Being your own boss can feel daunting and overwhelming. You’re wearing many hats including some you may not want to wear. However, making your own schedule, planning your day-to-day your way, working with clients who enjoy working with you, and the flexibility of it all are worth it.
Deciding on a plan of action and setting attainable goals are important when working for yourself. There are many resources (books, online training, and meeting in person or via Zoom with an entrepreneur, or small business owner that you know) that can help you focus on how to best utilize your effort and time on what works for you to accomplish those goals with little or no stress of being your own boss.
As the owner of a small business or a solo professional, we must take the time to get all our ducks in a row, prioritize them, and use the resources that are available to us. For me, it’s usually two or three things put together to accomplish my goal. Most importantly, do not try to go it alone, it will be more frustrating. That was something I had to unlearn.
I quickly learned that Virtual Assistants will, on occasion, need to outsource certain tasks and should delegate those tasks (ie: tax return, bookkeeping, etc.). Being your own boss allows you the option to do that and focus mainly on what you excel at while outsourcing those other tasks. Because you have that flexibility, you can move forward with getting things done, and truly ENJOY doing them. After all, You are Your Best Boss.
Things I Can’t Live Without: Toggl
I started using the Toggl app about two months ago and now I don’t know if I could ever work without it ever again.
The first time using Toggl, after the initial quick tutorial, I forgot to start the timer. But, once I remembered it became second nature. It takes all the guesswork and math calculations out of the final numbers. There’s a desktop version (download from the App Store) that I always have open (added in the menu bar) so I can always see the timer no matter which application I’m working in, and I can start and stop the timer from the menu bar.
Toggl helps me with keeping track of the time left on a client’s debit card as I can see the total time I’ve spent on a project at any point in time. You can see daily, weekly, and monthly totals. Goodbye manual, hello automatic. Oooo, with Toggl there is no wobbl!
