In all businesses, time is your most valuable asset. Therefore, you must use it wisely to ensure your business reaches its full potential.
Business owners often suffer from burnout by trying to cram too many things into their working day and not focusing on their well-being.
Hiring a virtual assistant with excellent calendar management skills will reduce the pressure and allow you, the business owner, to dedicate more time to dollar-generating duties.
This article will teach you all you need to know about the best calendar management processes to keep your business moving forward.
How Can Virtual Assistants Help With Calendar Management?
Hiring a virtual assistant is becoming increasingly popular as businesses realise the benefits of excellent scheduling and calendar management.
Gone are the days when a virtual assistant was hired to do basic administrative tasks like answering phone calls, data entry, and other various tasks which prove time-consuming.
Hiring a virtual assistant for calendar management allows you to have peace of mind that all your appointments are scheduled correctly to make your life easier.
Effective calendar management takes considerable skill and effort, and excellent time management knowledge is required. The person you hire as your calendar assistant may also be required to do other day-to-day tasks, but their primary objective is to ensure they schedule meetings correctly.
Scheduling meetings can be tricky, and your virtual assistant must always avoid scheduling conflicts that harm your business.
When you optimise calendar management, it allows you to get on with other business functions without having to stress about being late for that crucial meeting.
Most Important Tasks To Outsource To Virtual Assistants
Here are five vital tasks you must consider outsourcing to your virtual assistant.
1. Prepare Daily Calendar
Hiring a calendar management virtual assistant proves invaluable as they ensure your business runs smoothly by managing your busy schedule for you.
A virtual calendar manager must prioritise all your calendar details, like making sure they schedule appointments correctly and in terms of importance.
Calendar management virtual assistants require excellent organisational skills and knowledge of arranging daily meetings in-house and out of the office.
An excellent calendar management VA will also need to organise the logistics of getting staff to a meeting in a conference centre in another part of town.
In this instance, they will be responsible for booking all the travel arrangements to get your staff to and from the venue on time. Enough buffer time must allow for all eventualities, such as bad traffic.
2. Manage Recurring Team Meetings
All businesses have daily team meetings which have to be attended, and a calendar management virtual assistant can help you stay on track with all the details you require to help your business run efficiently.
Hiring virtual assistants to manage all your calendar needs is vital as they can use the latest tools to send meeting requests and automated reminders to those attending the meetings.
On the to-do list will be organising a meeting agenda which must be sent to attendees before the meeting starts, ensuring the meeting stays on schedule, and taking meeting notes.
Follow-up with a point of action report, consisting of things that need to be done and the agreed timescale; sharing this report with appropriate staff members is vital.
Gather feedback from staff members to determine where improvements can be made; this is vital for important meetings and good practice for nonessential meetings.
3. Block Off Time
Block-off time is a method used to ensure your time is utilised correctly. Blocking off sections of time during the working day for specific tasks will allow you to become more organised throughout the day.
Allocating the right amount of time to each task is paramount if you are going to make the most of the time you have available to you each day.
Block-off time must be prioritised in the three sections. The first section is for important focused work requiring high concentration and no interruptions. Then you allocate the time for meetings and appointments, including client phone calls and Zoom calls.
Time must also be assigned to admin tasks such as data entry, email management, completing paperwork, and organising files.
4. Mange Invitation Schedule Details
When you hire a virtual assistant for calendar management, they must ensure every management stage is done correctly.
Managing the invitation schedule stepwise is vital to arrange your calendar effectively and not losing track at any time. This is vitally important when arranging meetings over different time zones.
Your virtual personal assistant must set up the calendar and sync it with any other relevant calendar. All invitations but be reviewed correctly and replied to with acceptance or an alternative time.
When new meetings are accepted, they must be added to your calendar, and reminders for all appointments must be sent to everyone concerned.
Communicating clearly with clients and staff members regarding any changes to your schedule and the new times set for rescheduled meetings is vital.
5. Synchronise Multiple Calendars
When hiring a virtual assistant, they must know how to manage multiple calendars. Synchronising multiple calendars is no easy task, and it takes skill and knowledge to export each calendar from different platforms in a compatible format using files such as iCal and CSV.
Each calendar is merged into one calendar using email and calendar software tools, or it can be copied manually by your virtual assistant, but this is time-consuming.
When you have one central calendar, it acts as a leading hub where all your other calendars feed, but regular updating and synchronisation are vital to avoid any mishaps.
Calendar Management Tools For Your VAs
Your virtual assistant must have excellent knowledge of using calendar management software tools to save them more time and help them perform their role effectively.
A calendar software tool allows your virtual assistant to perform to a high standard when dealing with multiple weekly appointment-setting dates.
Some software tools used for digital calendars include Google Calendar, Evernote, Accompany, Outlook, and Fantastical. Using these tools helps you save valuable time, making your calendar more multi-functional and easy to use.
These tools have the functionality to include to-do lists, set automatic reminders, and allow for note-making regarding potential clients.
A virtual assistant’s role becomes invaluable when you add calendar management as their primary focus, so knowing how to use the relevant calendar app adds more benefits to your company.
Implementing these calendar management tools into your daily business needs ensures you will not lose track.
Call Us For A Free Consultation
You have decided to hire a calendar management services worker to help you manage all your appointments efficiently to ensure your business runs smoothly and you stay ahead of the competition.
However, most business owners haven’t got the time to dedicate to the hiring process.
Our highly qualified experts can identify, hire, train, and manage the right virtual assistant for your business requirements.
Contact us today for a free consultation to find out how easily we can get you up and running with a highly-skilled virtual assistant who will help your company thrive.
