Its not a commonly used word, but a virtual assistant can make your life a whole lot easier. I first heard of virtual assistants when reading a book entitled, the four hour workweek. The author, Timothy Ferriss told his life story of overworking, succeeding, and then wanting a better lifestyle. He figured out how to have other people take care of all of his work and as he puts it, "Be him". Someone answered his email, his manufacturing was outsourced to foreign countries, his staff were trained to figure out how to solve problems without bothering him, and he was free to travel to Argentina, and his other favorite destinations. One of his favorite techniques for time freedom was to have a virtual assistant in Bangalore.

A virtual assistant is a great way to outsource your phone calling. They can book your appointments, arrange your blind dates, pay your bills, send flowers to your wife when you are running late from work, and more. Just make sure that if you have a wife, you are not having blind dates, otherwise it will be you who is in trouble, not your V.A. Sujatha in Bangalore (unless you are having the blind date with Sujatha).

Virtual assistants at many companies can do the same tasks as web masters, data entry technicians, receptionists, writers, and more. Each company has assistants with varying skill sets. The skill sets seem to blur into the other types of general outsourcing categories.

Wikepedia claims that there are up to 35,000 virtual assistants worldwide.

So, what defines a virtual assistant? Sure, you could have a helper who comes to your office, gets your morning coffee, your Jamba juice, arranges your meetings, and washes your car. But, a virtual assistant has the virtue of being remote, who supports your administrative, creative, or technical services. This remote assistant could be in a different city, or a different country, perhaps even in Bangalore!

Training and communication?
You have to communicate clearly with a virtual assistant. If you omit how many hours of work you want your V.A to do and exactly step by step how you want them to do it, you might end up with work that you are not happy with. Additionally, if you do communicate well, your assistant may not follow your directions. This is a common problem no matter who you hire. If you train someone for months, they could just leave their position. So, find someone who has been with their current employer for a long time before investing your time in training them.....otherwise you could lose more time than your assistant will save you.

I personally love the idea of a virtual assistant. But, Sujatha in Bangalore can only do remote tasks and can not bring my Jamba Juice when I'm in a hurry. So, for now, I'm out of the market for a virtual assistant. But, when my outgoing phone call burden goes up, I might consider giving Sujatha's boss a call, because a call center will want too large of a contract, and I will be too busy for the calls, making a remote assistant the logical choice.