a day in the life of an executive assistant is quite varied but i want to take you through my day
today i work for a ceo in the finance world before i start i will not only take you through my day
i will give you helpful hints along the way you can tweak these hints to what works for you
because we all know and what i keep saying in my videos not every size fits all throughout
this video i will be mentioning videos that i previously created which will give you more
insight on what i'm talking about in this video and i will provide all the links for these videos
in the description box below i really try to make my videos as informative as possible and
from experiences i have had of over 20 years as an executive assistant so if you find these
videos helpful please subscribe and like now without further ado let's get started
yesterday afternoon i made sure i prepared for today one of the things i did was i drafted
a question and update email for my executive because at the moment my executive is traveling
so when i got in this morning i checked my emails and my executive's emails to see what
i could action and respond to and what needs to go on the question and update email for his attention
i only send my executive a question and update email when he is traveling and i send it around
10 or 10 30am when my executive isn't traveling we usually catch up at 10 a.m each morning
or three mornings a week depending on my executive schedule and travel arrangements at our catch-ups
he lets me know what he needs me to do or chase up also at these catch-ups i ask him questions about
emails or meeting invites that have come in or any requests that come in that need his approval
i also give him an update regarding things he needs to be aware of or updates about tasks i'm
stuck on or have completed some executives also like to discuss their meeting schedule for the day
if that's the case then your catch-up should be earlier than their first meeting
my executive is on top of his meeting schedule i just make sure he has all the reports presentation
he needs attached to the outlook invite prior to the scheduled meeting so we rarely discuss
the meeting for that day what we do discuss is meetings coming up and presentations that i
or someone else should be completing and then i chase that person completing the information
needed catching up with your executive every day or at least three days a week is so important it
keeps the communication open and it builds trust between both you and the executive especially if
you work remotely for all or part of the week okay so now i've gone through all my executives emails
and added to the question and update email i drafted yesterday i send it off to my executive
he will respond when he has a moment this is what my questions and update email looks like
in the subject matter for that email i add question and update and i will also
add today's date then i add two headings within the body of that update i always add
the questions heading first then the update i number each question i don't use bullet points
with numbers he can put down the corresponding number to the subject he is replying to
my executive may not always answer all the questions in the first reply for a number
of reasons he may have to look something up first in order to reply to a particular number
or it may be too difficult to explain via email so he will leave that number out of his response
after i sent off the email to my executive i put together the first draft of the monthly newsletter
i chased up the managers that haven't yet submitted their contribution to the newsletter
they were meant to send through their submissions yesterday i find sending off reminder invites
for the day before newsletters are due helps cut down the number of people i have to chase
but as we all know there will still be people to chase up maybe not the same people as the
previous month but people get busy and forget now i sent these reminder invites for this year
in october last year sending out all reoccurring invites in october for the following year ensures
i get the first pick of dates and i don't have to think about sending out invites each month
dates are usually locked in it also helps me by having less tasks to do in the beginning of the
year and i can concentrate on other things another task i had to do today was to upload the position
description on linkedin as we are recruiting for a position in our company before i knew it it was
lunch time i quickly checked my executive's inbox and my inbox to see if anything urgent had come in
and needed my attention but nothing came in that couldn't wait after lunch i noticed my
executive had replied to all but one question i had raised in my questions and update email
the question he hadn't replied to he stated that he would ring me later on today to discuss
i executed all the other responses to that email i sent him once that was done i went through both
my inbox and my executive's outlook inbox and i noticed a couple of things that came through
that i needed my executive's response for i added it to tomorrow's question and update email
if it was urgent then i would have texted him if i was having a normal face to face catch up
with my executive the next day there would be no need for a question and update email i would
have added all the questions and updates to my notebook to discuss with him the following day
just on the side note my days are less busy when my executive is traveling this has been the case
in most of my roles as an ea so at the moment i am assisting marketing with three projects
number one ordering business shirts and polos with our company logo on it for all the staff
that need them so i just chased up all the stuff that hadn't responded and i placed our order
i also assisted in getting the accommodation booked for the sales team annual conference
and i also chased up clients that hadn't responded to our signature event
to see if they were attending and if they had any dietary needs in between all that my executive
called me in regard to the question he left out in the email i sent and he explained what he
wanted done so after our phone call i executed his request before i knew it it was almost time to go
home i checked emails again then i prepared for my tomorrow today so that i am on top of
my workload when i start tomorrow there were no surprises for me today but believe me there are
days when it is one surprise after another and i am constantly trying to put out fires
i appreciate you watching until the end don't forget to subscribe and like thanks for watching