Editor’s Note: The following is a guest post by Chris of Virtual Business Lifestyle. Follow him on Twitter @chriscducker. Next week, freedom business growth.

Nowadays we hear the term ‘Virtual Assistant’ more than ever before. It seems like everyone and his dog has hired a VA and is busy traveling the world, whilst their trusty VA stays ‘home’ and does all the work. Particularly lifestyle design advocates!

However, the bottom line is that in the ‘real world’, business owners and entrepreneurs are way too busy building their empires to take that much time ‘off work’. And very rightly so, too. You don’t get anywhere in life without working hard – we ALL know that.

For those of you who don’t know anything about me (and I wouldn’t blame you), I own and operate an outsourcing company in the Philippines with almost 200 full time employees, and in my daily business life I speak and interact with this exact demographic for several hours most days. And from the people that have been working with virtual assistants, the large majority of them have had great success. The reason why? They all have one thing in common – they are pleased to have somebody else handle their time-consuming, repetitive, mundane, administrative tasks that get in the way of focusing more on important business issues, such as planning and strategizing for growth, as well as stunting their quality time with their family.

Equipped with exemplary credentials, extensive professional experience and a wide array of skill sets to handle pretty much any task imaginable, virtual assistants are becoming a force to be reckoned with. What makes them special is that they work for you as a virtual ‘unknown’ and you may never even get to see them face-to-face at all. Yet they perform the tasks you have set out for them, as any of your physical office personnel would – and at a fraction of the price!

When Rob asked me to write this article for his readers, I wanted to put together a quick-fire, but very workable collection of tips together for those either already working with, or thinking about working with a virtual assistant – as he also did recently on my blog, with a great article on Process Design. So, here you go…

Stop Thinking, Start Doing – If you haven’t started working with a VA yet, and are perhaps still thinking about getting a virtual assistant for the first time, then waste no more time and start thinking about how you are going to spend the additional precious time that a virtual assistant can free up for you.

Editor’s Note: If you haven’t yet, check out SourceControl, an ebook that’s actually worth your money on how to approach outsourcing in the real world, including templates, mock e-mails, ect. I reviewed it earlier on the blog, and even sat down to talk with the author on process design. A must have.

Utilize Technology – Working remotely, grab technology by the horns and utilize everything from email, the telephone, via Skype, instant messaging and web conferencing all the way to online project-based CRM set-up’s, such as Basecamp.

Set Clear Guidelines – You have the responsibility of establishing a clear set of guidelines on how you want the job done. To avoid confusion or misunderstanding, clearly define the tasks that you want your virtual assistant to accomplish. Especially when you have complex tasks. Do your best to provide instructions in great detail.

Don’t Assume Anything – Do not make the mistake of assuming your VA knows exactly what to do on any given task, regardless of experience. Perfect example, one of my clients likes all of his emails, letters, web content, reports, you name it, written in Arial font size nine. If he hadn’t of told his VA that right at the beginning, she probably would have made a mistake on this subject matter straight away!

Invest a Little Time - Obviously when you first start out together you’ll have to spend a little more time going over things together, but that investment of time will make things easier in the long run, for sure – outsourcing is not a magic pill where you pop it and it’s all good immediately. Work with your VA the same way you would a ‘normal’ member of staff.

Set Reasonable Timelines for Tasks - Since you are fundamentally paying your virtual assistant by the hour, you should have a fairly good idea of how long your tasks should take to finish. For big or lengthy projects, it is advisable for you to set milestones to ensure that the project is right on schedule.

Build Trust - The kind of remote setup between you and your VA requires a good working relationship that is based on trust. If you want your VA to deliver according to your expectations, you have to give them your full trust. This is very much the same kind of set-up, as if you were in the same office together.

Give Praise! - You can also perform one simple act that makes a lot of difference in your working relationship with your VA. Give them the credit they deserve. Give positive feedback as a way for you to ‘virtually’ pat them in the back for a job well done.

So, there you have it, my set of quick-tips for those already working with, or possibly thinking of working with a virtual assistant for the first time. Lifestyle design is about doing things outside of your comfort zone. Trying new things out to see if they make your overall being more enjoyable.

Jump on board the VA bandwagon, and you’ll see what I’m talking about…

What do you think? Leave a comment.

P.S. If you’d like to get automatic updates of new material here on The Life Design Project, you can simply subscribe to the RSS feed!

Photo Credit: h.koppdelaney

What does it look like to take a slightly elevated view to your fledgeling freelance business or idea on lifestyle design? If you’ve been following along at all, I’ve taken the resources Source Control, Work the System, and the Under 30 Rockstar Business Series and applied their advice toward one of the core tactics of lifestyle design; life business automation, and outsourcing. I’ve found they go hand in hand, and would argue that outsourcing is really an extension of the overall automation system you can set up to free your lifestyle and charge your business for growth and idea testing. Amazingly powerful, it’s what you’re missing in the move from grunt to owner. Here’s my real life experience.

Outsourcing Results

I detailed the automation process theory in a previous post, but it boils down to a lot of upfront work (that’s just reality) breaking down tasks that are worthwhile and capable of being automated, and then documenting the exact steps to accomplish those functions. My tasks in question were related to my IT business which right now consists of web development services and mostly mac support. Although my IT services won’t be a residual income producer, (I hope future information based products will be) I needed a business playground to test outsourcing with. Results? Better than I hoped.

VA Search, VA Found

I searched through several VA directories online (Google “virtual assistant directories”) and assessed them by their website design, and advertised prices. I’m cheap so I wasn’t going over $5 an hour. I shot the admin contact a quick prewritten e-mail (edited from Source Control) if they made my snap judgement for being a qualified virtual assistant. The e-mail wasn’t anything special but I specifically asked for a 10 hour trial, so I knew exactly what I was getting into. The other search I ran was Craigslist for the cities that were usually listed on the VA directory websites. I searched for “VA”‘ and responded with the same prewritten note. I received about 10 out of 15 e-mail replies. It was pretty easy to scratch off anybody that came back with $15 an hour price tags or completely broken English. I narrowed it down to 3 candidates, and sent them all different “dummy” tasks…just to see who would jump on them and how their writing skills were. One company stood out (Cubesquare Informatics), from a Manilla Craigslist ad I responded to. The rest is history…we worked out a PayPal payment with specific details and a 10 hour trial. Hourly cost, $3.

I wrapped my head around IT Arsenal being a launching platform for things to come. I’ve had this passion to help people with their technology all my life, but until I “owned” the business instead of “ran” it, I never realized the potential.

VA Managed, Business Automated (mostly)

It’s all in the documentation, I won’t try to beat this horse again, so here’s the specifics of how it went down. I have one task tracking google spreadsheet with task titles on them, then for each task I breakdown the steps in detail or link to other documents (mindmaps, screen casts, whatever flavor of instruction works best) that in detail describe how to do that task and what is expected as a result. The document is written so any techy off the street could accomplish the goal. I request an e-mail before my VA starts the task telling me in his words, what the task is about, and at the end of the task when it’s finished. Below are snap shots of both so you can absorb how this works in real life.

What sucks is this takes time to set up, what’s awesome is this actually works. (and is repeatable) I went from grunt worker in my own freelancing nonsense to feeling like CEO of a tech support and web design company. It’s not as glamorous as that, but my eyes are opened to employee management, and working on my business not in my business. I haven’t blown apart ALL my IT tasks yet for outsourcing or automation, but I’ve successfully outsourced and automated finding gigs online, and for the cost, I don’t have to go hunt down work again. I “get” it, holy crap, that’s the difference between owning a business and running one.

2 Weeks of VA testing later, I have converted myself from “do it all grunt” in my own freelancing business to CEO, at least in my mind. The big ticket here is perspective, again I find perspective is paramount to a lot of things in business. As an entrepreneur I have a hundred ideas a minute, with this system in place and a front name (IT Arsenal in my case) I have a platform to move forward instead of stagnate. For instance, after I finish redoing www.ryanchristophersbyob.com and www.triesterphoto.com (two recent clients), I’m going to take time to break down even more how I build a site so I can offload that many more steps to a VA and focus on an information product to guide people who aren’t backing up their computer to do so. I would never have thought to attempt this if half the IT business processes weren’t offloaded to automated processes or a virtual assistant.

The impact is huge, in real life it hits me like running a computer application. Run task 002, IT Arsenal Gig Finder. VA spends 4 hours sending out 100 customized e-mails on job boards, costs me $12 dollars. I pick 2 of the 12 potential gigs, roughly 2k worth of work. VA manages x, y , and z of task 003, THIS WEBSITE while I make the important decisions, etc.

I have a platform in place, so I won’t be going at it all willy nilly, I’ll be writing down the procedures, quickly and concisely, ones I can repeat and update as I’ll undoubtedly have another business idea or direction in the near future…stop starting from square one each time you haven an epiphany, have good documentation and passion. I’m working on moving swiftly as well, I have a tendency to harp on the details. I’m eager to finish with these two clients, and actually looking forward to working on more documentation. Sounds bizarre, but it’s addicting once you realize the productivity. It literally does feel a lot like the business is automated. So while the business is “maintaining” I can work on growing it (offering more products, easier web design options for small businesses, screen casting services, etc.) I’ve decided to do it this way because in todays digital world you can test an idea for profitability and usefulness in a matter of weeks (more on that as I move to the next stage, producing income through easily managed businesses). It’s simply not worth it to crack up a brilliant idea, put months of R & D into it and then realize your product is gold but your target market is poor as dirt…or any other number of things that kill good ideas. I’m all about (and unless I’m getting it wrong, so is lifestyle design)…creating streams of income that you manage, not find yourself in the trenches of.

More Real Life at thelifedesignproject.com

• Finished reading Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, started Getting Real by 37 Signals. (set this goal, read 10 pages a day, it’s like paying yourself first for knowledge)
• Researching effective copy, sales page design, and PDF guidebook writing skills.
• Researching testing niche product ideas.
• Still re-learning how to check my e-mail twice a day and work in blocks.
• Loving the contacts I’ve made by simple reaching out, commenting and creating with people. (Thanks David, Cody, Greg)
• Working on a Resources page, even though I think they are a dime a dozen.
• Enjoying helping people with their technology more than ever, need help? www.itarsenal.com

What are you working on?

Let’s get going. By the time we’re done talking, it’ll be 9am somewhere in the world, where people will be walking into work – ready to do yours.

This is one of the opening lines of Source Control, and it sets the vibe for the entire book, commanding, gripping, and action oriented. It’s a great resource I’ve recently found in cutting out time wasting action in my life, I leaned heavily on it in picking apart the systems in my life and felt it appropriate it to review. The ebook is geared toward outsourcing and has been my go to guide for starting outsourcing right. I’ve literally cut, pasted, and adapted several sections. If you’re up to speed on my last rather too long to absorb post you’ll remember I mentioned that setting things up right the first time means you won’t have to come back and redo them later, Source Control is the perfect tool for doing just that.

The well illustrated, 159pg title takes a commanding voice and pulls you into the wrongs and rights of how to outsource effectively. I was surprised by how compelling it was, I mean, it’s a book on outsourcing. A majority of its “meat” speaks to well designed task systems and what stances to take when starting out. Dave’s wordage actually had me flipping through the pages in want of absorbing the whole thing. If you’ve been thinking about dabbling in the time freeing practice of outsourcing, it’s a definite read. Here are a few page highlights I bookmarked while reading.

Note: With these techniques I’ve found an incredibly cheap VA who for a week now has been nailing all the low level tasks I’ve been giving him, most importantly finding me new freelance gig leads, a previously time sucking weekly repetitive event. He also takes out a lot of the front work, so I can focus on the most profitable actions. The ebook comes chalk full of easily personalized documents which make hiring, task processes, and finding the right VA a trivial chore.

Take aways: grade A, funny, logical, do it once do it right, resource for hiring and managing a digital employee.

Highlights (get Source Control here)

This post is 1 part life, 2 parts instruction and resource. Finally, stage 3 of this program, automation, outsourcing and a making money mindset. After weeks of testing how one can really automate life to gain value, I have a lot to say. Here are the hitting points: automating your finances, setting up a user independent system for yourself or others (virtual assistants) to run the digital parts of your life like clockwork, and building yourself out of the day to day tasks of running any type of online business. Added bonuses include: Mac OS time savers and healthy lifestyle tips.

Enter yet another lesson in perspective. In regards to automation, (and outsourcing) I’ve now gained an upper view and I’m sharing it. Here’s the key, making life easier is more about systems and doing some hard front work, then simply finding your life’s “automagically do it” lever. Sorry non-detail oriented persons, you’re going to have to suck it up. Here’s what I discovered after honestly digging into how my day to day life can be automated. Scarily enough, life can be so much more simple than it is. More importantly, once you do the front work, the next step, outsourcing, actually seems realistic, even “easy”.

Objective: Take steps to actual automate several parts of my life and quantify the hours gained. Use the information aquired to take steps in outsourcing what can’t be automated. Move in the direction of online “muse” businesses and more time freed to live out dreams.

Warning: This takes effort in a “do it once” type of way.

The key words in the definition above are “convert” and “largely” … automation always requires a set up process, and the process does not always finish a task 100%. If I’ve learned anything through searching for ways to make my life efficient and looking for ways to automate both my personal life and business endeavors, it’s that it will require set-up. Thankfully, if you “convert” a process well, you only have to set things up once, and tweak seldom. I’ve read posts on automating your life before and usually I take away little I can apply to my life. I haven’t posted in a while because I’ve gone to great efforts to provide content of quality. I blew my life into little pieces, so an assembly line of actions could put them back together and we could all learn from it.

The repeatable process. Break apart the actions you take to accomplish everything, clean it up, then have a system or someone else, run through the process each time you need that task accomplished.

Step 1: Figure out what you do, and put it on display. If you don’t already have a grasp on what you do with your days, you’re a few steps behind, go back a few posts, do not collect $200. I have promoted on a several occasions the use of a calendar, I’ve amped up my usage since starting this project and because of  that, I was able to see a rough visual view of where I spend my time. I took that idea, and turned it into a map (this is called mind mapping, the tool I use is called mindmeister ). I then separated what I digitally do all day, this is where things really took shape. See below

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Step 2: Break apart tasks by creating a decision tree or similar on what actions are taken to complete said task you’d like to rid yourself of. Example below.

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Step 3: Automate processes in part or in whole by finding a system or hiring someone that can now easily accomplish some or all of the tasks involved. (see below for real life examples, virtual assistants are primarily useful for online tasks)

The whole analyze everything you do seems a bit crazy at first. It won’t be when you’re done and realize 4 of the 9 steps you’re doing to complete a task are useless or your little brother can do.

Finances  and Accounts

Autobill pay. I always knew it existed, but did I do it? No, why? I was scared. What if I miss something? What if I don’t have enough money. Yet every month I sign into a website, check off “use same payment method as last time” and pay the phone bill, power bill, credit card bill, etc. I finally gave it up. It’s a good bet most services you use allow auto payment, and there are websites like mycheckfree.com or Bank of America’s eBill pay to automate them if they don’t. Bank of America will even send out paper checks, for free. Don’t stop checking on your bills, but at least automate the process and check less often. I was able to break down that I spent about an hour a week, sometimes more when I wasn’t batching looking at several online payment systems. It’s been roughly a month and although I still have the due dates in my calendar, I have not logged into one of those systems. Time saved, 2-4 hours monthly. Fully automated. I wouldn’t have been able to see this without recording in my calendar for a month. I reinvested this time in running, and raced a 5k two weekends ago.

Money. Mint.com . I won’t go into detail, if you haven’t heard about this web application, check it out. It will save you time and give you a commanding view of how you spend your money. It won’t pay your bills, but it’s like signing into all your accounts at once, so you can partially automate checking up on every money type account you have, even investments. I use the iPhone app to take quick peeks and rarely take any longer than 15 minutes to sit down and see where my money is going anymore, I already know. Time saved, about 1 hour a week. Partially automated.

Ever waste time on hold? Well stop. Fonolo.com will call ahead, get to a certain point in an automated menu, then call you and connect you, for free. You can eliminate this step all together by hiring a VA (more detail below) but that takes a little more set up and costs. Time saved, varies. Partially automated.

Account messages. I get updates from Twitter, LinkedIn, ING, Bank of America, etc. all week long. I used to click into each of these messages then file or delete. Make use of your E-mail clients filter options, easiest when using Gmail (simply hit “filter messages like these”) and have all these account messages go into one folder/label automatically as they are received so you can batch reviewing them or delete them all together. I no longer, ever, waste time checking an e-mail of someone responding “lol” to a random comment on a social network. It’s batched information at it’s greatest. Time saved, roughly an hour a week. Partially automated, enhanced by batching.

Freelance ie. Online Business ie. Entrepreneurship

Note on Outsourcing: I’ll dig deep into the how to and system behind finding and using a good virtual assistant in my next post, but here I’ll highlight some of benefits I’ve already seen from the experience in my IT Services business, “IT Arsenal ” and how I wouldn’t have been able to do it without unpacking automation as a necessary lifestyle design step.

First, before even attempting to find a VA (virtual assistant), I needed to address what they would do. Same as you would for any employee. All the tactics employed in automating a task come into play. Step 1 was to break apart my IT Business, what do I do? See below.

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I took several of my most commonly requested tasks and started to break them down into decision trees and documents with details. It dawned on me that any web monkey could do %85 of my job. It also dawned on me that it took hours and hours to break apart the tasks. Once I had a blueprint for what I do to get paid, I thought about how I would hand tasks off to someone else, multiply workload, and only focus on high level tasks.

Workflow automation. I’ve started on the process of building myself out of my business only after breaking apart processes and then making bookmarks, Gmail labels/folders, Google Apps available to a virtual assistant all in my name, or my business’s. The flow isn’t complex, it includes a shared file system (MobileMe iDisk), a shared e-mail and document system (Google Apps) and a set of instructions on how to deal with an assigned task. I relied heavily on a book I’ll be reviewing in my next post titled Source Control by David Walsh. I’ve currently been working with a VA who is part of a firm based in Manilla, Philippines for $3 an hour. I found them by hunting through Manilla’s craigslist. Time saved, roughly 4 hours a week so far. Business capacity increased.

Processes being outsourced

• IT gig posting and finding (uses template e-mails)
• IT service correspondence (under review since it deals with interaction)
• Market research
• Craigslist/eBay selling
• Partial product/link promotion
• Initial web development actions, resource gathering

Bonus: I used this process of task breakdown for creating an information product which has left me with a clear path for a VA to rinse and repeat on new ideas.

Personal Share: Since taking up lifestyle design not only have I freed a lot more time in my schedule, but my IT services business has flourished (not to mention become easier), and I’m seeing the doors open for future more easily managed businesses/products.

E-mail / Calendaring / Time Management

It’s pretty lame that time management takes time. I pondered on how to automate time management. It turn’s out there are several steps to doing this, mostly through reminders and guides. These are moving targets and time saved is less easily quantified, but here’s hows I’ve cut back on time wasted by time managed.

Use a calendar for repeating events. At first I thought calendaring obvious actions was lame, but once I started I really came to appreciate the initial effort. Examples include: bills, fitness, cooking, and working in blocks. Too lame for you? Use a calendar to at least remind you of certain events. Automation works with triggers, take the stress away from forgetting to take out the trash by an automated txt or e-mail. Great tool for this is Apple’s iCal, or Remember the Milk . Using a calendar will come up in several other automation steps. Ignore it at your peril.

Actually use E-mail auto responders. I’ve heard this one before and always thought, who really does this? I took a negative approach to it, and it’s of course become a favorite tool of mine. I provide several IT services and thats usually the bane of my e-mailing. I decided to look back on the last month of e-mails to clients and see what I’m always e-mailing about. I typically am asking for content or information, or updating clients on the progress of a project. I took the time to craft a few e-mail templates to those effects leaving room for customization. BAM. I’ve been able to return responses like lightning during my batched e-mail checks and no longer need to drum up  ”custom” messages that say the same thing. I still personalize it per project, but it’s a time saver to create the same headers and general info in a template. Again, use Gmail for easiest access to “Canned responses”. Bonus: Use a virtual assistant to reply for you. I’d be glad to help anyone incorporate this with their e-mail client of choice.

Web Surfing / Networking

Automate the web? Yep. I’ll touch more on outsourcing, but I’ve since outsourced any topics I look up for research and have a VA mark articles of value, or that I’d want to comment on. Take a moment and think about how many blogs or websites you might have scanned last week, now think about how many were worth it. Note: Make sure to have a decision tree or document to breakdown why you think an article or website has value. Don’t want to outsource? At least batch your web reading, use a tool like Evernote to rip articles and sync them across computers or to an iPhone.

Skip 4 steps ahead. If you already own a business, some sort of brand, or simply like blasting out links on your social network of choice, promotion takes time. I’ve found some great tools to simplify such events when I was exploring each step I took to promote links or check up on sites like facebook, twitter, digg, and so on. These tools will help cut down on information overload, and futher cut down on time taken to push information out.

Tweetdeck – View multiple twitter and facebook accounts in columns. Easily absorbed.

Su.pr – Push and track information out to multiple status updates (twitters and facebook) with shortened URLs all from one interface.

Bookmarklet folder – Social media is a conversation, and if you’ve realized it’s potential…setting up a folder in your browser with each services “bookmarklet” will make the difference between being on the court, or in the stands. Google your social networks services “bookmarket” for the latest one.

Fitness and Eating

Automate cooking through batching. I’ve taken to cooking on Sundays and Wednesdays to provide food for the rest of the week. It’s not fully automated, it may be more “simple steps” than automation, but try buying snacks in bulk, like string cheese, yogurts, nuts, etc. it will save hours shopping and cooking in the long run.

I even tried to automate my health and fitness. It’s hard to make automated progress when dealing with such physical actions, but there’s a few things to note here. Eating 6 small times a day is healthier than eating 3 large ones, but most people don’t because it’s a lifestyle change. Set a calendar  or phone reminder/alarm, and train your body to eat 6 small times a day. Do this for 3 months, and you’ll have raised your metabolism and lost weight.

Dreamin The Life

Wage Slave Rebel

Almost Fearless

Location 180

Want to share your life design experiences? Become a guest writer or leave a comment below.

Short post, the gap in time from my last has been too long and I don’t want recording my experiences to get cold. I’ve been more than busy delving into the next stage of lifestyle liberation. Let me resound from my last post though, life has never been more exciting! I’ve never had so much context for breakthroughs and realized potential. I’ve never experienced this much quality free time or been so productive. Here’s whats coming next in posts, resources and experiences shared.

• Real life, repeatable examples of automating finances, business decisions, shopping, e-mail and more.
• Incredibly useful books that opened my eyes to an elevated view of my day to day actions.
• Resources (online) for breaking down the systems that seem so “holistic” and vague in life into identifiable processes for elimination, automation, and outsourcing!
• My experience with hiring a $3 an hour virtual assistant, turning my freelance hobby into a scalable partially outsourced branded business AND a platform for easily managed products built for passive income. All in the working stages now.
• Action oriented process on exploring if you could use a virtual assistant while building a framework for managing them at the same time.
• BONUS: Technical info on Google Apps, Mac OS X, Gmail, and social media posting tools all in relation to efficiency and automation.

Lastly in the works is another real life experiences post on the Under 30 Rockstar Business Series event going on right now. The event has been ripe with great conversation and resources hitting on a majority of what’s involved or can be in lifestyle design. I was lucky enough to meet Greg Rollett, thee under 30 rockstar and be invited to this event by reaching out to him. I said “relationships” we’re fuel a few weeks back, it’s no joke!

Keep on seeking to live out your dreams, what have you been up to lately…seriously.