It’s definitely time for getting back to work. I had more email yesterday from clients than I think I had over the entire last 2 weeks of December! New projects starting up, catch-up work to do – basically just lots of interesting stuff going on!

I’m glad to be back on track, well, mostly. I did enjoy the quieter routine for the holiday season, it was so good to have the time to be with my family and to reflect on the past year. I did a fair bit of reading (novels and blogs – a good mix!) and feel full of ideas for my business this year.

Are you ready for this year? Did you get a chance to review the progress and projects you were involved with in 2009? I’ve taken a look back over last year and I feel good about how far I’ve come. My business is growing, clients send me referrals (incredibly rewarding!), my local network is really booming and my kids are beautiful and happy and I get to be here for them every day.

My plan for 2010 is to just keep moving in this same positive direction. I’m going to work even harder for my clients and try to make their lives even a little bit less busy. I’m going to expand my local marketing campaign and try to find more clients who like to work with digital dictation, as that is an area I’m loving so much! I’m also planning to add a team member who can cover for me during any vacation or illness and who can take on overflow work, as I’m finding that while overall I have plenty of time to assist my clients and even have time to take on more, occasionally I end up with so much work on one particular day that I work a bit too late into the night.

Happy 2010 to you all!

I’ve been thinking about becoming part of a Mastermind group or mentor/mentee relationship for some time now, and last night (when I should have been sleeping!) I read a great post from the Build a Solo Practice Blog over at Solo Practice University about why solo practitioners need a mastermind group. Whether you are a lawyer, a virtual assistant or any other kind of business owner, there are good options available for you. For example, if you are a virtual assistant there is a colleague I really respect, Alyssa Gregory, who has just started an intriguing looking program at VAHub, called the VAHub Club. Definitely worth looking into, especially if you are a new or aspiring VA!

I’ve personally looked at a variety of options for a mastermind group, ideally with other virtual legal assistants. There are some paid options, but my personal preference is for a small group with no fee, where everyone in the group would be treated as equals, although some members are likely to be more experienced than others.  I think a better group dynamic will be achieved without paying a fee. But I could be wrong and some people may not take it seriously without paying. Any thoughts from my wonderful readers on this topic?

I am definitely going to include this in my development plan – to help grow Halo Secretarial into my vision of what a virtual legal assistant business can be, a mastermind group surely can only help! Now, to figure out exactly how to get started…

I’m starting a bit of a personal mission right now, to improve my health, and a couple of the books I’m reading  that are intended to give me advice on being a healthier person, actually have some great advice that is applicable whether you are concentrating on self-improvement, weight loss or growing your business. I love that ideas for one part of my life can really help me in other areas.

For example, one of the big pieces of advice was about positive affirmations. I know affirmations can be powerful. I’ve read about it before, but have not ever gone really far in implementing what I’ve read. Silly, huh? I work hard on growing my business, I believe in myself, but I need to go one step further. I’m adding some great affirmation blogs to my reader right now, and I’m going to have the right affirmations for me, and for Halo Secretarial, set by the end of this week.

This is going to be great!

Well, I’ve done it! One week down with a post each and every day for Blawger Survivor. And that means I made it even longer than the host of the contest, lol.

So far it has been a great reminder of how useful and interesting blogging can be. And I have read some wonderful posts from the other entrants in the contest. A couple of my faves:

• The Haiku post at Leadership, Women, Lawyers (short and sweet)
• Orientate Me at No Reins Girl (love the attitude!)
• D. Jill Pugh’s post about privacy and social networks (makes great points)
• And best for last? I think so! The Nutmeg Lawyer’s post Canada is Trying to Kill Us is hilarious (especially to me as a Canadian!!)

Do take the time to enjoy some of these posts this weekend and see you Monday (I won’t forget to post of course, I’m organized, so it’s in my calendar!)

Last week I participated in a really interesting call with Laura Lee Sparks about outsourcing. Obviously I’m a fan of lawyers outsourcing work to a virtual legal assistant, but there are so many other ways to outsource and thus streamline your business and hopefully increase your revenue. In fact, as a virtual assistant there are tasks I should be outsourcing!!

Some great examples:

• Bookkeeping/billing
• Web site design
• Client intake
• Document drafting
• PR
• Call answering
• Court filings

I already do outsource some of my web design needs; I had neither the ability nor the desire to spend hours and hours trying to design a pretty logo for example! I also use an accountant to help me with my taxes and am working on training someone to assist me with transcription eventually. What tasks are you outsourcing and which ones do you think you *should* be outsourcing, but currently you are muddling along with?

Another point of the discussion on outsourcing addressed where to find good people to outsource to. You don’t want to waste time on in effective outsourcing after all! I realized I had never really considered it but even some tools are a way of outsourcing, like using Ruby Receptionist for call answering. And the best way to find help is of course to go to your network and ask for reliable references! Just yesterday I went to my Twitter peeps and asked for suggestions for one of my client’s needs and quickly hooked her up.

Speaking of Twitter, I have noticed in checking out my Blawger Survivor companions and many of them have Twitter feeds in their sidebars – love it! Check the feeds out at  Two Lawyers in a Pod[Cast], The Connecticut Employment Law Blog,  Leadership, Women, Lawyers, No Reins Girl.   Twitter is my biggest online network and I love how involved so many lawyers seem to be getting in it. Okay, and I love that clients have found me on Twitter too!!

I have not been great about posting on this blog lately! It’s good in a sense, because I’ve been busy actually being a virtual legal assistant, not posting about it!! Still this blog was one of the first things I did for my business and it is a valuable tool well worth spending my time on, so I’m taking up the Blawger Survivor Challenge for the next three weeks and hopefully I’ll be able to post every weekday during the challenge.

One of the best aspects of this challenge is that it includes a component to link to the other competitors. What a great reminder that really, we aren’t competitors in the blawgosphere, but rather a community where interaction and inspiration come together to create a whole that is better than the individual parts.

So check out the other competitors (like Only 3 Years, TaxGirl or Hope and Change or any others listed over at Sean Carter’s blog in the right sidebar), then come back here every weekday for my posts about the law, virtual legal assistance, community and working from home (plus whatever else I can come up with to write about, lol!)

It’s been a hectic week here at Halo Secretarial and I know when things get hectic here a little inspiration is in order to help me take some deep breaths and remember why I started my virtual legal assistant business! So here’s my inspiration tip for today: find a quotation (or two!) and post them somewhere around your desk and read them in moments when you are feeling stressed or unhappy or you are simply lacking motivation. You can write the quote on a sticky note, or frame it or whatever idea your creativity finds!

I bought some cool wall rub-ons that are inspirational and this is the one in my office (I love that it is huge-makes you really notice it!):

Perfect for a day when the kids are running a little crazy and you haven’t been outside in days even though it’s sunny and you stayed up late one too many times this week! Not that I’m saying my week was like that or anything

Hope my little inspiration makes you smile or motivates you to do something similar!

I’ve been perusing my google reader tonight searching for inspiration for blog posts. I’ve been (happily!) so involved in the actual “doing” of my virtual legal assistant work, I’ve spent little time blogging about it or even reading about it. Whenever I need inspiration I turn to my lovely google reader and the many, many legal blogs I subcribe to. I almost always see something within the feeds that inspires me or motivates me. Reading someone else’s exciting blog post can definitely be a great way to get the creativity flowing!

Tonight I came across so many interesting posts, for example, loved the idea for a regular Twitter Column from Donna Seale’s Human Rights in the Workplace Blog. I definitely post more frequently on Twitter than I do on my blog! Might as well make sure those tweets are “duly recorded”! I was inspired by the most recent post on Scylla’s Law & Motherhood Blog – a good reminder to those of us who are self employed!

I actually saw, and posted, about this amazing post on Twitter a few days ago, but it caught my attention in my reader tonight nonetheless and is well worth sharing today: The best and the brightest comes from Jordan Furlong at Law 21 and is in my mind a truly thought-provoking post that I wish could be required reading for anyone thinking about applying to a law school – ever. Yes, I liked it that much.

Linsey Krolik had a post from earlier in June  on her Me Too You blog that I only just managed to catch up on. School isn’t out here for a little bit yet (7 days of school left actually!) and I totally can’t wait. Just found out about yet another school activity for the very last week, a grade one garage sale. I need to send both items and money, fun, fun!

Loved PHAT Mommy’s blog post about her Life/Blog Happiness Project. What a great idea!!

You can see why I find so much inspiration in my reader now, right?! I have a huge variety of blogs that I subscribe to, although many have a legal slant, I also of course follow tons of interesting mom bloggers, general business or entrepreneurial blogs and blogs that just fascinate me regardless of their “niche”.

So what’s in your reader that you feel like sharing?

As usual I was spending a little time after dinner tonight catching up on some Twitter. I read this tweet from @SamGlover which sent me on over to the recently re-launched Lawyerist. There are tons of interesting posts to read there, but the one that really caught my eye tonight was one that talked about what applications, software etc Sam uses to run his law practice.

I not only enjoyed reading what Sam uses for his legal practice, but also the different choices made by the commentors. So I decided to put together a quick post outlining the various applications/software I use to run my virtual legal assistant practice.

• Calendar: Google calendar/wall calendar combo
• Tasks/to-dos: Teamwork PM
• Contacts: Gmail
• Email: Gmail/mobile Gmail from smartphone while on the go
• Word processing/documents: Word 2007, Open Office, PaperPort
• PDF Creation: Adobe/CutePDF
• Timekeeping/billing: Quickbooks
• Bookkeeping/accounting: Quickbooks/accountant
• Backup: External hardrive and SugarSync (love how SugarSync securely lets me access all from laptop/desktop/mobile phone)
• Client/Project Management: TeamWork PM (256 bit SSL)
• Blogging/Website: Wordpress self-hosted

Like Sam and several of his commentors I’m a big fan of cloud computing. I like to be able to access my work from anywhere – my main computer is a laptop for that very reason! And while I know not everyone trusts “the cloud”, I research applications quite carefully before choosing them and feel pretty confident that I’ve made choices that will protect my clients information and my own.

So how does your office run? Does your work live in the cloud at all?!

I just read the tuition announcement from Solo Practice University (courtesy of founder Susan Cartier Liebel via Twitter).

I’ve been keep an eye on all the amazing faculty announcements and developments happening over at SPU recently and I have to say it sounds like such an amazing concept! I can’t imagine a better way for new lawyers to learn about running a solo law practice. Topics that will be covered include blogging for your law practice, business strategies, virtual law practices, marketing for attorneys, technology, along with many in-depth courses on specific legal areas like accident law, trial law, entertainment law, estate planning and so many other great topics!

I also was so impressed to see that a virtual legal assistant will be on the faculty. Aretha Gaskin is the owner of The Virtual Legal Assistant and a respected member of the virtual assistant community. Having a professional virtual legal assistant educating new solo attorneys on the benefits of utilizing virtual legal assistants and virtual paralegals can only be good for our industry.

I think Solo Practice University is a model for virtual education and I personally would love to see something similar in the virtual assistant industry! There are plenty of learning programs, books, and certification processes available, but most are over-priced and several offer little value at all. There are definitely some good (and reasonably priced!) books available, but to have an interactive community of learning and support like what SPU is offering would be amazing. And if the legal community can provide it at such a reasonable price, the virtual assistant industryshould be able to offer it at a price that is affordable to those just starting out or considering their options.

Anyway, if you have recently hung your solo practice shingle, or if it’s a move you are considering, I highly recommend you check out Solo Practice University!