How to Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions With the Help of Your VA

With the beginning of a New Year comes a time for us all to reflect on our goals, both personal and professional, and assess what we need to do to achieve them. No matter what they are, we’ve thought of a few ways your VA can assist in helping you achieve those goals and hold you accountable, so you can kick off 2016 on the right foot:

I want to get organized.

There’s no better time than the start of the New Year to crack open a new personal organizer and plan your year ahead. Before your calendar begins to book up with meetings and events, take the time now to get a hold of your agenda. You can start by giving your VA full access to your calendar and have them take over the process of creating and scheduling meetings on your behalf. We go into more detail in this post here.

As you’re planning out big projects for the year, take a look at upcoming tasks and indicate to your VA who the point person should be on each of these assignments. Once they are instructed by you on how to properly lay out a task, your VA can then feel empowered to work freely on assigning tasks using your team’s project management tool of choice.

Lastly, as you begin to write new content and receive mentions in the press, now is also a good time to organize your press page by having your VA add recent clips. Don’t have a press page? Have them set one up so you can keep an ongoing record of your achievements — here’s what to include.

I want to take better control of my finances.

If you promised yourself you’d get a better grip on your professional and personal financial planning this year, look to your VA to help you take hold of the situation. The first thing you should do is add your VA as a designated contact on all your accounts, so they are authorized to make payments (or speak with a customer service rep) on your behalf.

Once this is set up, you can have them send you a breakdown via email of your monthly expenses so you have a visual representation of what has been paid, and if any payments are still outstanding. For more ideas on keeping your finances in order, check out this post.

I want to travel more.

Have you promised yourself you’d set aside more time or travel, but found the planning and logistical aspects to be too much of a hassle? Thanks to your VA, you can finally make it to all of the places you wanted to visit with a few simple steps. First, communicate to your VA what your travel preferences are (we list a few suggestions of what to indicate in this post) and have them assist in booking your trip. Our member concierge team receives an email with every itinerary booked by a member, and can notify you of other members in the area that you might want to meet as you’re traveling.

I want to become a more active participant in YEC.

The start of the New Year is also a good time to put some thinking into how you can be a more active YEC member and take advantage of the benefits we offer. Want to get more involved with media opportunities, for instance? Q&As are a quick and easy way to get featured in top media outlets — and it’s as simple as having your VA answer on your behalf. Just look for new Q&As to open on the first Wednesday of every month, and (depending on their knowledge of your business) you can have your VA select a few questions that might be a fit for your area of expertise. Once you’ve written your answers, task your VA with submitting them in your member dashboard.

Lastly, in the spirit of getting organized, don’t undermine the importance of having your VA help you with keeping your member profile up-to-date. Whether you have a new headshot, new title, or launched a new business, keep in mind that it’s critical to keep this info updated regularly so we can serve you best -- and with your VA taking care of these more tedious tasks, the process is completely painless.

This post is part of a series created by Ryan Paugh, co-founder of YEC, in which we explore outsourcing topics and offer advice on what we’ve found works best.