Don't do this if you are a Personal Assistant | Tips for Personal and Executive Assistants

hey guys welcome or welcome back to my channel my name is jay today i wanted to share with you a few things that i learned about being an executive assistant and some things that you might be doing that could hurt you in the long run the reason why i wanted to share this is because there are so many things that involve being an executive assistant and personal assistant that people generally don't think about or you as an assistant generally don't usually pick up on some things that you think about or some things that might cross your mind and some bad behavior or bad habits that you might have in the role currently things that you just shouldn't do when you're an assistant is don't wait for your boss or your executive to ask you to do something when you can foresee this coming or when you can foresee this happening in the future so for example if you're looking in their diary and you can foresee that they might need a certain presentation or a certain document for this meeting don't wait for them to ask you to go and get that document or prepare that document make sure you actually have that ready for them and this is why you're hired to do your job so don't wait for them to ask you to do something take initiative and do it for yourself as well as for your executive don't just wing it okay i know plenty of people who have been in an executive assistant or a personal assistant role who have always been like i'll just wing it when the day comes or i'll just you know i'll go with the flow whatever this role is not a go with the flow type of role i'm sorry to say that's how i feel personally if you're not constantly on the ball and if you're not constantly prepared for your day and your weekend even next week i don't think this role is suited for you because being an executive assistant you not only have to organize yourself you have to organize an executive and sometimes maybe two executives depending on your role and being the type of person that they hire you need to be someone who is organized you need to be someone who is always on the wall and not winging things the last minute trust me it's going to make your life so much better if you plan things and if you organize it rather than just sitting there being like i'll wait until the day comes no another thing that i want to say is stop thinking that you're not good enough or that people think less of you because you're an assistant this is simply not true and i admit sometimes i actually fell into the right of this as well when i first was in this position or role and i think it's super important to say that your role is detrimental like it is that important to the organization and to your executive or executives that without you things might just fall apart and you need to stop feeling like you're not important or that you're less important than anybody else in the business that is simply not true another thing that i want to mention and that may happen within your organization is do not offer your time up freely for anybody besides your executives now what i mean by this is don't take on things that is not your responsibility and when i say that i don't mean don't help anyone out that's not that's not what i'm saying at all what i'm saying is prioritize the things that you have to get done for your executive first and for yourself second the reason why i say this is because a lot of people may ask you for your help in things which is totally okay and if you have the time to help out i generally like to help people out i generally and the type of person who helps out whenever i can but there have been times when i have been super busy and i just couldn't help out don't be afraid to say no i know it's hard to say no sometimes but you need to be able to say no because you need to be able to prepare and organize your time as well as your executive's time and if things start to chew up that time then it's okay to say no another thing i want to say is don't underestimate the things that you can learn from your organization and people in your organization it is super important for you to have that hunger to learn from the people within your business whether that is someone in whether that is someone in the same role as you or someone who is in a similar role to you or in a totally different role there are so many things that you can learn from a business to help you in your role and you should always seek those questions and seek those answers because it's going to help you in your role working for your executive now rolling into that point never stop learning if there's a seminar for an ea or pa go to it if there's a networking event for executive assistants admins whatever it may be go to it because it's important that you keep learning for your sake and the reason why i say this is because it's so important for you to be able to keep on top of the latest ea trends or whatever is called these days in order for you to do your job well and do your job better rolling into that point what i want to say about being an ea is it's so easy to be complacent in this role especially when you get into the groove of things when you start to learn exactly how well to manage your executive or your boss whoever it may be it's really easy to become complacent and become like yeah you know i'm pretty happy in my role i'm okay here i could do this forever kind of thing and i just want to say don't be complacent because as an ea you have so much opportunity and room to grow within the business or to expand your skills and expand your knowledge and be able to move into another role or be able to potentially leave the role you're in for an even better role within another business so never stop learning never become complacent in your role one other point that i want to make is as an ea it's really easy to always be working now i know some people may have an on-call ea job i don't however i know some people do which is fine but i just want to stress this point that you need to take some time off for yourself for your body and for your mind to recover and be present and be able to do your job i know sometimes it's difficult to actually take a break and walk away or leave your phone and be okay with getting like 150 emails which is fine some days that happens and that's okay but you really need to take that time apart separate your personal and your professional life that's one advice that i'd give you if you were going into an ea role pa role whatever it may be that's one advice i can give you is to always have that separation and the last point i want to make is never stop being yourself because there are thousands millions of eas on this planet but no one does your job quite like you do put your flair on the roll put your flare on the position and just make the roll your own i prefer to make the roll my own only because i like to set how i like to work and i know some people prefer to be told how to do things or to be told what procedures to take and stuff and and sometimes that's okay because sometimes you actually need proper procedures to do things like projects however in the way that i manage my time in the way that i manage my documents or things like that i like to manage it how i like to manage it and i don't like following what someone else has done or i don't like following what the previous executive assistant has done or how other people like to manage their role that's totally up to them but for me i always like to put my flare on the roll put my flare on the position and make sure that i leave a mark you know make sure that there's that sense that you know no one is quite like jay you want someone to be able to say you know no one does the job quite like jay or jay has her own way of doing that role or doing that job and in my eyes that's a compliment because i made an impression and i've impressed people so in my eyes that's a good thing another thing i want to talk about is procrastination and that links to not winging it sometimes on my bad days i will admit i procrastinate i know everyone does and it's normal you're not weird and you know there's nothing wrong with just because you procrastinate it's just the thing that we do as humans we procrastinate things the reason why i say don't procrastinate i have learnt the hard way that procrastination only leads to your own suffering so don't do it if you're an ea or a pa don't procrastinate the way that i get past procrastination is some days if i have tasks due or if there are any documents due or anything like that i will send my boss an email and i'll say hey i'm going to have this ready for you by this time that way it gives me a deadline and he knows to expect it so i know that i can't procrastinate this and then i have to get it done so i will set my time wisely i will set about an hour an hour and a half depending on what type of work it is to have that completed and send that over to him without any distractions and i know this may be hard working from the office however working from home i found it super productive to set up my time and time block my diary so i know what i have to focus on and when number one put yourself on busy wherever you are so if you're using microsoft teams whatever you're using put yourself on busy so people know not to disturb you number two is put your phone on silent so that you don't get disturbed or you don't end up procrastinating because you've got a text message and you need to send a text message back and number three make sure that when you start the work you finish the work when i actually set myself a timer i have that set period of time to get that priority of work completed and if i don't then i'll have to set myself another time block to have that completed and in my experience i almost always get it completed within that time block if not even earlier if i actually complete all of these things like turning my phone on silent or putting myself on busy so no one else disrupts my work the last thing i want to say guys is set boundaries for yourself what i mean by boundaries is set your work hours if you start work at eight finish at five or finish at 4 30 make sure you stick to that and in saying that i know that there are going to be some days where you're going to have to work overtime or you're going to have to work a lot longer that's fine that's not what i'm saying what i'm saying is you need to be able to switch on 8 o'clock be on time show up and then five o'clock learn how to switch off learn how to leave your work in your work life and separate yourself those are the things that you should or shouldn't do when you're an executive or a personal assistant if you enjoy this video please give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my channel it really helps me out a lot and i'll see you in the next video [Music] bye [Music] you

Channel: Jay Berardinelli

Views: 12,920

Rating: 4.970696 out of 5

Keywords: don't do this if you are a personal assistant, dont do this, personal assistant, executive assistant, assistant, personal assistant tips, executive assistant tips, how to be a good assistant, how to be a good personal assistant, tips for personal assistants, tips for executive assistants, tips for assistants

Id: Eng1z07Lkl4

Length: 12min 42sec (762 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 29 2020