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10 Reasons To Be a Freelance Personal Assistant 

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  1. You get paid for the hours you actually work, not as a salaried employee who gets calls at all hours and doesn’t get paid extra for that.
  2. Your employer is more discerning about what can wait and what is an emergency when you’re billing them for time.
  3. You now have your own business and have many tax deductions you didn’t have before.
  4. You can have more than 1 client.
  5. You can work in your sweats.
  6. Savings for your boss—no more paying employee taxes, it’s actually cheaper for your boss to have you work from home virtually.
  7. You save valuable time commuting that makes you more productive when you hit your desk.
  8. Be there when your children come home or work your lunch hour into picking them up from school.
  9. Start with your existing boss but build up other clients and then specialize in work you enjoy doing (i.e. bookkeeping, staffing or construction management).
  10. Save the drama for your mama—no more workplace drama/gossip/wasted time chatting.

What other benefits can you think of?

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The Art of Moving

Any Extreme Assistant with the-art-of-movingany experience has moved a household. It should be ranked in the 10 most stressful experiences because is not for the faint of heart. But it can be made easy…yes I said easy…with detailed organization.

Simple steps can help you be clear with expectations and the final results. Here’s how I start:

  • Know what is going, staying, being donated or sold.
  • Photograph each item as such (going, staying, donate, sell) and if possible, move all sold or donated items out of the house before the move.
  • Walk the new property and know what the principal calls each room. This is very important for your move.
  • Before packing, make sure items are tagged to those rooms.
  • Make sure no box leaves until it is marked for the appropriate rooms. (You have no idea how much easier this makes the move-in process.)
  • Upon move-in make sure each box goes into the appropriate room before anything gets unpacked. Before the movers leave make sure they finish the job correctly so you’re not lugging boxes around. (You’d be surprised how many boxes are still left in the wrong rooms.)

Now, there are even more detailed ways of doing this, depending how Type A your principal is. For example, I have photographed each cabinet (before packing) and had each box contain that cabinet ONLY. I printed the photos out so on move-in, those unpacking knew exactly what stayed together. You use more boxes but it guaranteed that items went back exactly as they were before.

What was your best move? Let me know about it. And leave me comments and questions that I will be happy to answer. Until then–

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Quick and Easy Tips to Organize Yourself

The single most important trait of any good assistant are good organizational skills. ThinkstockHaving systems and following through with them alleviates your mind and remedies needless anxiety. Let’s face it, you have enough to worry about.

When you are moving every minute of every day, responsible for hundreds of details, managing others and making sure your boss is not encountering any hiccups, do you really want to stress over remembering where you put that phone number on that slip of paper? How many of you have woken up in the middle of the night sucking in all the air in the room because you just remembered something you forgot to do?

Here’s are my personal Top 5, Cannot Live Without, tips to stay organized:

Tip #1: Write down everything. Use the same book and keep it with you ALWAYS. This way there is no doubt where your notes are. I recommend a book that fits into your laptop bag or purse.

Tip #2: Make yourself an end-of-the-day plan for the next day. Make this list while your priorities are fresh in your head because I guarantee you, there will be new “surprise” items to deal with in the morning. This will keep you from forgetting those holdover items.

 Tip #3: Before quitting time, transfer your daily notes into your appropriate systems. Phone numbers written down hastily in shorthand that only you can read should be put into your contacts or onto call sheets with their full name; to do’s should be put on the list for tomorrow; and tasks that were completed should be crossed off.

 Tip #4: A status email should be sent to your employer at the end of the day. This should include calls they still need to make or return, appointments for the next day, vendors who may be working at their home the following day, papers to be signed; and anything else important you were not able to communicate to them during the day. This list is a big help to you as well. Note—Never assume it got read by your employer, but you can read it to them in the morning and it’s a great CYA move.

Tip #5: Keep a “hot” folder that has all the paperwork you need to deal with immediately. Even if items carry over to the next day or week, you know where to put your hands on those that are most urgent.

While the brain is an assistant’s most valuable asset, give it some much-needed help! Trust in your processes so that when you cannot remember, you know where to look.

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Have You Been Replaced by a Twenty-Year-Old?

whatsnextI am finding more and more people my age, who have been assistants for years, wondering “now what?” “Is that all there is?” “I can’t work for someone 1/2 my age,” and even worst, “but I can’t afford to retire.”  This is a common and very real situation. But like most of us, unless you trained to be a doctor or lawyer or entrepreneur, there is an expiration date for your career. The newer Hollywood types are hiring the younger assistants who they can better relate. You would think they would want experience over youth, but I have found that is not so. I repeat, as the needs of older people are winding down, most new employers are younger and want someone who they can relate to. And frankly, if you’ve been an assistant for five-plus years and are a quick learner, you have what it takes to navigate the needs of celebrities or a younger employer because they don’t know what they’re missing.

When I talk to my fellow assistants, many of us wished we had put aside more savings or taken advantage of other opportunities that came our way. The real problem for Americans is that when retirement comes knocking, we can’t afford to retire. If you worked for individuals instead of corporations, you may not even have a 401K or pension plan (pension what?).

So my advice is no matter how young you are, set up your own retirement plan by cultivating talents you have now that you can make a business out of later. Start doing the business (on the side) and while you have a safety net. Here are some thoughts: Do you create amazing parties; find cute and unique party favors? Do you handle gift buying and have sales people in all the top stores as resources? Do you have a list of the top vendors in your city to use? Do you edit or write for your employer? Do you organize your employer? How are you at booking travel and setting up unique experiences for your employer? Light bulb alert! Any of those things could be a business.

The playing field is more level than ever before for new business owners due to the receptivity of online businesses. No longer do you need to pay rent for a brick and mortar store. Now people do everything online. So I strongly recommend that while you are employed, figure out what your exit strategy will be and work towards that. While the people we support are wealthy, we are not. Get a plan in place and make that a priority—remember to do something for you.

Do you have an idea to transform into a business? Please share it by leaving a comment.

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5 Quick Tips for Surviving & Thriving Your Work Day

Can we all agree that Personal Assistants have stressful jobs? Best Workday EverWe are responsible for other’s lives, their children and their workplace. Coordinating it all smoothly and seamlessly is an art, especially when you know you’re cool-under-fire demeanor is necessary to professionalism and sets the tone for your employer.

But what do you do for yourself to survive your workday and better handle tomorrow?

Here are 5 easy apps/websites to help you:

  1. Do you take a lunch break? Any break? So many of us power through lunch and eat while we type. While the boss is eating, you’re taking valuable time preparing for the next meeting or activity and your break is your drive home at the end of a 12 hr. day. For those of you diehards, try an app called calm.com. For just 2 minutes you can refresh yourself. This can be done hiding out in the bathroom stall. Why this is helpful—Taking a break and eating, has physiological benefits to our productivity and brainpower. Taking two minutes resets your brain and takes you out of chaotic behavior to realign priorities and make you more effective. www.calm.com
  2. My best talent as a PA is also my downfall as a PA. It is being able to handle multiple tasks at once. I hear conversations and am acting on them before I am told, all the while doing something else. Multiple interruptions make you forget what you were doing two seconds before. Did you know that most people can only focus for about 20 seconds? Multitasking has its place but time has proven it’s not the productivity amazon first touted. There is an amazing app called focus@will that seamlessly streams music “that boosts productivity 400%” (see their science page) and you select the genre of music. It memorizes your preferences and learns what you like. Why this is helpful—Focusing and completing projects is a very rewarding experience that fills you with a sense of accomplishment. www.focusatwill.com
  3. I once worked in an office where every morning we had a code word for the mood of the employer so we could all be aware of the tempo of the day. (Sometimes a knowing glance would do). And like any relationship, after time you also know how to shift their mood. But guess what? Did you ever think the bad mood could be yours? There is an app for tracking your moods during the day called My Mood Tracker. I recognized at 2pm without lunch I’d get grouchy, at 4pm I’d be tired, and around 6pm we’d all be punchy, laughing at nothing and everything. Why this is Helpful— How you react to your boss, job, etc. may be your mood. By identifying a pattern you can recognize when you slip-up, or get down, and correct it.  www.mymoodtracker.com. If you’re really into this technology, check out this article: http://tech.co/best-habit-and-mood-tracking-apps-2013-08
  4. Did you have a good day or bad day? Review your day at the end of the day. Highlight the good and think about why it was good. Human nature is to focus on the one thing that went wrong and ignore 100 little things that went flawlessly right. Why this is helpful—By recognizing what you did right builds your self-esteem and makes you less likely to engage in self-deprecating behavior. Working confidently helps you focus and perform better. Don’t forget, you’re a rock star in a crazed world and pull off miracles on a daily basis. Check out the app iDoneThis to assist you and have a written reminder of all you accomplished. www.idonethis.com
  5. Did you slip up today? Don’t harp on your mistakes; learn from them. Look at what you would do differently next time, and I’m not talking about why your boss was unhappy. Why this is helpful—Doing a review of what went wrong helps you leave it at the office and, more importantly, not magnify it later in your mind or wake you up at night. By recognizing where you failed or why, or if you really did, keeps history from repeating itself. Byron Katie is a favorite self-help guru of mine who teaches you to examine your core belief systems by examining events. By asking yourself four simple questions: “Is it true? Do absolutely know it’s true? What happens when I believe that thought? Where would you I without that thought?” you can change your limiting behaviors forever. Judge-your-neighbor is her app. for iPad but she has other tools as well. www.byronkatie.com.

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