New to the world of personal assistants? Don’t panic. We are here to tell you that adding a personal assistant to your life will be life changing. You will get back your free time. You will feel more organized and efficient. You will see an ROI on the money spent on your assistant. BUT. Yes, there is a BUT. None of this will happen without a little work on your end to start. There is a bit of a learning curve for how to work with a personal assistant. Unlike hiring an employee at a large corporation, hiring a personal assistant is more personal. They won’t just be a person who clocks in and out from 9-5, they are someone who is involved in your life. So we are here to help you as you get started with your MOD Personal Assistant!
What to Delegate to your Personal Assistant
When you first begin with your personal assistant, keep your task list small. Surely you have a list of 1,567 things in the back of your mind that you would love to hand off, but trust us, start small. Just remember that those “smaller” tasks will build the foundation for the relationship with your assistant. Once you get to know your assistant better and they get to know you (i.e personality, sense of humor, communication style, etc.) the rest of that long task list will fall into place. And before you know if, your assistant will be handling tasks before you even think to ask them to!
6 Tips for Getting Started with Your Personal Assistant
1. Set Priorities
Decide on and effectively communicate your top priorities on Day 1. *Think* why did you call MOD in the first place? You called MOD because you really want some help with meal planning and meal prep so you can live a healthy lifestyle. So your top priority is eating healthy throughout the week. Or you called MOD because you have 4 kids with 1 million activities and you can never keep them straight. In that case, your top priority is calendar management at home. Set the priorities NOW so when life gets really busy your assistant knows what is most important to you.
2. Don’t Procrastinate
You took the time to research, to call and to sign up with MOD, now don’t let that effort go to waste by procrastinating. Jump right in! Decide on your top priorities (as mentioned above) and build out three tasks from those priorities for your assistant to start with. Just three, that’s all you need to commit to, but do it NOW.
3. Stay Organized
Remember how we talked about putting in some work now for the ideal outcome later … well here is where that comes in. Before your first phone call with your assistant get organized. Gather up all of your passwords, logins, codes, credit cards, etc that your assistant might need to accomplish the tasks you give them. On your first call with your assistant they will walk through our internal ‘Client Checklist’ and ask you for all of these things. If you already have those answers ready for them, think about how much more efficient that first call will be. (we love efficient).
4. Ask For Input and Give Feedback
This is a BIG one. Keeping the lines of communication open between you and your new assistant is vital. This relationship must be a two way street if you want it to be successful. If you see something that you would like your assistant to be doing differently, SAY SOMETHING. Your assistant wants to hear your feedback. Every client is different and they cannot read your mind. And that goes both ways. Let your assistant know that you are open to their feedback. If they feel comfortable coming to your with questions or suggestions, that will decrease the chances that mistakes will happen.
5. Stay Informed
Monthly, weekly, and even daily communication with your assistant with create a healthy working relationship. We suggest at the very least a weekly phone call with your assistant. Even if it’s just 10 minutes every Monday morning for a quick check-in, that time to openly communicate will work wonders. After that feel free to text, call, email, Slack – whatever your preferred method of communication – as long as you are informed with what is going on, you will feel better.
6. Be Honest!
Your assistant is there to make your life easier- not harder! If there is something that they are doing that is causing you more stress, be honest with them. Do not be afraid to share what’s on your mind, we cannot improve if we don’t know what you like and don’t like.
