Although Tim Ferriss encourages everyone to hire a virtual assistant, I am not yet financially in the position to do so. However, I am interested in the idea of having a personal assistant and what Byers had to say about the topic had me intrigued. In her book, Byers talked about the mindset of hiring a personal assistant and using that mindset to restructure your life operations to one where you were the personal assistant.
In the first part of her book, she covered the idea of having a personal assistant. One of the important questions Byers asked was “When I hire a personal assistant, what will I ask him or her to do for me” (Byers, 2016, Section: A Line in the Sand)? She said that to be a successful personal assistant to yourself, you really need to think like a personal assistant. This means that you need to look at trouble spots in your life and figure out efficient and effective ways to accomplish those tasks. You also need to think about the future and schedule tasks as soon as possible.
“When I hire a personal assistant, what will I ask him or her to do for me?” (Byers, 2016, Section: A Line in the Sand)
Byers shared some of her best ideas for productivity in these chapters:
- Amazon Prime
- Calendar
- Evernote
- Kids
I’m not going to share any of the specific tips from these areas. I think they are worth picking up the book and looking at them yourself. All I can say is some of them got a very positive response out of me as I read them. As a result, I am changing how I do some of the things I do as I become my own personal assistant.
After these four sections, Byers provided ideas on how you could combine different productivity strategies. One example that I will share is if you are saving greeting cards or birthday cards, you could set a reminder on your calendar to scan them into Evernote.
Throughout the book, she shared some very clever ideas for getting more time in your life and becoming more efficient. She also included a step-by-step guide for making this transformation.
I was able to read Become Your Own Personal Assistant in one sitting. Even though this was a very short book, I was able to think about how I do things differently. For that reason, I would recommend this book to others who are looking to become a little more productive.
Additional Reading
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