I am so excited and proud to bring you the very first edition of “Net Secretary News”, my new monthly e-newsletter! Each month I aim to bring you the latest news from the Virtual Assistant (VA) industry (what’s a VA I hear you ask? More on that in a minute!) together with tips and tricks, interesting news and any announcements or updates relating to Net Secretary. I would love to hear what you think of the e-newsletter, so feel free to send me an e-mail at Deanne@netsecretary.com.au You can unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time by sending an e-mail to the address at the bottom of this newsletter (although I would be sad to see you go and would hope the content isn’t that bad!)

Now what is a Virtual Assistant or VA? Some of you already know. For those of you who don’t, according to the International Virtual Assistants Association (www.ivaa.org) a Virtual Assistant is “... an independent entrepreneur providing administrative, creative and/or technical services. Utilizing advanced technological modes of communication and data delivery, a professional VA assists clients in his/her area of expertise from his/her own office on a contractual basis.” As I like to tell people, I can do nearly everything your regular secretary can do except make your coffee! If you would like to find out more about what I can do for your business, please drop me an e-mail.

Lastly, the library image in the top right hand corner will be replaced in the October and future editions with an image of me, so stay tuned!

Yours Virtually, Deanne Verrall

The 2nd Asia-Pacific Conference on Remote/Virtual Working gets underway in Brisbane on September 6 and 7. The conference is titled “Going Virtual – the future of work”. Apart from being a good excuse for a Queensland holiday, the conference boasts a range of keynote speakers from leading industry and government bodies. These include Siemens Business Services, Shell Australia, the Federal Government’s Australian Telework Advisory Committee, Monash University and the Queensland Department of Primary Industries & Fisheries. The conference features workshops and speakers over the two days and topics include Virtual Collaboration in Management Development, Rural Teleworking, Looking at Flexible Working Options, Trusting Teleworkers and much, much more. This conference is great for practitioners already in the field of remote or virtual working but is also ideal for anyone with an interest in the future of work.
For more information visit www.goingvirtual.com.au

An excellent free place for checking emails from any account - whether it be website, domain or ISP based email account - is a place called Mail2Web http://www.mail2web.com/ All you do when you get there is enter in your email address and password and it will bring up all your emails from that account. You can send, receive, delete etc to your hearts content and again it is all FREE, you do not have to subscribe to anything.

Work/life balance
We all know that we are becoming time poorer and we are expected to do more with less at our places of work. But did you know that working long hours on a regular basis can also affect your health? A recent survey in the UK had shown the vast majority of working parents to be unhappy with their work and family balance. More than half reported that work dominated their lives and that working long hours also led to increased levels of stress, resulting in irritability, exhaustion and depression. Interestingly, morale and productivity decreased as work hours increased.

On the flip side, a recent survey conducted by Hudson in the US has revealed that entrepreneurs have found a happy balance between work life and personal time. They were more satisfied with their work-life balance compared to their government-employed colleagues and people employed in the private sector. Jeff Anderson, senior vice-president at Hudson, accounted for this finding saying “as opposed to someone in the government or private sector who puts in 100 hours a week where it is hard to see what they are working towards, entrepreneurs get to see a direct benefit from the fruits of their own labour”.

’Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.’
- Elizabeth Kubler-Ross