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Tasks Your Virtual Assistant Can Do

2011-04-14T02:56:00.000-07:00

Since after the 2007 bestseller, the 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss, people have started realizing the importance of outsourcing. Having a virtual assistant is as handy as qualified, experienced typical secretary, personal assistant and/or office administrator combined.

There are services, like TimeSvr, that go a step ahead and provide team of virtual assistants in competitive price. Your virtual assistants can perform number of tasks off your desk and let you focus on the work that's more important and worth your time. If you are still wondering what virtual assistants can do for you, below is a list of 60 Tasks Your Virtual Assistant Can Do and you would love to outsource.

§ Tasks Your Virtual Assistant Can Do.

1. Do myriads of brain-numbing online research for you.

2. Transcribe voice memos you record on your phone, and then email them to you.

3. Look for contractors/plumbers/pest control in your area.

4. Organize your day and week using something like Google Calendars and then sending you an email/text/phone reminder before each meeting/engagement.

5. Unsubscribe you from pesky mailing lists that just won’t stop.

6. Search for best doctors in your area that accept the insurance you have.

7. Research a specific topic and write a draft blog post in your blog on said topic.

8. Pay your bills online.

9. Convert PDFs into Word documents/spreadsheets.

10. Plan your event and check availability of your friends for dinner.

11. Find directions for you. Create Google maps.

12. Find the lowest air fare for an up coming trip. Also, book your flight.

13. Find you an apartment or house when you move cities.

14. Set up your email list.

15. Manage comments on your blog, forum or video - You can avoid dealing with the spam and have your virtual assistant do it.

16. Manage your online library stuff - Place books on hold, order them.

17. Search articles.

18. Online Flights Check-in. Send you boarding passes online so you don't have to wait in a queue.

19. Comparing and contrasting hotels in an area and present you with a categorized list of the top rated, their features and then book the one you want for you.

20. Manage your Facebook account and fan pages.

21. Bulk follow/unfollow from your Twitter. Obviously its time consuming doing it yourself.

22. Respond and retweet interesting things on your Twitter account.

23. Find “things to do” for your next vacation trip.

24. Register you on several website. Create new sign-ups.

25. Basic web/graphics designing.

26. Set up meetings for you with the spots you like the most and double check your budget to make sure you can afford it.

27. Research the best school for children.

28. Help you set up your website/blog.

29. Perform recurring tasks that you have to do daily but you really need some one who can do it.

30. Go through your business or personal voicemail, handle basic matters and forward any pressing issues on to you.

31. Place orders on your behalf.

32. Call your clients to confirm/arrange appointments.

33. Update you with weather forecast.

34. Find product reviews.

35. Upload/manage photos to Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket etc.

36. Help you balance your business budget using free tools.

37. Delete Facebook friends that aren’t, really your friends.

38. Organize your email and delete the unwanted “archived” messages you have that are keeping your mail box down.

39. Respond to email/ticket support requests for your business.

40. Check your twitter account for new followers. Decide whether to follow them back, or not.

41. Create several templates for sending out letters.

42. Transcribe podcasts, or anything audio/video for that matter.

43. Create flyers.

44. Manage your shopping lists.

45. Send flowers to your loved one on valentine's day, wish people on your behalf.

46. Motivate you when you are down.

47. Organize your ideas and thoughts into an actionable lists.

48. Update addresses/contact lists.

49. Make V-cards and contact csv files for you to import.

50. Create invoices.

51. Track your delivery orders.

52. Remind you for ANYTHING.

53. Give you wakeup calls.

54. Do market research for a new product or business.

55. Make excel sheets, charts, diagrams etc.

56. Follow up on business leads.

57. Create charts and graphs out of your spreadsheets.

58. Prepare Powerpoint presentations.

59. Do data entry (of course, you don’t want to be doing that)

60. Send out emails that say “Hi, this is ’s assistant” which always impresses friends and family ;)

P.s. The list is not limited to the tasks mentioned above. Of course, there are many more you may outsource.

FLOOD (PAKISTAN) AN OPPORTUNITY TO REBUILD

2011-01-28T05:41:00.000-08:00

Water being one of the most needed natural resource and being one of the greatest blessings of Almighty Allah, can surprisingly cause wonders to people sometimes.

Talking about flood and looking over the history of flood certainly reminds us about the flood that occurred on 1931. The worst flood of the world hit at Huang He (River Yellow) China, making a loss of 1,000,000 to 3,700,000 people and much more.

Similarly, history witnessed a great disaster when flood hit Pakistan, following the heavy monsoon rains on 29 October, 2010 was a regular morning, and mothers were serving breakfast to their children. Pakistan was trying hard to overcome the 27th July incident of plane crash. None amongst us did even think that this flood will create the history, the history of being one of the worst floods.

Usually June - July is the period when students enjoy vacation season. People also visit abroad or plan Pakistan Tour, but none of us even thought that this July will end up with tears in many eyes. According to the FFC (Pakistan's Federal Flood Commission) the flood was of more than 1.04 million cusecs (measuring the flow rate of 1 cubic foot per second) and has broken the century-old record of 0.9 million cusecs in the flooding of 1901. The flood affected areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh are currently facing worst conditions in Pakistan, the damages being immense. Along with human loss, livestock and households, major crops like cotton, sugar, rice and wheat stocks have also been damaged in the country. The FFC also reported that the flood destroyed everything at large scale according to an average disaster it affected 11,003 villages, damaging 697,799 houses and washing away the crops at an area of over 1.79 million hectares besides perishing 220,061 cattle heads. About one third of Pakistan has been hit by flood spawned by torrential rainfall. More than 4 million Pakistanis have been left homeless and they are hoping our Government to help them, but still almost 6 months after Pakistan’s worst flood in 80 years, millions of people remain without access to food, clean water, or health care. According to an estimated 15 million people currently lack access to clean water and 8 million lack food,

The official death toll is around at least 1,710 people died and another 2,632 were injured but the true number of people killed and injured in this disaster may turn out to be higher and countless ever. The area is affected around 120,000 - 140,000 areas (in Sq. Km) and the Economy has damaged around 7,791 million USD. The national economy was expected to grow four percent this year, but it ended up decreasing by 2.5 percent causing massive job losses and affecting incomes of thousands of families.

The government said about 200 million dollars would be required for recovery and relief work and over 1 billion dollars would be needed to repair key infrastructure in the country.

Even before the flood, 60 percent of rural Pakistanis were living at or below subsistence level. Now, with millions more hungry and homeless children and youth having nothing to due and getting no help by Government, is something that is about to explode. Their hunger is really the best way to address the war on terror. It seems today as if pictures have started lying to our naked eyes, one of the most beautiful places in this world have become a ground with rocks and water only, there is no greenery, no roads, no communication networks and other necessity things.

Moreover, Flood also gives us an opportunity to make improvements in our capacity to forecast and prepare for such disasters so that the loss can be minimized. The Government should introduce new policies to recover the loss that have been made by the deadly flood. The “Agriculture department of Pakistan” should take an urgent action by supporting the farmers and people who are in need of help. Subsidies should be introduced on growing materials. Land should be allotted according to their requirements and this allotment will give them an inspiration that our Government is concerned. The result of taking these small actions by our Government will make our farmers concern about productivity and quality. Jobs should be offered to the people who are eligible and the pricing of the necessity resources shall be kept as low as they it could be. Every one should be given equal advantages according to the requirements.

The Government can also introduce some extra ordinary new programs; keeping the density of children present in those effected areas. They Government can arrange activities related to education, sports, training them about different skills like “using computers, machineries and a lot more.” The Government can offer some jobs to the people who are uneducated by keeping their skills in mind, as most of the people are uneducated in the effected areas. There are a lot of ways which our Government can do by using resources and implementations of lawful activities to get over the loss of economy and to over come the people’s needs for those effected areas. These ways are very important for us. Pakistan being one of the major countries listed in terrorist activities and our youth should not be forced to join those types of negatives activities to earn, for fulfilling their needs. The best possible example in this case is of Bangladesh. Bangladesh faces floods almost every year and has learnt from their past. We must observe the steps taken by the government of Bangladesh to reduce the loss by natural disasters.

We must not ignore warnings given by the Pakistan Meteorological Department regarding the anomalous amount of rains expected in the region. The chain of commands shall be set in a way that the deliverance of messages isn’t delayed and the messages are not distorted. Actions should be taken swiftly and mobilization of people should be quick in such urgent cases.

This article was written by Shahroz Ali
Contact Shahroz Ali

DO NOT SEEK PRAISE..... SEEK CRITICISM.....

2010-10-21T14:41:00.000-07:00

It is quite easy to get approval if we ask enough people, or if we ask those who are likely to tell us what to hear.

The likelihood is that they will say nice things rather than be too critical. Also, we tend to edit out the bad so that we hear only what we want to hear.

So if you have produced a pleasantly acceptable piece of work, you will have proved to yourself that it's good simply because others have said so. It is probably OK. But then it's probably not great either.

If, instead of seeking approval, you ask, 'What's wrong with it? How can I make it better?’, you are more likely to get a truthful critical answer. You may even get an improvement on your idea. And you are still in a position to reject the criticism is you think it is wrong.

If you are involved in something that goes wrong, never blame others. Blame no one but yourself. If you have touched something accept total responsibility for that piece of work. If you accept responsibility, you are in the position to do something about it.

Here are some common excuses for failure:

1. It was a terrible brief.

2. I need a better partner.

3. There wasn’t enough money to do it properly.

4. The director didn’t listen to me.

5. I was too busy on other projects.

6. I wasn’t given enough time.

7. The client took out the best ideas.

Most of these grievances are every day on every job. That won’t change.

The point is that, whatever other people’s failings might be, you are the one to shoulder the responsibility.

THERE ARE NO EXCUSES.

YOU CAN ACHIEVE THE UNACHIEVABLE

2010-09-10T15:17:00.000-07:00

FIRSTLY you need to aim beyond what you are capable of. You must develop a complete disregard for where your abilities end.

Try to do the things that you're incapable of. If you think you're unable to work for the best company in its sphere, make that you aim.

Make your vision of where you want to be a reality.

Nothing is impossible.

"Winners compare their achievements with their goals, while losers compare their achievements with those of other people"
~Nido Qubein~