The Benefits of Having a Personal Assistant

For entrepreneurs who are just starting out or solo professionals trying to establish their trade, hiring a personal assistant might sound like an unnecessary luxury at this stage of their careers. It’s common for self-employed individuals to do everything themselves, from mundane administrative duties to juggling personal tasks while trying to keep their business running. So it comes as no surprise if they were to think, “why should I hire a personal assistant to do all this when I can do it myself?” 

If you are a solo professional or CEO of a new startup who feels overworked and struggling to balance it all, you may want to reconsider that thought. There are several benefits of having a personal assistant. The idea of being a one-person show is sometimes romanticised but certainly not a very sustainable strategy. Hiring a personal assistant could just be your lifesaver, regardless of how lean your business is at the moment. 

Imagine being able to duplicate someone exactly like yourself to do all your tasks. While this is not logically possible at this point in time, the idea should serve as the basis for hiring a personal assistant to help you out. The following are four main benefits of having a personal assistant. 

1. Frees up your time

As an entrepreneur or a solo professional, it’s understandable if you’re running your business by doing everything yourself due to cost constraints. However, this can lead to stagnation in terms of growth and a guaranteed path to feeling completely burnt out. That being said, hiring a personal assistant should be factored in as a necessary cost to your business early on because it frees up your time which can, in turn, be dedicated to higher-level tasks. 

We each only have 24 hours in a day. If you are constantly bogged down by all the minutiae of daily life and basic administrative tasks, where will you find the time to balance all the other things you’ll need to tackle? The answer to that lies in hiring a personal assistant, even if it’s just for two hours as a start, to give you that time to work on other matters that are important to you and your business. Sometimes, it’s okay to admit that you need a helping hand.

For example, you could use those two hours to improve your knowledge and skills, spend quality time with your family, network with prospects and associates, or even get some exercise in to keep you healthy. The best benefit of having a personal assistant is that this trade-off leads to an increase in productivity and higher overall output. You get more hours to free up. As they say, time is money. 

2. Increased efficiency in time management

Aside from freeing up your time, another benefit of having a personal assistant is that it will also lead to improved efficiency in managing time. With so many tasks to accomplish on the personal and professional front, it’s important that you maintain a proper schedule and stick to it. A personal assistant becomes an invaluable asset to you by becoming the gatekeeper to your schedule. 

Why do you need a personal assistant to be a gatekeeper for your schedule? A gatekeeper will ensure that you do not double book yourself for meetings, make you stick to your scheduled plans, and take your mind off from dealing with potentially time-wasting activities. Having a personal assistant will help ensure that the schedule you’ve prepared for yourself runs like clockwork, allowing you to make proper use of your time

3. Delegate tasks

It can be hard to let go of tasks that you’re used to doing by yourself. However, wanting total control over your business by doing every single task yourself may not be the smartest nor sustainable strategy. Learning how to let go and delegate your task list is part of the transition toward expanding your business. Another benefit of having a personal assistant is that it allows you to better delegate the workload. You can start by delegating simpler tasks until you feel more comfortable allowing a personal assistant to handle more challenging tasks. 

Having a personal assistant will not only free up time for yourself but will allow you to put your focus on more challenging or high-level tasks such as engaging with more prospects or seeking out new ways to improve your business. If you ever find that your to-do list doesn’t seem to be ending despite putting in long hours to cross items on the list off, it’s time to consider delegating it to a personal assistant.

4. Optimise your life 

As ambitious as you may be, you’re never going to be able to do it all alone. Try to imagine having to take care of a family, have a social life and do household chores while trying to start up a business all by yourself. It is a heavy load that will eventually leave you feeling exhausted. Yet, we want it all. We idolise those who have seemingly succeeded in achieving the impossible and juggled both professional and personal lives with finesse and balance. 

How did successful people do it? You guessed it: they hired a personal assistant, or at least a person (or many persons) to who they can delegate tasks, who helps them be more efficient with their time, and who helps them free up their time for meaningful activities. Ultimately, the benefit of having a personal assistant is that it will lead to a more optimised personal and professional life, allowing you to have a more wholesome work-life balance. If this is something that you strive towards, and I believe that everyone should, start thinking about how you can go about employing a personal assistant to help you out. 

Hiring a personal assistant isn’t usually the first choice when you are on a tight budget, but this train of thought is worth reconsidering if you are looking to step up your productivity or take your business to the next phase. If the benefits of having a personal assistant listed above aren’t convincing you, consider doing a cost-benefit analysis to help you determine whether employing a personal assistant is worth the money. If the benefits of hiring a personal assistant outweighs the cost of hiring one, then the answer is clear: hire one as soon as you can! 

Here at Bridge, we want you to ask yourself what are the goals and aspirations that you’ve set for yourself for the week, month, and year. Check out our career guidance page for more useful lifestyle and career tips!   

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