One of the surprising benefits of having one or more Virtual Assistants is how they can help you change your thinking, and quickly.

Why?

There are two main ways offloading items from your todo list, or items that you need to get done in your business, that doesn't take your specific expertise, that will help change your thinking AND get you more productive:

Can a Virtual Assistant Unlock Your Strategic Thinking Quickly?

1. You're able to put off decision-making "fatigue" and reserve it for decisions that take your specific expertise or only what you can do for your business.
2. You're able to move your time to higher value items for your business, which are more strategic and less tactical.

Let's explore further.

Reserving Your Decision Making Energy and Capability

Our brains use a tremendous amount of energy each day, and we only have so much decision making "power" into which we can tap.

There are numerous studies out there that show we do have our limits.

Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_fatigue, gives an excellent summary of "decision fatigue", and discusses that it can cause the following:

• Reduced ability to make trade-offs
• Decision avoidance
• Impulse purchasing
• Impaired self-regulation

Each one of these effects can cause our business, and our lives, to suffer.

Now we can make changes in our lives that will help us reserve that energy, and a good part of that involves creating habits where we limit the thinking we have to do. For example, we can

• simplify our wardrobe, so we don't have to spend much time deciding what to wear
• make a preliminary todo list the night before so we don't have as many choices the next day
• perform similar exercise routines
• eat the same thing for as many meals as you can. At least start by eating the same thing for breakfast each day.

However, we'll have done all we can to limit the decisions we have to make, as well as make our toughest decisions at the time of day when we're at our peak.

Beyond that, we have to build a team AND allow them to make decisions and execute on things for us.

While we have to give up some control, we can gradually ease into doing that by having a Virtual Assistant get 80% or 90% of the way there; then we only have to decide on the last percentage.

For example, recently I wanted to download some YouTube videos for yoga so that I can do them away from having an internet connection such as when I'm on vacation or taking a weekend getaway in the local mountains here in Southern California.

I did a quick search and found some solutions that didn't work, and then I thought to myself, "What am I doing? Let me have Daphne research for me!" So she found a way to do it that I can still use Chrome.

So this saved me time AND decision-making energy, which are both limited resources!!!

Becoming More Strategic and Less Tactical

When you have people on your team to help you execute and make some decisions for you, you can move more of your thinking from tactical to strategic.

Let's define those two terms.

The best definition and discussion of Tactical vs Strategic I've ever heard is from Chet Holmes in his book "The Ultimate Sales Machine".

Here's a quick summary:

A Tactic: a method or technique used to achieve an immediate or short-term gain.

• For example, thinking about how to make the sale today.

A Strategy: a carefully defined and detailed plan to achieve a long-term goal.

• For example, thinking about what to do today so that sales are easier in six months.

Some other strategic objectives might be how to accomplish:

• being more respected in the marketplace
• being a more trusted brand causing more brand loyalty
• getting more referrals
• responding appropriately when your competition tries to undercut you in pricing
  being perceived even more as an expert in your field
• the urgency in clients to buy quickly when an offer is made
• moving your time to higher-value items
• having everyone on your team execute their tasks using more of their strengths
• a new offering that will help your clients improve THEIR results
• how to further differentiate yourself from your competitors
• how to quickly train team members so that you can more easily replace them if they decide to leave AND make it easier for you to expand.

Now the only way to be able even to consider any of those strategic objectives is to have others execute on more of the tactical tasks so that you have the time to think through them and make a plan.

So let's assume you've made the great decision to hire a Virtual Assistant.

It's vital to the health of your business that you don't then use all of your new time to execute on tactical tasks!

However, it's quite likely that you'll want to have your VA so that you're not working 24/7, and thus you can move to work "normal" hours. That's a good strategy if you've decided to intentionally do that, because you'll then have more time for family, to rest/recharge, to study, to exercise, etc.

In other words, you're moving your business from a series of sprints that's almost unsustainable long term to a marathon where you can keep going.

Then at some point, you'll have some reserves built up to be able to get some of that strategic thinking back into your business.

Conclusion

Having one or more Virtual Assistants can change your thinking not just about your life, but also your business.

If it's time for you to get into more strategic thinking and less tactical thinking, if you want to use your time, energy, and brainpower more wisely, it's time to hire a Virtual Assistant.

At a minimum, get our free checklist entitled, HireMyVA VA Hiring Blueprint Checklist.

Consider signing up for our course and community to get you jump-started so that you can Learn, Hire, and Thrive with a Virtual Assistant!