One perk of Virtual Assisting is to work from home! Read about other reasons VA’s love working from home!
I can tell you in one sentence why I love working from home: I love being home for my kiddos! But I want to go into some specifics, as to why VA’s love to work from home!
In case you are wondering, VA’s are virtual assistants. Virtual means that they are working in the “virtual” world. On-line. Assistant means they are assisting, or helping, someone with something, usually a small business owner or entrepreneur with business related tasks.
1. My “Home Office” isn’t always at home!
While I ultimately want to end up working from a beach, right now my goal is to be working from my home office so I can be more present while my kids are young. Virtual assisting allows me to be home for occasions, like the first day of preschool! (That happen to be today!) I was able to drop my daughter off at school and be first in line to pick her up afterwards. That was really great for both of us! I’m also free to take my kids to doctor appointments, play dates, and the library.
Thanks to the internet and Skype, I took my business on the road this summer when we went to visit my folks for a week. I set myself up at a small table in the kitchen and got to work!
2. Break time!
No, I’m not talking about the number of breaks I can take, or that no one is watching the clock while I take a break (although that’s true). I’m talking about what I do during my breaks. Instead of walking to the coffee machine or water fountain in an office, I’m walking into my kitchen to refill my coffee, and I might also do some dishes or start a load of laundry. My “break” time is productively filled with chores that I would normally have to do at night. After returning from a long day of work, who wants to do laundry and dishes?!
Sometimes break time is spent reading a book to my children, or helping my daughter with a puzzle, or “smashing” the Play-Doh so she can make more butterflies! I might make a run to the post office or bank, which in the old office days, that was hard to do! I remember actually having to take a half-day of vacation so that I could do errands such as the PO and bank! Crazy!
3. Who’s the Boss? I’m the Boss!
I am my own boss and that really is priceless. If I need to make more money for our family, I know what I need to do to get more work. I’m the only one telling myself that I need to work harder or work more. Although my husband does try to tell me that too, I still know that I’m the boss!
When I need more work, I can hop onto Upwork to look for a variety of freelance job postings. They charge you a fee, but only after you get paid (comes off the top before you actually receive payment, so it doesn’t feel like you’re paying). I also took a course an online course called 30 Days or Less to Virtual Assistant Success. That helped me with the ins and outs of the virtual assistant role and how to get started. Obviously you will pay for the course, but it’s a business expense, and it’s helpful to be able to say, “I took a course”. Plus there is a Facebook community for support and asking questions. (Sorry, I didn’t mean for this to be a sales pitch, but I highly recommend!)
4. Variety is the spice of life!
I love the variety that I encounter as a virtual assistant. I have learned about many different subjects from the different people I have worked with. At one point in my day, I am working on website updates for someone in the healthcare industry. Later in the day I may be working on an email campaign for a dance instructor. The variety is amazing! It heightens my level of interest in what I am doing for my clients, because I’m not working on the same things for hours on end.
5. Any time of day.
My mind seems to focus better later in the day. So it’s great that I can choose to work whenever is best for me. Sometimes you’ll have a client that needs work to be done during a certain time of day, but not always. Usually it’s work that just needs to be done and they don’t care how or when you do it, as long as it gives them the results they are looking for.
There you have it – 5 reasons VA’s love working from home! But I’m sure the reasons are endless!
Thanks for reading! See you next time!
I may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.
