Executive Assistant Tools And Tips For Organisational Perfection | 2023 Update

this video is an updated version of one of this Channel's most popular videos ever why because things change and the tips I previously had for organizational Perfection have definitely changed some of them for instance I completely changed the way I manage my inbox the folders are gone so today I'm going to give you a rundown of every single thing I do and use to make sure I'm on top of the many projects I'm responsible for and to ensure nothing slips between the cracks first up we have the calendar my calendar needs to be perfect or else there is chaos and the most valuable tip I can give you is to block realistic time frames I can confidently say that most execs underestimate how long things take they never want to factor in buffer time which they always need they rarely want to account for transport delays which are inevitable I trust you get my drift here most things take longer than you think they will and the better you get at estimating how long things will take the better your schedule will be to help me with scheduling meetings I use calendly I still find it the best scheduling tool on the market for what I need the second tip I have is mastering taking live minutes notes and actions board level minutes are a whole topic of their own today I'm focusing on taking day-to-day notes and actions there are lots of benefits to taking live notes of course the main one is accuracy you're not going to forget if you're doing it on the go even better if you're doing it on a screen that everyone can see because then you know everyone is on the same page side note prashanth now founder and CEO of double Gemini has an absolutely brilliant workshop on how to do this properly I'll link to double Gemini below and no that's not a sponsored mention double Gemini are just really great at workplace productivity taking and distributing actions while you're in a meeting is a Big Time Saver there's a Google Chrome extension I've been using to do this it's called hybrid and yes they have sponsored EA how to in the past which we're extremely grateful for but know this isn't a sponsored message either I'm going to do an entire video demonstrating how Hybrid Works but for now what I'll say is that it gets me to set an objective and an agenda for every single meeting which is great because a meeting without an objective is a waste of time while I'm in the meeting I take notes under the appropriate agenda item which was displayed on the screen and I tag specific attendees with their actions the notes and actions are then emailed to everyone with the click of a button it's a really efficient way to take and distribute notes and actions and again I'll link to it below get it now while it's free because it won't be free forever the next productivity tool I use and certainly one that I can't live without is a social media scheduling tool I produce a lot of content across a lot of platforms and the ability to schedule it in advance is absolutely essential at this point I've used several tools in the past I used buffer for a long time and I was also on meet Edgar a while ago these days I'm using social pilot if you're responsible for social media a scheduling tool is really important it saves you loads of time and energy in terms of creating content I'm all about canva which we can also consider a productivity tool given it makes creating content incredibly easy and efficient next up we need to talk about inbox management if there is one thing that would help absolutely everyone on the planet with productivity I think it might all be having a great inbox management system what makes a great inbox management system using it consistently the best system is the system you use I'm in the Google ecosystem and I present a detailed workshop on exactly how I manage my inboxes and my exact same boxes it's too lengthy for this video but it's available in the EA how to Plus members portal which I'll link to below it's about 45 minutes long maintaining a clean inbox is really important it ensures key stakeholders are responded to it ensures nothing's overlooked and it's important for your sanity I don't get too fancy when it comes to inbox management but there is one extension I use I've mentioned it before I use mail Butler mail Butler does a lot of things but I use it for two main reasons one is templates I have a bunch of email response templates saved that I can use and adapt with the click of button this is really efficient when you're replying to a lot of emails loads of them have a pretty standard response and you can just fill in the blanks the other thing I like is that you can store and switch between multiple fancy email signatures this is great for people managing different inboxes perhaps multiple businesses or multiple execs and with mail Butler I can also see if my email has been opened so that person claiming that they didn't get your message about that thing that you needed to do it's not gonna fly a little bit of Shameless self-promotion I have put together over 80 email response templates for assistance it's a guide called what to say when recommended responses to Common and not so common emails received by executive assistants you'll find it on EA watch2say.com check below for a special YouTube subscriber discount while we're talking about email responses it would be remiss of me to overlook chat GPT chat GPT is a Hot Topic right now if you're not familiar it's an AI tool and you can play with it for free at the moment it does a pretty amazing job of writing replies to emails so go and experiment the next tool we need to talk about is having a business binder that is regularly updated I've always done mine in an A to Z format your business binder contains all of the information necessary to do your job when I'm adding information to my binder I think of it in terms of the bus Factor if I were hit by a bus tomorrow I hope I'm not but if somebody needed to take over from me with absolutely no notice what would they need to know from how to operate the equipment in the conference rooms and what password manager I use to a list of board members and their assistants and instructions for office visitors it's all in the binder and it's all up to date you can do this yourself but if you would like a template you'll find it in the EA how-to Plus members portal there's also a link below to get it if you're not a member but seriously might you remember it's fantastic moving on now to staying on top of tasks where do you keep your never-ending to-do list how do you stay on top of all of the things you need to do and to Chase I still use Trello I created a mini course that goes deep on exactly how I use Trello but once again the best system is the system you use I have a friend who lives on her notion system that she created for her and her exec some people use OneNote some use Asana or Monday I'm noticing more and more people mentioning click up and smartsheet again the two most important considerations here are one what are you allowed to use with your company what is the accepted corporate system what is the it policy and two are you using it is it working for you Trello is free and it's still working for me so I'm still using it and finally please stay with me because this has been life-changing meetings are for decisions I'm going to say it again because it's so so important meetings are full decisions meetings are not to present information if I need to present information I need I put together my slides and I record the presentation I then distribute the presentation to everyone who needs to see it it's pre-work to be done prior to the meeting and that way the meeting is to discuss and to make a decision a presentation that has been recorded is always more concise it can be viewed at a time convenient for the people who need to see it they have time to process their thoughts and they can come to the meeting with a list of talking points you can use a tool like loom for this I use canva and I find it brilliant it's incredibly efficient and it's something that I'm really pleased to see more and more forward-thinking organizations implementing and that concludes my latest tools and tips for organizational perfection as always I love hearing from you so please drop a comment with your favorite organization tip or let me know if you have any questions you can chat with me in the EA how to private Facebook group too previously the group was only available to EA how to Plus members we recently opened it up to non-members but you do need to be an assistant to join us I really hope to see you in the group and I'll be back soon with another video

Channel: EA How To

Views: 70,541

Keywords: Alicia Fairclough, Assistant Community, EA How To, Executive Assistant, Executive Assistant Tutorials, binder organization, calendar management, calendar management for executive assistants, executive, executive assistant duties, executive assistant tips, how to be an executive assistant, onenote meeting minutes, outlook calendar management for executive assistants, personal assistant

Id: Aa760KuOkrA

Length: 10min 34sec (634 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 17 2023