Time is money, as the old adage goes.

But one of the hardest things to do is to actually value your time, especially when you are an overwhelmed business owner. Everyone has the same 24 hours every day. How you spend those 24 hours makes a difference in your home service business.

Many business owners want to grow their business but get caught up in the daily tasks of running it. In order to break this cycle, you need to stay away from tasks that yield a low return for your time investment. Here are 3 common time wasters to avoid:

Answering E-mails

E-mails have a very sneaky way of wasting your time. Sometimes, they feel important. When you clear your inbox, you may even feel accomplished because you’ve spent a lot of time on an activity. But again, you need to analyze your return on your time investment.

Could these e-mails be answered by someone else?

Did these e-mails distract your focus?

Did the time you spent answering and managing your inbox yield any return?

Having the right virtual assistant on your team can free up a great deal of your time so you can focus on tasks and time investments that truly grow your business.

Getting Sucked Into Social Media

There are many studies out that show that social media can have addicting effects. One minute you hopped on to push out your latest blog and, before you know it, you are sucked down a habit hole of mindless scrolling and clicking.

We understand…

But those minutes do add up over the course of the week. Mindless scrolling and internet searching can result in a lot of lost time and productivity.

Having Unproductive Meetings

Having meetings and effective team communication is essential for any successful home service business owner. But, when it comes to meetings, having MORE doesn’t alway result in increased profit or productivity. It is important to have someone who can keep a group on task and determine important discussions from ones better suited for other formats or times.

Additionally, simply preparing for meetings requires an extensive time commitment. There is the process of creating an agenda, preparing documents, and scheduling. Many of these tasks can also be outsourced, allowing you to free up more time.

How The Right Virtual Assistant Can Help Get Back Your Time

There are many ways that a virtual assistant can help relieve you from these time sucks. Virtual assistants can handle the e-mails with typical questions that occupy far too much of your time, serving as strong customer-facing support. They can also schedule social media posts and respond to comments, keeping your business engaged without requiring you to be. Finally, they can take over the organization work for planning and prepping for meetings, giving you time to focus on more mission critical tasks.

There are SO many ways a virtual assistant can help you grow your home service business in the new year and beyond. Check out our list of 50 Tasks A VA Can Do For You