by Jash | Dec 3, 2024 | Business, General, Health
The work-from-home (WFH) era may be over.
Companies like Apple, Dell, Starbucks, and more recently Amazon, are calling their employees back to the brick and mortar with their strict return-to-office (RTO) policies. In Seattle, home to Amazon and a large tech workforce, this could signal a larger shift with more local companies likely to follow.
For workers who enjoyed the perks of remote work, the change will be a massive shake-up for the household.
Walking the dog during lunch? Not anymore.
Managing household chores during the day? Gone.
Running a child to an appointment? Say goodbye to that flexibility.
Juggling work, home, and personal responsibilities will become harder, leaving many to wonder how they’ll manage it all.
If you’ve been affected by these recent mandates, you might be asking yourself:
- How do I get it all done?
- How do I adapt to this new normal?
- Do I need to quit my job?
Read on to find out why professionals are turning to personal assistants and how one can help you manage the RTO transition to survive and thrive in your new situation.
The Personal Cost of Losing Workplace Flexibility
For those accustomed to remote work, returning to the office doesn’t just change where they spend their workday-it fundamentally alters the rhythm of their lives. Common concerns that have rippled across social media platforms are how they’ll readjust to balancing family and household demands.
We firmly believe that increasing in-office minimums has a disproportionate and negative impact on working families – particularly for women and people of color with dependent care responsibilities.
-Karen Estevenin, executive director of PROTEC17, a union that represents more than 3,300 City of Seattle workers. Source
Remote work allowed workers to effortlessly manage their responsibilities alongside their career obligations. Now they’re left to navigate the loss of flexibility and the challenges that may come with it.
Here are some hidden costs that professionals will bear in light of the RTO mandates.
1. Losing the Ability to Manage Household Tasks During the Day
Remote work offered a significant boost to personal time, which many professionals made a part of their daily routines in meaningful ways.
For some, a daily commute takes up to four hours to and from the office. With the added flexibility of working from home or hybrid work, they gained precious hours redirected into managing household tasks.
Now with RTO mandates, they’re posed with the challenge of staying on top of essentials like paying bills, managing household finances, and restocking necessities. Not to mention, other tasks like accepting deliveries, scheduling maintenance, or overseeing other home services.
So what does this mean for employees? Simply put: It’s too much for professional couples to handle on their own, let alone a single person. The increased pressure to squeeze errands before or after work means being stretched thin, which could lead to overwhelm and burnout. And of course, errands will cut into precious time reserved for rest, family, or personal pursuits.
2. A Blow to Personal Wellness and Self-Care
With more control over their schedules, remote workers found it easy to prioritize mental health and self-care routines. The benefits, of course, were two-fold: allowing them to show up for themselves in their daily lives and their workplace.
But with the RTO mandates, strict work hours and five in-office work days now make it harder to build short breaks into their daily routines. It’s so much harder to maintain wellness routines like making a healthy lunch or meal prepping in advance.
3. Challenges In Childcare and Caretaking
It’s no surprise that balancing childcare was easier with remote work. It was a lifeline, allowing caretakers to coordinate carpools, attend extracurriculars, or even handle unexpected events like a child becoming sick-all while staying productive from home.
With RTO policies that limit flexibility, parents now face the daunting task of coordinating the needs of their children around their office hours, often requiring restructured family schedules. This added burden can quickly lead to other household tasks being neglected or going from streamlined to chaotic as parents struggle to keep everything in balance.
Is Quitting an Option?
Faced with these demands, some professionals may consider stepping away from their roles. The sudden loss of flexibility can feel like losing control over their time and life. While some may no doubt take that route, for many quitting is not an option. For example, high-income earners whose careers contribute significantly to their long-term financial goals, are instead exploring alternatives to buy back time and find balance in their daily lives.
Luckily, quitting isn’t the only option. Outsourcing household management and personal errands to a dedicated personal assistant has proven to be a valuable investment for many.
Rather than sacrificing their long-term career trajectory, high-earning professionals are choosing to streamline their lives by offloading time-consuming tasks to a reliable professional. They’ve weighed the cost of investing in support and realized that stepping back now could mean missing out on future earning potential. Many are willing to take a short-term loss to protect their long-term income and career growth.
How Personal Assistants Can Help With the Transition
If you’re feeling the impact of the RTO shift, questions around managing home and family responsibilities are likely front of mind: Who will take care of my pets? How will I stay on top of household errands? Can I really manage a demanding career without sacrificing family time? This transition may have left you with feelings of frustration. The good news is, there is help.
Personal assistants have provided a lifeline for many and can provide one for you, too. As the demands of office-based work grow, more high-income professionals are recognizing that the cost of a personal assistant is an investment, not an expense.
Personal assistants offer a range of support, from managing home logistics to handling daily administrative tasks. They’ll serve as a reliable extension of your support system, enabling you to keep pace with your career goals without sacrificing your home life.
Here’s how a personal assistant can make a difference in your life:
1. Coordinating with service providers and vendors: Perhaps you were better able to take a quick call to book a plumber or pause between meetings to accept a package. Now you find yourself with fewer options. These tasks may be left incomplete, or they require complex planning and coordination with family members or friends. A personal assistant can book appointments, arrange for a service provider, or accept packages.
2. Managing family logistics: From scheduling kids’ activities, arranging transportation, and coordinating with babysitters, to taking care of grocery shopping and meal planning, a personal assistant can alleviate the strain of balancing family needs with professional commitments.
3. Supporting wellness and self-care: By taking on errands, meal prep, and other routine responsibilities, a personal assistant can free up time that you can then dedicate to personal wellness. Whether it’s scheduling gym sessions, organizing self-care appointments, or handling lunch arrangements, a personal assistant will allow you to prioritize your health, even within a more rigid, office-based schedule.
A personal assistant may be an investment, but it’s also a transformative one. Take it from Seattle resident Maygan Wurzer, a Seattle business owner who found herself drowning as she tried to balance work and life on her own. She praises Pepper’s Personal Assistants as “The best money I’ve ever spent,” noting that the peace of mind she got from it was priceless.
Pepper’s Personal Assistants Can Help You
At Pepper’s Personal Assistants, we specialize in placing top-tier professionals who understand the demands of high-stakes careers and complex schedules. Our assistants are trained to adapt, ensuring you receive reliable, hands-free support without the hassle of micro-managing.
Our approach is straightforward with no onboarding headaches-just ready-to-go assistance tailored to the specific needs of your life. With Pepper’s Personal Assistants, you can focus on what matters most and do more of what you love, knowing that your home and family needs are in expert hands. Are you ready to see how a personal assistant can transform your routine?
Schedule a call to learn how we can make your life easier and help you thrive through a return-to-office transition.
by Kara | Jul 25, 2024 | General, Grocery, Health, Home, Organizational, Outsourcing, Residential
Being a wife, mother, and career professional can pull you in many directions. In addition to raising a family and growing your career, you have many other responsibilities: errands, laundry, meal planning, and keeping everything in your household running smoothly each day.
Managing all these obligations, especially when you don’t get enough help, can quickly lead to feeling overwhelmed. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. By creating more efficiencies in your life and getting some professional help, you can improve your work-life balance and do more of the things you love.
The Challenges of Being a Working Mom and Wife
Full-time working moms are often still responsible for managing the bulk of childcare and household management activities. A Gallup study found that, in both single- and dual-income homes, women are significantly more likely than men to be responsible for chores such as doing laundry, preparing meals, caring for children, and cleaning the home.
Additionally, because moms are responsible for so many of these activities, they also carry more of the associated mental load of invisible tasks such as planning, anticipating, following up, and decision-making.
For many women, the pressure to do it all and be a “supermom” can result in feelings of stress, overwhelm, and burnout. In fact, an estimated 42 percent of working moms have been diagnosed with anxiety or depression—far more than the general population (28 percent).
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Tips for Saving Time, Reducing Your Stress, and Achieving Better Balance
If you’re feeling overwhelmed as a mother and wife, you don’t have to spend your days feeling exhausted, overworked, or paralyzed by a messy house. You can take the following steps to transform your life and get more time for what matters most:
1. Set meaningful goals.
To address the stressors in your life, it’s critical to identify them and set goals for your ideal future state. You can get started by making a list of all the things you love to do and those you detest and would love to get off your plate entirely.
For instance, if you feel grocery shopping and running errands take up too much time, you can create a goal to reduce the time those tasks take—perhaps by ordering online or limiting errands to a specific number of times per month. Once you’ve established your goals, you can prioritize them and commit to making the changes that turn those goals into reality.
2. Create efficiencies in everyday tasks.
Though you may have performed certain chores the same way for years, it’s worth considering that there might be a more efficient way to get them done. For example, you may find that meal planning simplifies grocery shopping and meal prep, and creating a home maintenance schedule helps to cut down on the number of calls for repairs.
Sometimes, the only way to know if something works for you is to try it. Once you’ve identified strategies to streamline tasks and eliminate unnecessary steps, you can implement your new approach for a week or two to assess its impact. Even the smallest tweaks can significantly improve how you spend your time.
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3. Get household help.
If you’ve been responsible for managing everything around the home, kids’ schedules, and family activities, it can be challenging to let go and consider outsourcing some of those tasks. However, when you do, you can tackle your to-do list and get more time for the priorities you’ve set for yourself—whether it’s to spend more quality family time, dedicate yourself to more philanthropic work, or have more time for self-care.
Outsourcing chores to a household assistant is an excellent way to get reliable, professional help for everyday chores and home projects. Household assistants aren’t just for celebrities and the superrich; you, too, can have an assistant to perform any of the following:
- Doing laundry and dropping off/picking up dry cleaning
- Making and rescheduling appointments
- Planning, prepping, and cleaning up after meals
- Shopping for groceries
- Making returns
- Caring for pets and taking them to the vet
- Planning travel
- Managing home renovation and redecorating projects
- Managing and supervising vendors
Say Goodbye to Feeling Overwhelmed as a Mom and Wife
If there’s a disconnect between where you want to dedicate your energy and passion and how you actually spend your time, it’s time for a change. While you can create new efficiencies with some tasks, there may be others you want to offload completely. A household assistant can help you do that and much more, allowing you to take ownership of your time and enjoy your life more fully.
To see all you can achieve with professional household help, check out our guide, What Your Life Could Look Like with a Household Assistant.
by Kara | Jul 23, 2024 | General, Grocery, Health, Home, Organizational, Outsourcing, Residential
A household assistant may seem like a luxury reserved only for celebrities and the super-rich, but it’s not. Household help is attainable and can completely transform your life and home for the better. Having a personal assistant in Seattle to run errands, perform household chores, and help with home projects means you can tackle your to-do list and have more time for your personal passions. And, managing an assistant requires much less oversight than you might think.
What does a personal household assistant do?
A household assistant is a partner in maintaining your home, helping you focus on your career, family, and whatever else is important to you. Your assistant can manage the day-to-day tasks of doing laundry and tidying rooms and also help you reimagine a room or other area of your home. Personal household assistance can include any of the following services:
- Shopping for groceries and running other errands
- Prepping meals and organizing the pantry/fridge
- Doing laundry and dropping off/picking up dry cleaning
- Planning travel, including packing and unpacking
- Managing and supervising household vendors
- Taking care of pets, including taking them to the vet if needed
- Managing home dream projects
If you’ve ever wondered if you even need a household assistant or if you have enough for an assistant to do, consider this: a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics study found that household chores eat up an average of 21.5 hours per week—or three hours a day.
When you add that to the time you spend on your career and other obligations, there’s not much time left over for you, which can lead to stress or burnout. With a household assistant, you can add three more hours to each day and reduce the stress of trying to manage an ever-growing to-do list.
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What does managing a household assistant look like?
Given all that you do in a given day, it may seem like doing things yourself will take less time and fuss than explaining it to someone else. Not so! The right personal assistant service can match you with a skilled and professional assistant who can take work off your hands and get it done to your specifications.
As with any new relationship, developing a routine and rhythm with your personal assistant takes time. However, the more feedback you provide in the first weeks of the relationship, the sooner you’ll be up and running. Soon, your assistant will require less of your time and will be equipped to work independently. After the first few months working with a Pepper’s assistant, you can expect to dedicate only about 15 minutes per week for a quick check-in.
What’s it like working with a Pepper’s household assistant?
Our personal assistants in Seattle are well-trained and eager to make your life easier. Our clients say their Pepper’s assistants are:
- Professional but friendly
- Flexible
- Thoughtful and discerning
- Detail-oriented, with organizational superpowers
- Trustworthy and reliable
- Caring
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Here are some examples of the feedback we’ve received:
“My PA is incredible—an 11 out of 10—really thoughtful, thorough, and intuitive. She is professional but friendly; she has just been great.” —Libby
“One of the massive benefits of having a PA is during travel disruptions. When flights are delayed, the kids are upset, and you’re stuck in customs, coming home to a stocked fridge and a prepared meal eliminates the need for a late-night milk run. You don’t realize the stress these tasks add until you have someone to handle them for you.” —A.S.
“My PA is a thoughtful and discerning assistant. She pays attention to details in our home and makes great suggestions for how to improve and optimize our lives. We trust her judgment, and she communicates proactively and frequently. She is always on time and patient with my unpredictable schedule.” —Client
How do I get started with Pepper’s in Seattle?
Our passion is helping you get things done without having to do it all yourself. Our personal assistants in Seattle are skilled in supporting your busy life so you can enjoy it more. Each assistant is heavily vetted and evaluated for the right fit for your home and lifestyle needs.
If you’re ready for household help that will give you your time back, reach out anytime or schedule a call to get matched with your personal assistant in Seattle.
by Kara | Jul 16, 2024 | Grocery, Health, Home, Organizational, Outsourcing, Residential
If you’re responsible for family meal planning, including grocery shopping, meal prep, and cleanup, you know how many hours it can take in any given week. What if you could manage those tasks more effectively and save yourself a lot of time along the way?
The good news? You can. With an efficient planning process, some household support, and a customizable family meal planner template, you can become a meal planning pro and get back hours in your week.
5 Steps to Successful Meal Planning
Planning meals in advance delivers a host of benefits. In addition to saving time, it makes grocery shopping more efficient and takes the stress out of meal prep. As a result, you can approach each meal knowing exactly what’s on the menu and how long it will take to pull the meal together.
Weekly or monthly meal planning is a great idea for any household, but getting started can be a bit overwhelming. There are many factors to consider, and you may not know much about selecting a meal planning template. However, by following the detailed steps below and getting familiar with meal planning best practices, you can plan delicious, nutritious, and stress-free meals every day.
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Here’s how to get started:
1. Set a solid meal planning foundation.
Before you sit down to populate a monthly meal plan template, you’ll need to determine what meal planning will look like for you and how you’ll make it a part of your routine. Setting this foundation ahead of time will ensure meal planning doesn’t become something you do only once and then abandon.
Some of the questions you’ll want to answer during this step include:
- Are there any nutritional goals I want to accomplish?
- What kinds of cuisines and food groups do I want more or less of each month?
- Do I want to plan meals for the week or the month?
- How much time do I want to spend on grocery shopping and meal prep?
- What menu alternatives can I use when there’s no time for meal prep? Leftovers? Preprepared meals? Takeout?
2. Build your family meal planner template.
Fortunately, you won’t have to create a family meal plan template from scratch. Several meal planning apps, printables, and free meal plan templates exist online. You can also access editable weekly and monthly meal plan templates in our family meal planning guide.
Whether you select a weekly or monthly template, make sure it includes enough space for menus, recipe ideas, and notes. Your template should also be printable so you can share it with your family and anyone helping with grocery shopping and meal prep.
3. Involve your family in the meal planning process.
Family meal plans work best when they incorporate everyone’s food preferences and nutritional needs. Get input from family members about what they want to see in the meal plan. You can also post the whole plan in a central location so everyone knows what’s on the menu and can help when needed.
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4. Get support from a household assistant.
Considering that household chores can take more than 21 hours per week, it makes a lot of sense to lighten your load with household help. In addition to the other household activities a household assistant can perform, such as doing laundry, running errands, and supervising vendors, your assistant can manage the following meal planning tasks:
- Grocery shopping
- Pantry and fridge inventory planning
- Meal prep and cooking services
- Researching new recipes based on your dietary preferences
5. Refine your meal plan periodically.
Like anything else, periodic improvements to your meal plan will make it more efficient and dynamic. For example, you can add new recipes and evaluate menus for more nutritional balance. You can also optimize meal prep by adding slow-cooker meals and freezing portions of meals beforehand. Each month, you’ll become more skilled in creating menus and getting everything on the table with less fuss.
Make Family Meal Times Less Stressful and More Enjoyable
If you’re ready to add time back into your schedule and prepare nutritious meals your whole family will love, make meal planning a regular part of your household management activities. It’s an excellent way to eat the foods you want without the stress of last-minute shopping and meal prep.
We want to help make meal planning as easy as possible for you. Get on the road to becoming a meal planning pro by downloading The Ultimate Guide to Family Meal Planning: Strategies, Templates, and Resources.
by Kara | Jun 27, 2024 | Grocery, Health, Home, Organizational, Outsourcing, Residential
If you’ve ever considered hiring a personal assistant for your home, you’ve likely thought about what your assistant would do, how many hours it would take, and the logistics of getting them onboarded. After all, hiring the right personal assistant for your home isn’t something to take lightly. The ideal assistant must manage tasks according to your preferences, work independently, and take initiative where it makes sense.
Thankfully, that’s all possible. There’s an efficient, no-fuss way to find, hire, and onboard a home personal assistant so you can lighten your load and get more time to do what matters most to you.
The Time Spent on Household Chores
Time is one of life’s most precious resources; you want to use it wisely. But spending too much time on household chores leaves you with less time for your family, friends, career, and self-care. And if you have children at home, you may feel even more stretched. In a recent survey, 62 percent of moms said they got less than an hour a day to themselves.
Household tasks eat up more time than you might think. A five-year time-use study conducted by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that unpaid household chores took an average of 21.5 hours per week. Just imagine what you could do instead of spending that many hours a week doing things you may not even enjoy, such as running errands, doing laundry, and waiting for the HVAC maintenance technician to arrive.
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Hiring a Personal Assistant for Your Home Adds Time to Your Day
There are many signs you’re ready for a personal assistant: You’re stressed, overwhelmed, and have little to no time for personal interests. Most days, it seems there’s too much to do, you feel responsible for doing it all, and you rarely, if ever, get a break.
However, a personal assistant can address those issues by taking the following tasks off your hands:
- Shopping for groceries
- Running errands
- Doing laundry and dropping off dry cleaning
- Preparing meals and cleaning up
- Organizing and tidying rooms
- Making reservations
- Scheduling and rescheduling appointments
- Coordinating deliveries and making returns
- Supervising repairs
And that’s not all. An assistant can also help you complete dream projects for any space in your home and property—whether you want to reorganize your patio or redecorate a spare room. By managing these projects so you no longer have to think about them, a personal assistant makes your life easier and more enjoyable.
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Getting Started with a Pepper’s Personal Assistant
Pepper’s personal assistants are quick learners, able to work independently, and eager to bring you ideas for keeping your home tidy and organized. You don’t have to do everything yourself, and getting started with your new personal assistant is easier than you may think.
We can have you up and running with your assistant in less than three hours with these five steps:
- Step 1: Discovery call to discuss your needs and how a Pepper’s personal assistant can help (about 30 minutes)
- Step 2: Deep-dive discussion about exactly what you want in an assistant, including your preferences, pet peeves, and must-haves (about 45 minutes)
- Step 3: Onboarding forms for your hand-picked personal assistant (about 15 minutes)
- Step 4: Initial kickoff and introduction call with your new assistant (45 minutes)
- Step 5: First-day tour with your assistant (one hour, in person)
At Pepper’s, we’re committed to helping you save time and spend it how you want. Once your personal assistant begins work, you can expect a weekly 15-minute check-in to discuss progress and any new projects you need help completing. We take care of everything else, including your assistant’s payroll, employment taxes, and health benefits.
Add 21-Plus Hours Back into Your Week
Hiring a Pepper’s personal assistant for your home means you won’t have to worry about mundane household tasks again. You’ll also get those dream projects completed and have more control over your time.
See how a Pepper’s personal assistant changed one busy woman’s life and home. Check out Chores and Beyond: A Case Study Exploring the Full Potential of What a Household Assistant Can Do for You.
by Kara | Jun 26, 2024 | Grocery, Health, Home, Organizational, Outsourcing, Residential
Outsourcing household chores isn’t a privilege reserved only for the rich. You also need time for yourself, and you shouldn’t have to spend all of it on mundane housekeeping tasks. While life is full of less-than-glamorous chores, no one needs—or wants—a calendar packed with nothing but running errands, doing laundry, and preparing meals.
Having a household assistant doesn’t mean being waited on hand and foot—it simply means having help to manage the tasks you don’t have time to complete.
What does a household assistant really do?
Depending on your lifestyle and schedule, household assistants can assist with any number of chores in your home, including the ones you dislike most. Your assistant can manage all of the following:
- Running errands or shopping
- Planning and preparing meals and washing dishes
- Doing laundry and dropping off dry cleaning
- Tackling home maintenance tasks
- Organizing and tidying
- Managing appointments
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Common Misconceptions About Household Assistants
Many people think household assistants are just for celebrities, but anyone can benefit from the help of an assistant—especially if you’re also juggling a career, family, and other responsibilities. In fact, one Harvard professor says that outsourcing household chores can make you feel as happy as getting a sizable salary increase.
Perhaps you have a lot on your to-do list, but you’re not sure you have enough for a household assistant to do. In reality, there’s no shortage of tasks your personal assistant can take care of for you.
In more than a decade of service, Pepper’s assistants have never struggled to find things to do. In fact, there are probably a few things you didn’t expect a household assistant could handle, such as:
- Managing home renovation and redecorating projects
- Planning travel, including packing and unpacking
- Planning parties, including setting up and cleaning up
- Scheduling and supervising vendors
- Caring for pets (e.g., dog walks, vet visits, and trips to doggie daycare)
- Paying bills
- Decorating for holidays
And that’s only scratching the surface. A private home assistant goes beyond chores and day-to-day housekeeping to ensure your time remains exactly that: yours.
Why choose Pepper’s Personal Assistants?
We understand getting household help isn’t just a matter of finding someone to take care of your to-do list. You also need to connect with someone you trust who understands your preferences. You don’t want just a pair of hands; you need the right person—one who can handle your responsibilities as well as you would.
This is exactly what we strive for at Pepper’s. We offer a tailored approach to home maintenance and management, helping busy professionals—not just the uber-wealthy—get the helping hand they need.
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But Don’t Take It from Us …
We believe the best household assistants find joy in making your life easy, taking ownership of household tasks, and conducting themselves with integrity at all times. And that’s exactly what you get with Pepper’s. Here’s a sampling of what some of our clients have to say about working with a Pepper’s personal assistant:
“We went on vacation, and everything went really well. It was so lovely to have the peace of mind while traveling that the house was fully taken care of. Our personal assistant managed my household and vendors flawlessly, and we had groceries and a full meal ready for us after a long journey back.”
—Anura, client
_______
“My PA is really good at organizing. It’s one of her superpowers. Some of the simple reorganizing things that she has done have made a big impact. For instance, she finally can see stuff in her cupboards. Master genius on this. Another example is how she organized all the cat stuff in the garage and took the initiative on her own. She’s bright and cheery—no moaning, whining. Very great.”
—Emma, client
________
“With our personal assistant on our team, our lives are more manageable and less stressful, and thus, we have time to better prepare for our challenges and joyfully celebrate our victories. She contributes daily to the success of our family!”
—Case Study: How One Mom Got Back Her Time
Outsource household chores—and much more.
Getting household help isn’t unrealistic or unattainable. It’s also not reserved for celebrities, high-profile influencers, or the super-wealthy. You, too, can get household help and make more time for what matters most in your life.
With a household assistant, you no longer have to feel overwhelmed by the responsibilities of managing a home, family, and career. You can tackle everyday household chores and the dream projects that have been on your to-do list for a while.
See how a household assistant made a dramatic difference in the life of one busy professional. Download Chores and Beyond: A Case Study Exploring the Full Potential of What a Household Assistant Can Do for You.
