It’s been a long while since I last did a ‘day in the life of me’ post – over 3 years in fact, and as SO much has changed since then, I thought it was high time to correct that, and not being a fan of being in front of the camera, you’re getting a blog rather than a vlog! So, if you’ve ever wondered what a day in the life of a Virtual Assistant actually looks like, here’s what one of my Fridays looks like…
I thought a Friday would be a good day to write about because it’s my full freelance day where I am working on just my own clients so there is a bit more variety! I work Monday-Wednesday 8am – 1pm at the marketing agency where I am employed, and I also do my freelance work in the afternoons on those days. This is I have a couple of clients who require daily check ins on the accounts. One is a personal brand account and due to the nature of the scientist’s work, is a bit more reactive as the publications, meetings, travel and associated tags come thick and fast so I can’t plan too much content in advance. Then on a Thursday I am mainly doing dental marketing work, also for the marketing agency I am employed by. It is a lovely flexible arrangement since the merging of the business with another agency who I freelanced for for 9 years. They recognised that flexibility is important to me, so as long as I am available on the usual Monday-Wednesday 8am-1pm, I can complete the remainder of the work to suit my schedule.
So, today…!
As you may know if you follow me on social media, my girls are now both in high school. They usually take themselves on public transport, but as they both had really busy days yesterday with ballet until late, I thought I would give them a lift this morning which meant they could leave 25 minutes later.
I dropped them both off and headed into the town to pitch up at Costa for a while. I treated myself to an oat latte, then once I sat down, immediately regretted my decision to work from there as the wifi was being painfully slow. I restarted my laptop, gave it a bit of time and eventually after about 15 minutes, it seemed to spring to life.
I had planned to do the next batch of seven posts for a client but wanted to be in the zone for it really, and as the fragmented start had frustrated me a bit, I decided to leave that until I was back home and instead tackled some smaller jobs on my list for today:
- Messaged a client with drafted social media post for today, as I had spotted an ambassador for their charity in an article by the Telegraph and wanted to get it some more exposure. Got approval and posted across platforms
- Checked all the 5 platforms for comments that needed a response and copied the X post to Bluesky as we can’t schedule in advance on there. Reviewed Insta and shared yesterday’s post to story – it’s how we share links on there!
- Daily check in on another client’s LinkedIn account for comments/tags to respond to
- Created three posts for another client for next week and scheduled to all platforms
- Copied two Facebook posts to Google business for another client
- Sent an invoice reminder to a client
- Shared posts to Facebook groups for two clients
- Looked at Meta’s weekly plans for all clients and shared some posts as stories to hit the weekly targets
Homeward bound
I then popped back to my car and drove a short distance to Aldi and did the weekly shop. I’d prepared the list last night, and the shop was empty so I flew round in about 20 minutes!
After unpacking when I was back home, I tidied up the detritus from the morning rush, had lunch and then settled into creating the week’s worth of posts I had wanted to do this morning. After sending them for approval, I set to with another client’s posts for next week. I sent them over to her for approval and we worked on a couple of tweaks between them, before I then scheduled them to Meta.
THEN, I created and scheduled some posts of my own!! I am just awful at posting to my own socials – probably because I create in excess of 100 posts per week across all my work at the marketing agency and freelance clients, by the time I get to mine I think ‘meh!’. It feels like one of those jobs that can be put to the back of the queue, but actually I know I will ALWAYS get to client work, so I should put myself first, box it off and then get on with paid work. But, as I promised to myself during Covid when I lost 90% of my client work in the course of a week, I needed to diversify my income streams and no-one is going to know about my work if my socials and SEO aren’t on point! Oh, and of course – I wrote this blog!
What’s next
My girls will come home around 4pm, eat tea, get changed and then I have a drop off at dance 5pm, a drop off at 6pm, a pick up at 7pm (with a friend coming back here to get ready for a party), a party drop off before 8pm, a pick up at 8pm and then a party pick up at 10.30pm!!!
Some insight
I hope this has given you some insight into a day in the life of a Virtual Assistant! It’s been interesting to write this post again, because as I have niched down into social media and have had the same clients for a number of years my work is largely the same week in, week out but it definitely never used to be! I would have clients who would pick me up now and again, clients who would have peaks and troughs in their work and new clients coming on board more frequently. I will finish with the same line as my last ‘day in the life of’ post – one thing is for sure, working freelance gives you some super flexibility, which for the stage I am at in life, is completely priceless for our family.
