When was the last time you ended the day feeling like everything was actually done? If you're struggling to remember, you're not alone. Working from home has turned our lives into a blur of professional tasks and personal errands. You likely hop from Zoom calls to booking trips without leaving your desk.
We're used to multitasking these days—ordering groceries, paying bills, or scheduling haircuts during quick breaks at work. But even with technology speeding things up, it can still feel like there's never quite enough time in the day.
That's why busy people like executives, startup founders, and entrepreneurs get help from remote personal assistants. Think of a remote assistant as someone who takes care of those everyday tasks you don’t have the time (or desire) to handle yourself.
With a little extra help, you can finally get ahead, reclaim your schedule, and spend your energy on things that matter most.
In this post, learn exactly what remote personal assistants do, how they help, and how you can manage one successfully to make your life easier.
Table of contents
- What is a Personal Assistant
- What Is a Remote Personal Assistant?
- What Does a Remote Personal Assistant Do?
- The benefits of hiring a virtual personal assistant
- How to manage a remote personal assistant
- How Prialto can help
What Is a Personal Assistant?
A personal assistant (PA) is a counterpart to a traditional executive assistant. They’re a professional who helps manage a person's day-to-day tasks. PAs often focus on personal rather than business needs. Think of them as someone who handles everything from managing appointments and organizing travel to running errands and making sure things run smoothly in your personal life.
While administrative support roles like executive assistants often focus on office tasks, like managing schedules or coordinating meetings, personal assistants go a step further by juggling both professional and personal demands. They often work one-on-one with individuals, offering a higher level of personalized service.
For example, a personal assistant job description might include:
- Personal and professional calendar management
- Coordinating travel arrangements
- Organizing personal projects
- Handling correspondence, such as phone calls and emails
The key difference between a PA and an executive assistant or administrative assistant is that a PA typically has a broader role, often including personal tasks like ordering groceries, while an administrative assistant focuses mainly on office tasks or business operations.
What Is a Remote Personal Assistant?
A remote personal assistant (RPA) is similar to a traditional personal assistant, but they perform their tasks through remote work, often from a different location—or even across different time zones.
With excellent communication skills and digital tools, an RPA can handle a wide range of tasks, from scheduling and email management to research, travel arrangements, and even social media management, much like an in-person assistant would.
Sometimes referred to as a personal secretary or virtual personal assistant (VPA), the role involves providing administrative and personal support without being physically present.
This setup gives busy professionals and executives access to experienced help, whether part-time or full-time, without needing additional office space or resources.
What Does a Remote Personal Assistant Do?
A remote personal assistant helps you stay organized, streamline your daily routine, and manage tasks that could easily become overwhelming.
Here are some of the top tasks and projects a VPA can handle.
1. Scheduling
A study by Doodle found that arranging meetings or events with 10-15 participants can take approximately 1.5 to 2 hours.
But when it comes to personal appointments, it can take even longer, especially since fewer self-scheduling options are available. Imagine trying to coordinate a dinner with ten people—now that's a serious time commitment!
This is where a remote personal assistant steps in. With access to your calendar and contacts, they can handle a wide range of scheduling tasks to free up your time, including:
- Medical appointments: From dentist visits to specialist consultations, an RPA can schedule all of them.
- Fitness classes: No more missing out on your favorite spin class or yoga session.
- Personal care: Booking haircuts, manicures, massages—whatever keeps you looking and feeling your best.
- Car maintenance: Routine service or unexpected repairs—your RPA can take care of it.
- Dinner parties: Whether it's an intimate gathering or a large celebration, they’ll make sure your plans are set.
- Child care and children's activities: Arranging babysitters or scheduling your kid’s soccer practice, the RPA has it covered.
- Pet care: Scheduling vet appointments or organizing pet sitting while you’re away.
A good remote PA is proactive. They keep you on track by sending timely reminders and rescheduling appointments as needed.
2. Shopping
Americans spend around 62 minutes shopping online weekly, totaling about 54 hours per year.
You probably know how much effort it takes to research products, compare prices, and find the best deals. This is where a remote personal assistant can be a game-changer.
With the right trust and access to your accounts, a remote personal assistant can handle all your shopping tasks, leaving you free to focus on more important things. Whether you’re looking for a last-minute gift or need to stock up on essentials, an RPA can take care of it all. They can purchase just about anything that can be delivered, including:
They can order nearly anything online, including:
- Gifts for family and team members
- Groceries and meals
- Clothing and accessories
- Flowers and gifts
- Home décor and tools
- Self-care products
- Outdoor equipment
The list really is endless, as you can buy nearly anything online these days! In fact, you could even have your assistant help you find the best price for a new car. By managing your shopping and ensuring you get the best deals, a remote personal assistant can save you hours of research and stress, all while getting things delivered straight to your door.
3. Email Management
On average, the heaviest email users spend over eight hours per week on email. Imagine what you could do with those extra hours each week.
If your inbox is overflowing with subscriptions, promotions, and unread messages, a remote personal assistant can help you regain control. With so many e-commerce sites and mailing lists, your inbox is probably flooded with offers, promotions, and newsletters. Amidst all that clutter, critical emails requiring your attention can easily get lost.
This is where a remote personal assistant becomes your email guardian.
They can help streamline your inbox and take care of the tasks that tend to pile up, such as:
- Deleting unwanted messages and spam
- Prioritizing important emails
- Responding on your behalf
- Organizing emails into folders
- Updating contacts and handling data entry
- Adding key tasks to your calendar
- Unsubscribing from unwanted mailing list
Achieving "Inbox Zero" is the holy grail of email management, and with the help of a remote personal assistant, you’ll be well on your way. They’ll make sure your email system runs smoothly, leaving you with a clutter-free inbox and more time for what truly matters.
4. Travel Planning
Planning a trip can be time-consuming. In fact, it’s been shown that it takes an average of 12 hours to plan a business trip. For personal trips or family vacations, that time commitment can easily double as you try to piece together flights, accommodations, and activities.
From comparing airfares to deciding on car rentals, the logistics of travel can be daunting—especially when you have to juggle all the details yourself.
A remote personal assistant can take the stress out of travel planning by handling the research and coordination for you. All you need to do is provide them with your preferences and loyalty program details, and they’ll manage the rest. Here’s how they can make your travel experience seamless:
- Booking flights and choosing the best airports
- Researching and reserving hotels, vacation rentals, or cruises
- Arranging car rentals and transportation
- Booking restaurants and activities
Imagine having a remote personal assistant who not only puts together your entire travel itinerary but also handles the details like checking you in, securing your baggage tags, and arranging airport transportation. All you need to do is show up and enjoy the trip!
Read more: Delegate Business Trip Bookings to a Travel Personal Assistant
5. Home Management
Your home is your sanctuary, but let’s face it, keeping it in tip-top shape takes a lot of work. From organizing maintenance to coordinating specialists, managing your home can be overwhelming—especially when you have a busy schedule. Many executives and busy professionals outsource much of this responsibility to specialists, but managing these services can be a full-time job in itself.
This is where a remote personal assistant comes in. They can handle all the scheduling, coordination, and communication with home service providers, ensuring your home runs smoothly without you having to lift a finger.
Here’s a list of household management tasks that a remote personal assistant can take off your plate:
- Scheduling home cleaning, landscaping, and repairs
- Managing contractors for appliance repairs or renovations
- Coordinating pest control, snow removal, and junk removal
- Organizing laundry and dry cleaning
If your home has remote access—such as an e-lock door that opens with a code—your remote personal assistant can take it a step further. They can schedule and manage home maintenance even when you're not around, and they'll ensure the security of your home by changing the access code once the workers are done.
6. Event Management
Ever wonder why people hire wedding planners? The answer is simple: because the logistics of special events can be a complete maze of details. In fact, it can take more than a year to plan a wedding! But it’s not just weddings—any event, big or small, comes with a long to-do list that can quickly become overwhelming. A remote personal assistant can step in as your “event planner,” handling all the coordination so you can focus on enjoying the process, whether it’s a birthday party or your dream wedding.
Here are some of the event planning tasks a remote personal assistant can take off your hands:
- Sending invitations and tracking RSVPs
- Booking venues, caterers, entertainment, and hotels
- Managing decorations, seating charts, and favors
- Handling bills and budgets
A remote personal assistant can even help with those very personal tasks, like assisting the bride in finding the perfect dress and helping her “say yes to the dress.” Whether it’s ensuring the food is on point or the entertainment is top-notch, your assistant will take care of the details, so you can focus on celebrating.
7. Financial Management
When you’re busy running a business or managing a career, losing track of your finances is easy. The truth is, many people spend very little time on their bookkeeping—Americans, on average, spend 1.8 minutes per day managing their personal finances, totaling about 54 minutes per month.
But staying on top of your income, expenses, and financial obligations is essential, especially if you want to avoid late fees or missed payments.
This is where a remote personal assistant can act as your financial eyes, helping you manage the details and ensuring you stay on top of your financial responsibilities. Your assistant can take care of several individual finance tasks to keep you on track:
- Paying bills and avoiding late fees
- Monitoring account balances and direct deposits
- Organizing tax documents for easy filing
- Checking your credit scores regularly
- Researching interest rates and financial products
- Tracking your investments and stock prices
Imagine a life with no more overdue payments, late fees, or missed opportunities for saving. A remote personal assistant can act as your financial watchdog, keeping everything in check so you can focus on other aspects of your life and business.
The benefits of hiring a virtual personal assistant
Hiring a part-time or full-time virtual personal assistant can dramatically improve your personal, family, and professional life. A VPA can help streamline your life, save you time, and improve your overall productivity.
Whether you're juggling a busy career, managing family commitments, or just trying to find more time for yourself, a remote assistant can step in and take some of the load off.
Personal benefits
A VPA can manage routine tasks like shopping, scheduling, and home maintenance, giving you back precious hours each week.
They can help you stay organized and ensure that nothing slips through the cracks—whether it's remembering a doctor’s appointment or making sure your kids’ activities are scheduled. With more time to focus on what you enjoy, you’ll find a better work-life balance.
Family benefits
For busy families, a VPA can be a huge asset. From managing school schedules to booking family vacations, they can help ensure everyone’s needs are met. They can even handle logistics like childcare, pet care, or organizing family events, leaving you more time to relax and spend quality time with your loved ones.
Professional benefits
In the professional realm, a VPA can take care of administrative tasks, schedule meetings, manage emails, and assist with project management, freeing you to focus on high-priority work. For entrepreneurs and executives, delegating these tasks can improve efficiency and reduce stress. Plus, having someone who can handle the details gives you the space to grow your business without burning out.
In short, a virtual personal assistant can help you reclaim time, reduce stress, and make sure the important things—both personal and professional—are always taken care of.
How to manage a remote personal assistant
Managing a remote personal assistant (PA) effectively can free up your time and improve productivity, but it requires clear processes, trust, and careful management. Whether you're working with a freelancer or a managed service, here are three key tips for ensuring success.
1. Identify repeatable work
The first step in managing a remote personal assistant is identifying tasks that can be handed off. Look for repeatable, low-priority tasks that don’t require your direct involvement but are essential to your day-to-day operations.
Scheduling appointments, managing emails, booking travel, or handling grocery orders are some examples. When you identify these tasks, you can provide clear guidelines and expectations for your assistant, ensuring they’re able to take over.
Read more: 23 Signs You Need a Virtual Assistant
2. Work with a trusted PA or service
Trust is crucial when it comes to managing a remote assistant, especially if they have access to sensitive information such as credit card details, bank accounts, and personal documents. To mitigate risk, make sure you follow secure practices:
- Issue encrypted passwords through a password management program
- Ensure your PA’s computer has anti-virus software and is regularly backed up
- Use secure network access for all communications
Read more: Protecting Your Business: Common Data Breaches and Secure Outsourcing
It’s equally important to clearly communicate your preferences and processes to ensure your assistant aligns with your expectations. This includes:
- Preferred vendors
- Meeting times, durations, and locations (e.g., home or office)
- Travel preferences (airlines, car rentals, hotels)
- Meal preferences
- Time management for local appointments
3. Start with your priorities and build from there
When you first start working with a remote PA, begin by delegating the most important tasks first. Set clear priorities and gradually add more responsibilities as you build trust and comfort with your assistant. This approach allows for smoother transitions and ensures you're getting the most value from their help.
How you manage your PA will also depend on how you hire them. If you choose to work with a freelancer or directly hire, you’re responsible for managing their performance, training them on your processes, and ensuring the quality of their work. While this option can give you more flexibility, it may also require more effort, especially if you're new to managing assistants.
Alternatively, you can use a managed personal assistant service. These services handle all the heavy lifting, including hiring, training, and supervising your assistant. With a managed service, the benefits include:
- Secure work environments, as assistants work on the provider’s computers and networks
- Trained assistants who understand your preferences and processes from the start
- No need for you to handle training, performance management, or quality control
- Backup assistants available to ensure you never have to restart the process if something goes wrong
- Background checks and confidentiality agreements for all assistants, providing added peace of mind
Choosing the right option for managing your assistant can depend on your comfort level with hiring and supervision, but with the right approach, a remote personal assistant can be a tremendous asset to your productivity and well-being.
How Prialto can help
Prialto isn’t the right choice for everyone, especially if you’re solely looking for the cheapest option. However, the value and quality of support you receive with Prialto make it a worthwhile investment for business owners, managers, and busy individuals.
One of the standout benefits of working with Prialto is that our dedicated virtual assistants (VAs) come with years of experience. Unlike many VAs who might not have the same support, Prialto’s team is paid well, treated fairly, and given benefits and opportunities for advancement within the company—something that sets them apart in the VA world.
Here’s why Prialto could be the right choice for you:
- Comprehensive support: Prialto takes care of all the recruiting, vetting, hiring, training, and management of your VA. You won’t have to worry about the hiring process or the ongoing performance of your assistant.
- Team approach: With Prialto, you’re not just getting a VA—you also have an account manager and backup assistants available whenever you need them. Our team makes sure that you always have support when things get busy or if something unexpected comes up.
- Security and reliability: All VAs undergo background checks and work with secure facilities, networks, and computers, ensuring that your tasks are handled safely and efficiently.
- Quick onboarding: Need a VA fast? With Prialto, you can find the right assistant and get them onboarded in just a matter of days, so you don’t have to wait long to start benefiting from their support.
- High-quality service: You can rest assured that your VA is highly trained and will represent you professionally, helping to ensure that your day runs smoothly.
- Continuity of service: Since Prialto offers backup assistants for every account, your services will never be disrupted, ensuring a seamless experience at all times.
If you’re looking for high-quality, reliable support from experienced professionals, Prialto offers a level of service that’s hard to beat, all while taking the hassle out of managing your virtual assistant.
Ready to see how much time you could save in 2025? Talk to our team today.