AJ Jacobs

“Either Run the Day or Let It Run You” – Daily Time Management Hacks!

“Tick tock tick tock”! The dial of your clock keeps ticking like a nagging reminder! Yet, your day’s work remains incomplete; your priorities remain neglected like unwanted files collecting dust in a cupboard. How often have you faced this dire crisis? And how often do you feel a need to be more disciplined so that your daily time management, at last, proves successful? Often you may get lost in a pool of activities trying desperately to look for an extra helping hand – yes, the pain is understandable! So, what do you do? FYI, there are many time management tricks out there, but often they fail. Overwhelmed with obligations and work responsibilities, most time management tricks you follow are; You find out what is exactly wasting your time! Who are your time bandits? Reading emails, net surfing, social media postings, texting or attending personal calls – yes, all these do take up most of your time. But even figuring these irksome pricks may not solve your problem.! Then, you start creating management goals! Time management actually brings a behavioral change. Eliminating personal time-wasting elements is  tempting, but ask yourself – you do have a life outside work, don’t you? So, setting goals that are specific, might not go according to plan; For  every other day something or the other may crop up, disrupting your set goal ENTIRELY! Thinking of setting up a management plan? Time shall beat you once again! Even time management tools, apps and day-timers might not do the trick, and you may still end up forgetting crucial occasions like your wife’s birthday or your parent’s anniversary! Thus, the question of the hour arises – what is the ultimate time management hack? Often unsuccessful attempts at attaining work-life balance may transpire in business setbacks as well as a cold distance between you and your personal life! Did you know about hiring virtual assistants? Providing their assistance from remote based locations, Virtual Assistants can prove to be the silver lining to your time management overcast.. Virtual assistance allows you to catch a break by giving you ample time to reflect upon your life and  to finally spend some family time! It comes with one and only gift – TIME! Companies like GetFriday offer impeccable virtual assistance services to professionals who struggle daily with time management. International clients who want some of their everyday tasks to be taken care of by proficient assistants, often seek out for help. A remote assistant then comes to their rescue and solves their issues by handling tasks like answering emails, posting on social media and many other daily necessities,which would otherwise hamper the client’s routine! Wondering what skills to look for in a virtual assistant? Click here. For example, A.J.Jacobs, a renowned writer for Esquire magazine who has worked with GetFriday for more than a decade, said, “It’s very strange to have people working for you while you are asleep. But it’s great. It’s not a time waste while I am drooling on my pillow; everything is getting done.” Read the full article here. Jacobs found out how blissful his life could be if someone took care of his mundane tasks so that he had time to live his dream! To him, the VA was even like a “constant positive feedback support system helping him like his own.”   You know when time passes quickly, you feel like the ground is slipping off your feet. However, hiring a virtual assistant who is ADROIT enough to handle your tasks remotely,  can be the ultimate SOLUTION to your time management problem!

“Either Run the Day or Let It Run You” – Daily Time Management Hacks! Read More »

“Tick tock tick tock”! The dial of your clock keeps ticking like a nagging reminder! Yet, your day’s work remains incomplete; your priorities remain neglected like unwanted files collecting dust in a cupboard. How often have you faced this dire crisis? And how often do you feel a need to be more disciplined so that your daily time management, at last, proves successful? Often you may get lost in a pool of activities trying desperately to look for an extra helping hand – yes, the pain is understandable! So, what do you do? FYI, there are many time management tricks out there, but often they fail. Overwhelmed with obligations and work responsibilities, most time management tricks you follow are; You find out what is exactly wasting your time! Who are your time bandits? Reading emails, net surfing, social media postings, texting or attending personal calls – yes, all these do take up most of your time. But even figuring these irksome pricks may not solve your problem.! Then, you start creating management goals! Time management actually brings a behavioral change. Eliminating personal time-wasting elements is  tempting, but ask yourself – you do have a life outside work, don’t you? So, setting goals that are specific, might not go according to plan; For  every other day something or the other may crop up, disrupting your set goal ENTIRELY! Thinking of setting up a management plan? Time shall beat you once again! Even time management tools, apps and day-timers might not do the trick, and you may still end up forgetting crucial occasions like your wife’s birthday or your parent’s anniversary! Thus, the question of the hour arises – what is the ultimate time management hack? Often unsuccessful attempts at attaining work-life balance may transpire in business setbacks as well as a cold distance between you and your personal life! Did you know about hiring virtual assistants? Providing their assistance from remote based locations, Virtual Assistants can prove to be the silver lining to your time management overcast.. Virtual assistance allows you to catch a break by giving you ample time to reflect upon your life and  to finally spend some family time! It comes with one and only gift – TIME! Companies like GetFriday offer impeccable virtual assistance services to professionals who struggle daily with time management. International clients who want some of their everyday tasks to be taken care of by proficient assistants, often seek out for help. A remote assistant then comes to their rescue and solves their issues by handling tasks like answering emails, posting on social media and many other daily necessities,which would otherwise hamper the client’s routine! Wondering what skills to look for in a virtual assistant? Click here. For example, A.J.Jacobs, a renowned writer for Esquire magazine who has worked with GetFriday for more than a decade, said, “It’s very strange to have people working for you while you are asleep. But it’s great. It’s not a time waste while I am drooling on my pillow; everything is getting done.” Read the full article here. Jacobs found out how blissful his life could be if someone took care of his mundane tasks so that he had time to live his dream! To him, the VA was even like a “constant positive feedback support system helping him like his own.”   You know when time passes quickly, you feel like the ground is slipping off your feet. However, hiring a virtual assistant who is ADROIT enough to handle your tasks remotely,  can be the ultimate SOLUTION to your time management problem!

From Your Man In India (YMII) to GetFriday: A.J. Jacobs’ journey from ‘then’ to ‘now’ of outsourcing

When A.J. Jacobs wrote about Your Man In India in his article My Outsourced Life almost twelve years ago, he said, “I REALLY SHOULDN’T HAVE to write this article myself,” playfully flaunting his newly-found solace with outsourcing. Starting a valuable relationship with YMII’s (Your Man in India) virtual assistance back then, A.J. Jacobs found peace of mind by outsourcing his personal life. YMII, before handing over its virtual assistant services to GetFriday, offered remote executive assistants to handle personal tasks as per the requirement of clients. In this case, the client was A.J. Jacobs, a proficient writer for Esquire Magazine, who wanted an extra helping hand to tackle his everyday personal tasks.   Working or rather living with a virtual assistant for more than a decade helped him  acknowledge his good decision. In fact, this was what he asked for when he first approached YMII. “I would like to hire a talented person or people in India to take care of as many of my life tasks as possible. I would be interested in having someone to answer my calls or emails. Nothing would benefit me unlike a remote executive assistant”. The virtual assistance providing organization tried to plan out how to fulfill Jacobs’ requirements, as he was literally trying to outsource his personal life to a company in India. The year was 2005, and it was tricky to implement the process as nobody had tried anything like that before. However, the team decided to go forward with the experiment and soon it proved to be a huge success. At first, one YMII(Now called as GetFriday)virtual assistant was assigned to help Jacobs over a couple of months and a few slips here and there did happen. The cultural differences sometimes proved a bit difficult to sort out, but as days progressed, both the parties got along well. Wondering how to choose a virtual assistant? All you need to do is look for 8 soft skills. In the first mail regarding work, Jacobs had mentioned that if everything went well, he would do the publicity for the company through his magazine, Esquire. Soon enough, as a couple of months passed by, Jacobs was truly pleased with YMII. His article, featuring YMII, was published in September 2005 on Good Morning America, the American morning television show. It was on this note that GetFriday surfaced as a new separate brand and started to provide impeccable virtual assistance to anyone who needed it. Moreover, as Jacobs saw the creative and extreme functional capabilities of the virtual assistants at handling tasks from overseas, he bonded more with the company. Asha and Naveen were his VAs who helped him perform his everyday tasks like answering morning mails, effectively handling unwanted invitations, even ordering birthday gifts for his wife. Here are six things even you MUST outsource to a virtual assistant. Jacobs felt he was living with his family who understood him really well. They were also like a constant support system, giving him positive feedback on every task he did. He found solace as he outsourced his personal life as he had ample time to reflect upon his career, goals and passion. For more on A.J. Jacobs’ life and his nine extraordinary experiments on himself, please check out his brilliant book, My Experimental Life “It’s very strange to have people working for you while you are asleep. But it’s great. It’s not a time waste while I am drooling on my pillow; everything is getting done,” he said. In fact, in a video shot almost 11 years later, Jacobs congratulates GetFriday for their well deserved success, and playfully points out that if he would have asked one of his assistants at GetFriday to make the video, it would have been done sooner and much better.  

From Your Man In India (YMII) to GetFriday: A.J. Jacobs’ journey from ‘then’ to ‘now’ of outsourcing Read More »

When A.J. Jacobs wrote about Your Man In India in his article My Outsourced Life almost twelve years ago, he said, “I REALLY SHOULDN’T HAVE to write this article myself,” playfully flaunting his newly-found solace with outsourcing. Starting a valuable relationship with YMII’s (Your Man in India) virtual assistance back then, A.J. Jacobs found peace of mind by outsourcing his personal life. YMII, before handing over its virtual assistant services to GetFriday, offered remote executive assistants to handle personal tasks as per the requirement of clients. In this case, the client was A.J. Jacobs, a proficient writer for Esquire Magazine, who wanted an extra helping hand to tackle his everyday personal tasks.   Working or rather living with a virtual assistant for more than a decade helped him  acknowledge his good decision. In fact, this was what he asked for when he first approached YMII. “I would like to hire a talented person or people in India to take care of as many of my life tasks as possible. I would be interested in having someone to answer my calls or emails. Nothing would benefit me unlike a remote executive assistant”. The virtual assistance providing organization tried to plan out how to fulfill Jacobs’ requirements, as he was literally trying to outsource his personal life to a company in India. The year was 2005, and it was tricky to implement the process as nobody had tried anything like that before. However, the team decided to go forward with the experiment and soon it proved to be a huge success. At first, one YMII(Now called as GetFriday)virtual assistant was assigned to help Jacobs over a couple of months and a few slips here and there did happen. The cultural differences sometimes proved a bit difficult to sort out, but as days progressed, both the parties got along well. Wondering how to choose a virtual assistant? All you need to do is look for 8 soft skills. In the first mail regarding work, Jacobs had mentioned that if everything went well, he would do the publicity for the company through his magazine, Esquire. Soon enough, as a couple of months passed by, Jacobs was truly pleased with YMII. His article, featuring YMII, was published in September 2005 on Good Morning America, the American morning television show. It was on this note that GetFriday surfaced as a new separate brand and started to provide impeccable virtual assistance to anyone who needed it. Moreover, as Jacobs saw the creative and extreme functional capabilities of the virtual assistants at handling tasks from overseas, he bonded more with the company. Asha and Naveen were his VAs who helped him perform his everyday tasks like answering morning mails, effectively handling unwanted invitations, even ordering birthday gifts for his wife. Here are six things even you MUST outsource to a virtual assistant. Jacobs felt he was living with his family who understood him really well. They were also like a constant support system, giving him positive feedback on every task he did. He found solace as he outsourced his personal life as he had ample time to reflect upon his career, goals and passion. For more on A.J. Jacobs’ life and his nine extraordinary experiments on himself, please check out his brilliant book, My Experimental Life “It’s very strange to have people working for you while you are asleep. But it’s great. It’s not a time waste while I am drooling on my pillow; everything is getting done,” he said. In fact, in a video shot almost 11 years later, Jacobs congratulates GetFriday for their well deserved success, and playfully points out that if he would have asked one of his assistants at GetFriday to make the video, it would have been done sooner and much better.  

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