SMART acronym, which can bring focus to your planning and help transform initial vague ideas into concrete results. If you’re unfamiliar, it requires you to ensure that each goal set is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time bound. This targeted approach allows you to pinpoint, track and measure success, and to tweak actions as necessary if anything goes awry. It can yield illuminating findings and provide a valuable level of transparency and accountability.
If such a technical approach sounds too onerous or time consuming, or if it simply isn’t your style, it’s still a good idea to have something in place to work towards. However, if the thought of setting any sort of goal seems out of reach or too big a commitment and you just cannot see through the fog, well that’s where a virtual assistant can help. Whether you’re struggling to identify goals or to decide how to approach them, a virtual assistant can provide an objective soundboard for your thoughts or some practical suggestions on how they can support your business and make day-to-day life easier for you.
So how might this work in practice? Let’s take the example of Kathy, whose main goal is to claw back precious time in the day to focus on priorities. She is particularly overwhelmed by continuous messages – texts, voicemails and emails, as well as contact via WhatsApp and other social media platforms – to the point at which she feels unproductive and stuck, unsure about how to respond to everyone. One solution might be to use a virtual assistant as a gatekeeper – a first point of contact whose task it is to triage and provide an initial response to all messages. Her virtual assistant could advise Kathy on which matters might require immediate action and by when, those which could essentially be parked, anything that could be delegated and what could politely be declined. Another significant demand on Kathy’s time is a commitment-heavy schedule: she often sits in back-to-back meetings, wondering at the end of the day what she has actually achieved. Her virtual assistant could ringfence time alone by blocking out specific hours in her calendar to give her breathing space to think and plan, and to allow her to get work done without interruption.
These are just some of the ways in which a virtual assistant can make a beneficial, discernible impact on your business, allowing you to focus on your chosen priorities and boost productivity. Straightforward to conceive and set up, they illustrate clearly how a seasoned professional can help to bring some order and clarity to your business when it’s hard to see the wood for the trees.
Transforming goals into tangible success requires some effort and an openness to making an honest assessment of your work habits, but you’ll undoubtedly reap the benefits if you’re prepared to lay some preliminary groundwork and commit to the process. If you could use some objective input, a virtual assistant can assist you in setting some goals. Outsourcing what can often be extremely demanding tasks can make a valuable difference to your business, allowing you to regain focus and enjoy a genuine sense of achievement as you tick off every goal that comes into fruition.
