One thing I’ve noticed over time in my work as a virtual assistant is this: Most of the mistakes I’ve made haven’t been about skill, they’ve been about capacity. They’ve happened during periods where I’ve been burnt out, overwhelmed or when something in my personal life has been taking up more mental space than usual.

One of the questions I’ve been asked most since becoming a virtual assistant is: “Don’t you get lonely working from home?” It’s often followed by questions about whether it affects my mental health, or whether I found it difficult to adjust when I first started my business. And my honest answer is: No, not really. But why is this?

One of the best things about running a business as a virtual assistant is that you get to choose who you work with. If you think about a traditional office environment, the chances of liking every single person you work with are pretty slim. You don’t get much say in who you’re surrounded by and sometimes that can make work feel more difficult than it needs to be. But when you run your own business, that dynamic completely changes.

When you’re working across multiple clients, systems and workflows, efficiency becomes really important. It’s not always about big, complex systems. Sometimes it’s the smallest tweaks that make the biggest difference and over time, those small improvements completely change how you work.

When many people think about hiring a virtual assistant, the first thing that comes to mind is admin support and while those things are absolutely part of the role, the reality is that virtual assistant support can go far beyond simple task management. When I think about how I approached being a VA when I first started my business compared to now, the difference in how I see the value of the role is huge.

If you’d asked me even a year ago what psychological safety meant, I probably wouldn’t have had a clear answer. It wasn’t something I consciously thought about when building relationships with my clients. But over time, I’ve realised that psychological safety in business is one of the most important foundations of the way I work.

Every business owner has their non-negotiables, the little tools, routines and guilty pleasures that make the long days feel a little easier and the workload a little lighter. Over the years of running NBV, I’ve figured out the things that keep me productive, balanced, and (mostly) sane. They’re not flashy or overcomplicated, but they are the backbone of how I work.