One of the best goals you can have for your virtual assistant business this year is to create a policy and procedures manual. The procedures manual will come in handy if you need to take some time off and hand your tasks off to someone else for a while.

Have you ever needed to take a day off to tend for a sick child? Did you wish you could call in sick and have someone cover for you? If you've created a procedures manual and have a good collaborative relationship with another virtual assistant, you can do this smoothly. What if an emergency comes up and you need to take a week off? Client work still needs to get done. The tasks that are repetitive and could easily be handled by another virtual assistant can be written down in a procedures manual for them to follow.

I write procedures for many of the easier, repetitive tasks I handle for clients. I have a team member who can handle these tasks by following the procedures. I strongly encourage you to do the same. Create your procedures manual and then ask another virtual assistant to review them. If they can easily follow the procedures, you're all set. If they have any questions or suggestions, this will allow you to fine tune the procedures before handing them off to someone else.

In addition, a policy and procedures manual documents what your standard policies and practices are. If someone needs to take over for a while, it's all in writing: how to communicate with your clients, possibly billing information, what your customer service policies are, etc.

Here are some links to articles with more information on creating a Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) manual:

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_78.htm

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/write-standard-operations-procedures-manual-2596.html

http://www.ask.com/question/how-to-create-a-procedure-manual

http://www.wikihow.com/Write-Policies-and-Procedures-for-Your-Business
 

Now, go plan to take a week off! In fact, we take two weeks off every year and have for many years.  We shut down the business. We let all our clients know about 60 days in advance so there are no surprises. And we have our procedures in place and a team member on standby.

If you aren't yet doing this, plan next year to take at least a week off at the end of the year to plan for your business goals for the following year.