Managing unclear requests is part of every EA’s job. Remember the scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Miranda Priestly reels off a string of requests to Andy, one after another, with no context or explanation, and expects her to know what she means? It’s an extreme example, but we’ve
Improving information quality is one of the most useful things we can do for our Executive, and EAs are already well placed to do it because so much of the information our Executive relies on comes to us before it reaches them. When the information we receive is accurate and
Protecting your Executive’s focus time is a really important part of the EA role, although I think we don’t give it as much attention as some of the others. When our Executive is interrupted throughout the day, they don’t get enough uninterrupted time to think properly about the decisions that
Business continuity planning is one of those pieces of work Assistants often end up organizing without ever appearing in the finished document. You book the room for the annual exercise, you keep the emergency contact list current, you chase the actions afterwards, and you are the one who knows where
Managing Executive capacity is one of those aspects of the job that never makes it into an EA job description, but it takes up most of your day. Let me give you an example: a person has asked for a meeting with your Executive; there is a thirty-minute gap at
Audit your week honestly, and you will probably find that a fair amount of it was never really yours to begin with. Most of us reach Friday with no real sense of where the time went. You were busy from the moment you sat down, answering everything, moving the meetings
Spotting problems before your Executive does is one of the most valuable and often the least noticed things an Assistant can do. Every one of us knows the sinking feeling when we don’t spot a problem. Picture the scene, your Executive forwards an email with a short note attached, something
Being effective in the EA role has very little to do with how busy you look. Most of us know an Assistant who seems to have it all under control. The inbox is at zero by lunchtime, and the calendar is immaculate with nothing ever late. By every obvious measure,
Templates for EAs have saved me more time throughout my career than almost any other tool. When I was supporting Executives, I quickly realised that many of the tasks we manage happen again and again. That is why having a collection of templates for EAs can make such a difference.
Workflow for Executive Assistants is one of those phrases that appears everywhere now, especially in conversations about AI, productivity, operations, systems, project management, and how businesses are trying to work faster with fewer delays. But as EAs, many of us have already been managing workflows for years, even if nobody
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