The past few months I have let this blog and my business in general fall by the way side. Between making much-needed repairs to my house, awaiting the birth of my newest grandson, moving 88 miles to be with him, his brother and sister and their Mom & my oldest daughter, and extra client work, I have just been neglecting myself AND my business.

I had even missed TWO months of doing my ezine, which had never happened in the 11 years I have been its editor!

I am settled in now, new grandson is 6 weeks old and it is time to get back into the swing of things. Look for regular posts to this blog and to my others and help keep me accountable to never again let my personal and business needs slide to the point where people think I have disappeared off the face of the net

I am a who strives to help my own clients keep their lives in balance and need to remember to do the same for ME!

Remember, I am a Virtual Assistant who LOVES to do editing and proofreading
assignments along with research, blog posts, article submissions
and social media maintenance!

Why not Schedule a Project now?

Before you can start your own home business you should designate
a place for you to work. The area that you work in should be free
of distractions and have a computer,a desk, a phone, a connection
to the Internet, and, if possible, a bathroom and coffee pot or pitcher
with your favorite drink. ( I always have a cup of tea next to me -
it is the one thing that I love hot, cold or in between temps. )

This way you will have everything you need until you take your lunch break.

Something to remember is that you are ‘at work’ in this area. An ideal solution is to have
every distraction taken care of. This means that you have someone looking after your child or children, if possible. If your children are younger than school age, hire someone to look
after them during the day.

This may seem strange since you are working at home, but would you take a baby
into your office with you? Probably not – your boss wouldn’t allow it. Having someone
look after them while you are working ensures that you will get everything done during business hours.

If your children are school age and old enough to understand, let them know that you are working, and that you should only be disturbed if it’s an emergency. If they are still young, have someone watch them after school.

This may seem like an unnecessary expense, but if you are talking to someone on the phone, they won’t take you seriously if they hear a crying baby in the background, or children fighting. You want to make yourself seem as professional as you can so that people know they can trust you.

I learned all of this first hand when I started my home based office services business 13 years ago. I had, at that time, a 16 year old girl, a 10 year old boy and a 6 year old girl. I had to set limits once they were home from school – they had their special “Mom times” and I had my “Mom is working here!” guidelines. It took some work but we did manage to survive it.

Like I told them, they wanted me to work at HOME instead of going out to another “job” when I got laid off from being a telemarketer – and in order for me to do this, they had to understand that this WAS a job and that I was working. If I had a “real” job, they could not run in and out bothering me with silly snitching, fighting and whining and they had to learn to pretend that I was NOT here.

It worked – they are all grown and here I am, still working at home!

Remember, I am a Virtual Assistant who LOVES to do editing, proofreading
and transcription assignments along with research, blog posts, article submissions
and social media maintenance!

Why not Schedule a Project now?

Obviously, I am a Virtual Assistant . However, I chose to specialize in mainly three categories.

They are Proofreading , Editing and Transcription .

I am often asked about performing Services that I either do NOT do or that I know that someone in my circle of other VA’s can be more helpful with, so am more than glad to give the client a “sister” or “brother” colleague referral.

I have said for months that my dream is to be so busy that I need my OWN Virtual Assistant. Well, this past week, that finally happened! I took on an assignment that on the surface seemed entirely doable, but turned out to be more than I could handle in a timely manner.

Luckily for me, I have a wonderful network of savvy and talented business associates on Twitter , so was able to call for HELP and get my project completed and all in a timely manner and leaving me with another happy client .

The experts, or so-called ones, anyway, used to advise against interacting with your “competition”, but even ten years ago, when I took over as editor of my ezine, Rim Digest , I knew that forming allegiances with my peers could only help us all to learn and grow, and once again I was proven to be correct!

My hat is off to ALL Virtual Assistants who are willing to go the extra step to help out one of their peers and at a job rate that allowed me to get the help when I needed it.

By the way, Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Jan Tallent
Tallent Agency Virtual Assistance