It is hard to beat having someone you can send to the store with your grocery list or wait in line for you at city hall. Maybe I just lucked out, but my non-virtual assistant is really cutting down on the amount of running around I have to do.
Pieces of the productivity puzzle.
A personal assistant (for basic tasks as listed) is a great choice for some things – some of us VA`s will do that for local clients! But when you need an expert in some areas, you may want a larger place to search for them than locally!
Who pays for the gas? That is certainly an important question these days. If you pay someone even $20 per hour to run your errands, gas costs could seriously eat up their paycheck.
@Andrew – I have my assistant use my old car, but occasionally she will use her motorcycle. The town is only about 2.5 miles across so gas isn’t too much. I figure I would be paying for the gas and depreciation if I was running the errands myself, so I’d prefer she just use my car and gas.
I had my virtual assistant from India doing odd jobs for me whenever I needed something, he couldn’t speak English over the phone very well but as long as we kept his tasks online he was a rockstar! It’s hard to get started with a VA and harder to learn how to manage yours but once you are past the learning phase, they become invaluable.
I also forgot to mention…I went from 60 hour work weeks to about 30 with the help of my VA. I don’t make as much because I pay someone else to do half my work…but I’m a lot happier.
A personal assistant would be a mit more heavier on the cost side but might be useful for running local errands. But virtual assistants are indispensable when it comes to quality work, delivered within deadlines at a comparatively lower price an hour. An interesting article on virtual assistants at http://outsorcerer.com/blog/?p=21