I often get asked what a day in the life is as a digital marketing agency owner. I started my business, Ava And The Bee, 4 years ago and a lot has changed inside my business! Over the years I have moved from offering hourly services, to packages, to niching down to digital marketing, to now expanding our services to include strategy sessions.

This is going to be part of a six blog series, where we cover a typical day, discovery calls, client onboarding, common workflows, tools I use to simplify and organizing client work! If you have not joined my Free Facebook Group – The Creative VA Lounge, do so now! Inside this group, you will be getting FREE weekly workshops, where I’ll be covering all of these topics (and more!)

Continuously Making a Schedule

There are so many ways to create a daily schedule – so mine not work for you, but that is okay! Personally, I have to write everything down, as well as add it into Asana. To track my daily tasks, I use Asana to see what I have to do. But, I also write it down on a calendar. Below is an image of what I use!

I print these out for months at a time, so I can future cast work as well. For example, when I do Pinterest, I’ll do two weeks at a time for clients. So I will do the task, and re-write it down as a to-do two weeks from now (in Asana + my calendar)

After a while, this will start to work like clock-work. I personally have each and every day outlined in my calendar. It tells me what hours I am doing what, so I can easily follow it, and remove distractions.

Curious about what tools I use in my business? Check out my post: 8 Tools I Use Everyday As a Virtual Assistant

Mornings

I am not an early bird, so I don’t get up until 8:00 AM. One of my biggest tips for other VA’s is to schedule your day around how YOU work. If you are an early bird, set your office hours earlier. If you work better in the evening, set them around later hours. For example, my office hours are 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM Central.

I wake up around 8:00 AM, make coffee, and have the same breakfast every single morning. 1 cup of hazelnut iced coffee and 2 pieces of Pepperidge Farm French Toast. I eat breakfast at my desk, where I get my Spotify up, and start checking emails.

From 9:00 – 9:30 AM, I focus on emails. I try to not have my email open all day since it is so easy to get distracted by them!

10-12 PM is work, work, work. The work will depend on what is due that day, so it can vary. I batch work everything I do. So for example, or Wednesday all I do is Pinterest. Thursday is just blogging. If I don’t have any blogging for that week, I’ll fill it in with something else, but most weeks are very consistent in our tasks.

The Afternoon

I take a lunch break around 12 PM, and watch TV with my Fiancé (currently we are marathoning It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, one episode every day at lunch)

1PM is when I’m back in the office. I used to work through lunch, and do emails as I ate, but I am trying to allow for mental breaks throughout the day. This has allowed me to not get as burned out, and really spend the second half of my day focused!

1PM – 3PM is spent working on client work. I check emails again around 3PM, to answer anyone that came in, and go through and see if new tasks need to be assigned. I am out of the office by 4PM. And while I try to stick to that every day, some days I am working and stay until 5PM.

Weekends

One of my biggest rules of 2021 is no more working on weekends! I know this is hard for businesses just starting out – I worked weekends for the first year of my business. The last year, I’ve worked some weekends on catching up inside my business (like marketing, blogging, etc.) However, my goal in 2021 is to have a weekday become my marketing day, and have Friday’s completely off. Right now, Friday is my personal marketing day.

How Many Hours Per Day Do I Work?

On average, I work 6 hours per day, with Friday as a half day. That totals around 27 hours per week, but my goal is only 24 hours per week, so I can take Friday’s off. It does vary though, some days I’ll work 8 hours and other days I’ll only work 3 hours. That’s one of the most amazing benefits of working from home as a VA! You have the flexibility to work when you want, and for how many hours you want!

Calls with inquiries and clients only happen Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, from 11:00AM – 3:00PM. I also only allow two calls per day, and 4 calls per week. This allows me to better structure my time, and ensure that I am able to focus on work!

Having a structured routine can help create a space for productivity and creativity. But, I also love knowing that I can adjust my weekly schedule as needed.

A few tips for structuring your day as a virtual assistant

• If you have a full-time job, it’s okay to let your client know your hours might vary! When I had a full-time job, I let my clients know that I would be working evenings, so to expect emails in the evening, but they didn’t have to respond until the next day.
• It can be easy to add a new task – and forget to add it to your calendar! Always label important dates, set reminders, and cross of items as you complete them.
• I also love syncing calendars – With Dubsado I can sync my personal calendar with my work calendar, so I can easily see if I am booked when asked!
• Set reminders before meetings – I like having a 1 hour, and 15-minute warning. The 1 hour allows me to wrap up what I am working on, and start prepping. And the 15-minute warning reminds me to have everything printed and ready to go for whatever meeting I have ahead
• Remember to under-promise and over-deliver! For example, Don’t promise to get 4 blogs of theirs done in a week, break this up! Let them know you will do 1 per week. (even if you are doing these all at once, have the assumption that you will do 1 per week.) If they assign you something, don’t say you will have it done tomorrow (unless it is urgent and they are paying a rush fee!)
• Emergencies happen, unexpected issues in a project can occur, and some days will be a challenge to focus on. If you send an estimate for a completion date, always budget extra time. I always add at least 2 days to the completion date. This allows for anything that might come up, and allows me to continue my daily routine with less stress.
• Don’t be afraid to say no. If a client has an unrealistic timeline in mind, or want to add extra items to the scope of a project, it is okay to say no! know this is hard – we all want to be superheroes who always say yes. But you are human! If you can’t accommodate a last-minute request without another client work suffering, you have to say no.