Drowning in the administrator? 14 productivity hacks to regain control of your newspaper, your reception box – and life | Time management

SOme of us is completely desperate with the administrator, others so that they do it to earn a living. What are the best ways to master your professional life? The administrators share their productivity advice and their efficiency hacks.

Plan your day …

“First of all in the morning, I spend half an hour go through emails and make a plan for the day,” explains Claudine Hopgood, administrator for product planning and networking sales leaders at Volkswagen Group UK in Milton Keynes. “You can never plan 100% of your day; I plan 80%, and the 20% others should allow unexpected interruptions. ”

… And your week

“Have a good overview of your week,” says Suzanne Ekpenyong, the main virtual assistant of a VA agency that she leaves Woodford, East London. “Check your availability and if it works for you. Do you have enough office time? Do you travel too much? Does it work around your personal life? What will your energy look like?

Get the most difficult task first away

“I eat the frog first,” explains Hopgood, referring to the theory of motivation of speaker Brian Tracy that you should start the day with your most tedious task to dismiss it. “Procrastination is King. If you continually report the three tasks you need to do, you know they will not do. So do them first and get dopamine afterwards.”

Maximize your calendar notifications

“Make sure the notifications have set up on your newspaper system,” says Ekpenyong. “Google or Outlook could give a notification 15 minutes before the start of something, but, when you organize the meeting or the appointment, it is useful to put a notification three days before, two days before, etc., so that you are above your preparation. This helps you not insist in the last minute.”

Craig Bryson agrees. The executive assistant of a key capital company in Mayfair, which hosts a podcast for administrators, says: “I use my mobile calendar to remember birthdays and birthdays – I have 46 cousins, so I need to be at the top. I always hear the comment: “ Oh, are you a man – are you able to multiply?

Remain by the four ds

“It is ideal for eliminating your reception box,” says Ekpenyong. The DS means do, different, delegate and delete. “”Do What you need to do in the moment; postpone Later, he could therefore make your task list at that time; delegate To someone else – it’s incredible because then they can crack with that; And the most wonderful thing is DELETE Things you don’t need, you’ve already done, which are no longer relevant – they can go directly to the bin. “”

Aspire to the zero reception box – but do not observe

“I am motivated by the challenge and the excitement of thinking:” Today, I will reach the zero reception box “,” explains Bryson. “I never do it, but I think it’s the passion to try.”

“Inbox Zero is just the best way to work,” says Jess Branch de St Albans, personal assistant of Simon Allford, architect and co-founder of Allford Hall Monaghan Morris. “Especially by working with my job work, in Georgia. We use it as a very clear gauge when we try to determine our workload. We classify all our emails: Red is an email that must be activated, green is an e-mail that is constantly waiting.

Have a list of priority tasks

“I am a large lists manufacturer,” says Ekpenyong. “I use the Asana application, a project management system and tasks. But sometimes it is faster to take a pen and a pad and write your three most important priorities because sometimes, when you are really busy, it is really easy to think: “I cannot face”. This is why I swear by a list of “essentials”, which is different from my task list.

She also recommends keeping a “ta-dia” list “of everything you have finished:” This gives you a great feeling of accomplishment, which is often what you need to continue with the rest of your tasks. “

Always take notes

“The notes application on my phone is my savior,” says Shanice Robertson, a virtual assistant based in Aberdeen. “I tried a few applications but honestly, between my notebook and the notes application on my phone, I think the old school is the best way.”

Hopgood adds: “I have a 3 -hour notebook to the duration of the random bed of things.” At work, she has a pen on her way for “when you are on the fly, you go to a meeting and someone stops you. I always have a little notebook with me that is part of my pocket so that I can quickly scribble something.”

“Always write it,” accepts Bryson. When the executive in which he works calls him, he catches a stamp: “Because, when you return to your office, you have probably forgotten exactly what you have asked to do that is important. Your brain is more for ideas and not storage. “

Find ways for AI to help you

“I use AI to tell me to do things,” explains Branch. “When I prepared my crowded lunch for the next day, I would say:” Alexa, put an alarm at 7:20 am for me to take my lunch out of the refrigerator. So, while I run, getting my daughters out of the house, Alexa will say: “Don’t forget to have your lunch”. Sometimes I will go to [Microsoft’s AI assistant] Copilot and say: “I need to write an email. He must include this, this and this. How should I do it? And I’m just going to put the facts, then he will write an eloquent email that would have taken me 10 minutes. “”

“If you feel outdated,” says Robertson, “you could Put yourself in the Chatppt: “Tomorrow, I have to do that; Can you develop a plan for me? Decompose it into 15-minute goals, then you will feel better the next day. »»

“Copilot and Chatgpt are massive time saving tools,” explains Hopgood. “You can enter a report and ask for a powerpoint of 80 slides. You can put a document and, in a few seconds, you have a really precise summary that would have taken you two hours. I am joking to my boss,” you will no longer need me. “But we will always need people.

Tap the phone

“Sometimes I prefer to stick pins in my eyes than to fill another doodle survey [to agree a time for a meeting]”Explains the branch.” If I have to face the APs in other companies, it is much easier to get the phone. »»

Alternatively, send a voice note, says Robertson: “If I am in the middle of a task and I remember that I have to say something to a customer, I’m just going to make a voice note – you can work during his recording.”

Give yourself five seconds to stop procrastination

Robertson is a fan of the American author Mel Robbins by five seconds the rule: “She was lying in her bed and she had seen a rocket on television the previous night, pulling in space, so I thought:” I will count 54321 then start like a rocket “.

“If I find that I scroll through my phone, or if I think I do a task, I say to myself” 54321 “and I do it.”

If you need to do something, hide yourself

“I love being distracted,” said Hopgood, “so I do this thing called” tactical hiding place “where, if I have something that should be done, I will leave my office. I say to a person I go. [virtual] Trees. If you pick up your phone and go to Instagram or something, all your trees die. At the end of the week, you can see how many trees you cultivated. »»

Appropriate errors

Inevitably, even the most organized people sometimes forget things and administrative assistants all agree that you must have a certain perspective on this subject. “If you put the bad link in an email, will anyone always talk about it five years later?” No, ”explains Branch. “Sometimes things are going badly, and that’s good, because I’m not perfect.”

“Having mistakes,” said Hopgood. “I just put my hands and say:” I messed up. I forgot to do this. This is what I did to say. But just have your mistake.

“There is no perfection,” says Bryson. “When we make mistakes, we must think:” I will never do it again, because I remember the feeling of this error. We learn from them, which is a great thing.

Learn when turning off

“When I go on vacation, I delete the teams on my phone,” explains Branch. “There is no reason why I know anything for me. I care about my work with passion, but it is not life or death. ” During the working day, she says, “Make sure you get up and move, take a trip to the photocopier or something else, and take breaks. Sometimes, if you have charges and charges to do, you feel like you should do is sit on your office until it is done. But you have to take a lunch break, and you will be much more productive when you come back. ”

“You just need to get off,” says Bryson. “I have heard of people who take a month off as a result of professional exhaustion because they always reach their mobile just to see if there are messages at 8 p.m. I have a family and a life on which I want to be able to concentrate. You must create limits to help protect your mental health. “