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Professional development, networking and supporting the VA industry are important to me, therefore there were no question that I would attend the Australian VA Conference for the third time.  Once again it was located in Melbourne and was 2 days packed full of amazing presenters, quality conversations and lots of fun.

MC and inspirational speaker Sandi Givens kept things together and gave us a chance to put together an action plan. Her session about work / life balance was thought provoking.  Balance is what we make it and we do all have the same number of hours in a day to do as we chose.  Some key reminders were ‘done is better than perfect’ and the power of choice exercise was empowering. Getting clear on our non-negotiables will help us find balance with good planning.

There are always parts of software not being used and we picked up some great Excel and Word tips from Donna Hanson and some fabulous Outlook tips from Chris Crowe.  Using tasks and keeping a streamlined inbox are the big takeaways along with right click and drag.  If you want to know more you can subscribe to her package:  The big reminder was to put our non-negotiables (discussed earlier) in our diary first, whatever they are.  For me it is professional development, networking and some family and me time.  It is important to take care of ourselves by making the most of our lifestyle.  Working for yourself means that we are in control which some VAs forget.  Taking care of our health is another area that can be neglected.  Leanne Sklavenitis shared some health tips and lots of achievable tweaks we can make to improve our health and make the most of what we have.  after hearing Leanne last year I made an effort to move more, by needing to get up and go get things throughout the day.  I enjoy walking a few times a week and after buying a package from The Get More Guy, decided to do a virtual walk with him for an hour a week – I will be listening to one of his discs while out, in addition to in the car.

I learnt about the value of using a child theme in WordPress from Charly Leetham, who always shares so much. Charly got the biggest “ooooh” when she explained just what a plugin is!  It was lovely to meet branding specialist Annemarie Cross and blogger Renee Mayne - The Bra Queen – great to see I’m doing all the right things and got some inspiration for new ideas. Danielle Storey of The Cartridge Family spoke about wow to create million dollar relationships with our clients, while Michael Licenblat’s session on building resilience and working out where we need to focus to grow our sales.  The conference ended with Warwick Merry who always inspires, entertains and encourages us to get more.

In between sessions I met some great VAs, experienced and brand new.  It was great to see many attending who were about to start a business and many experienced VAs who saw the value of such an event.  Two of us travelled from Perth and another travelled all the way from Darwin!

Well done to the organisers, you should all be super proud of the amazing event you have created and I look forward to 2013 in Sydney!  I recommend this event to any virtual assistant – reward yourself with some time out of your business, developing your skills and building connections.  Nothing beats face to face networking to add another level to our virtual relationships.  I love meeting the VA industry specialists I have know for years online through the various networks or via shared steering committees.

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Here are some other blogs about the conference from other attendees:
Interim Business
VA Directory

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