Tips to make your life better
The best personal assistants are ahead of everyone else. They know what’s going to happen before it does, and have multiple back-up plans in case anything goes wrong. A great PA is the hub of the business, the central cog. They’re cool, calm and collected and, in short, have got things sorted.
If you want to improve your life, there is a lot you can learn from PAs. Luckily, we’ve asked the best in the business for advice on how to make things run smoothly, get the best out of your time, and generally, improve your life.
Personal assistant tip: organise your life
Plan your day
The best PAs have a plan for their day, but are agile enough to change things on the fly when things crop up. It’s all about having a system in place for how you tackle your day-to-day, and maximising the time you have to tick off the things that really do need to be done.
Before you leave the office for the day, sit down and write your to-do list for the following day. At 5pm, you know exactly what you achieved today and what you couldn’t complete. While it’s still fresh in your mind, get it on paper, along with things you know you have to do tomorrow. Rank them in order of importance, and starring the ones that absolutely must be done.
It makes you more productive in a variety of ways.
- It means you don’t have to remember things, because they’re all written down. That helps your brain understand it doesn’t have to keep those bits of information on the surface.
- It turns those abstract bits of information into work. A big project is more achievable broken down into bite-size pieces. ‘Write book’ is impossible. ‘Write 200-word first page’ is doable.
- It keeps you focussed. That distracting email talking about some meeting next week? That can wait – it’s not on today’s list.
- Knowing what you’re doing tomorrow allows your brain to start planning. Writing down a task and knowing that’s tomorrow’s job puts your subconscious into action, whirring away, planning how that task will be achieved.
Take excellent notes
How often do you think ‘Oh, I’ll remember that’ only to promptly forget it when you leave the room? You’re not alone. Set up a system where you record notes in some way, like post-it notes, a notebook, recording audio notes on your phone, or something else. You need to find a system that works for you. Post-it notes tend to dislodge and go AWOL, but they are great for rearranging into a task list the next day. A notebook is hard to lose but bulky to carry around.
The way you take the note also needs to be thorough. For instance, scrawling ‘$1540’ at the time may be enough to remind you that a customer’s bill is $1540 short. But when you arrive at work at 9am the following day, the context is gone and the note is meaningless.
Use productivity hacks
There’s a range of things that personal assistants do to make their day super productive – and you can do them too.
- Do a big (or especially difficult) task first thing in the morning when you’re most focussed, and leave smaller tasks until later in the day.
- Don’t multi-task. Focus on one thing at a time and get it done well.
- Have a rule that you only touch a task once. If you open an email, deal with it then. If you pick up a piece of paper, do what needs to be done at the time. Don’t ever put it back on the pile. By dealing with that email or file right then, you’re not wasting time re-familiarising yourself with the task later on.
- Have set times when you clear your emails. The first time for the day might be at 10am, and then maybe after lunch, and then at afternoon tea. Emails can be very distracting and time consuming.
Personal assistant tip: use organisational tools
Project management software
Everyone can benefit from technology to make their lives a little bit easier and more organised. Luckily there are loads of free - or cheap - software that help with project management.
Asana is well-designed software that lets you to create tasks as simple or complex you need them to be – for personal use, or for teams and businesses. You can create tasks, goals, guidelines and timeframes. It’s easy to move tasks along and allocate them to others if needed. There are over 100 integrations with products such as DropBox, Microsoft Teams and timesheet tracking systems.
For individuals, it’s free, and you can get a premium account for US$10 per user.
ClickUp is another great online software programme that allows you to create teams, workflow, projects, and allocate tasks and times. It’s super easy to set up and operate, and is free for most individuals and small businesses. You can see at a glance where all your tasks are up to, perfect for visual people.
Trello is the other big hitter in terms of online project management software. It’s free and you can create and assign tasks, give deadlines, shuffle tasks around, and add users as needed. It’s great for big tasks for individuals too, things like planning holidays or renovations. It lets you track a lot of information in an easy way, so you can quickly see everything from the desktop.
Get a Google Assistant
If you don’t want full project management software, Google Assistant may be all that you need. Launched in 2016, it’s under constant refinement, and is arguably the best online assistant. You can use voice commands to search, control devices, send emails and messages and check appointments just like Siri or Alexa.
However, it also translates for you (‘Hey Google, be my French translator’), makes appointments, reads notifications from your phone, plays content on various devices, and accesses almost anything on the internet that you want.
It uses AI to ‘get to know you’ better, recognising your voice rather than your spouse or friend, and being proactive rather than reactive.
You can get Google Assistant on your phone (iOS and Android), and it integrates seamlessly with other Google apps such as Maps. It can even calculate your ETA when you’re on your way, and advise your friends when to expect you.
Use Calendar
Having a well-organised calendar goes a long way towards being on top of your game. It’s more than just popping appointments in there though. Put in social engagements, due dates for work, and share your calendar with your spouse and colleagues (set permissions or separate calendars, so they can only see what they need to).
You can also use Google Calendar for lists of contacts that are easily accessed by everyone who needs them, with no need to find paper copies and update them when phone numbers change.
Add a Google Hangout video call, add attachments to appointments, enable the world clock so you’re always in sync with friends and colleagues around the world, set up and email event invites to attendees, add specific locations to meetings, and so much more.
Start making your life better today
It’s easy to take some simple steps and change your life for the better. Become more productive and organised by being the master of lists and planning ahead. If you have a project or a cluttered, busy life, consider setting up an online project management system where you can see at a glance where all your tasks are at. They’re simple to implement, but small changes can make a big impact to your work and home life.