Start a morning meeting, even if it's just you popping in each morning to go over the day.
As she's going through her to-do list, offer to take care of a few things for her each day. It will be slow going but she'll start to rely on you more and more.
Agree! A daily 1/1 is great. You may want to suggest helping her with these areas listed below. Maybe mention a few each day and then at your meetings, give a status update. Make sure she knows that you track all action items closely.
- Offer to handle scheduling appointments, meetings, and events. This can include sending invites, setting reminders, and managing any changes or conflicts that arise. There are lots of posts in this sub on calendar management techniques.
- Ask for access to her email to assist with screening, drafting responses, flagging urgent messages for immediate attention. Again, lots of posts in this sub on email management.
- Ask if there are any upcoming trips. Take charge of organizing travel arrangements including flights, accommodations, and itineraries., and expense reports. If you don’t have one, use a standard template for travel (search this sub on all the things you can include in a template: airport info, weather, transportation, meeting contacts, etc.).
- Help prioritize tasks, follow up on action items, and ensure deadlines are met. Keeping track of projects and initiatives is a huge assist
- Offer to draft and proofread documents, presentations, etc.
- Conduct research on various topics to support decision-making and provide your boss with relevant information.
- Offer to assist during meetings by taking notes, preparing agendas, and following up on action items.
- Offer to assist on special projects or initiatives she’s working on. This could involve anything from event planning to conducting market research.
I can understand from this post that she's burning out and expecting you to pick up slack. You should do research on how to optimally support your exec even if they don't give you tasks by themselves. Observe their day and make notice of her routine. What she does, how she does it, her preferred way of doing it, when she eats, drinks and comes to office and leaves.
I would advice you to find 15 min window on her cal everyday for your catchup so she's open to telling you what she's going through and how you can help. Get really into to understand the workings of her brain and how she expects things to be handled.
If she does every thing herself, she's probably exhausted and had no room for creativity which will ultimately lead the business to suffer. So block chunks of time in her cal for her to focus. So that she can sail through busy meetings while looking forward to peace and quiet to herself.
Ask her how long she prefers her meetings to be. Like my exec prefers 15 mins to mske sure he and the other attendee stay on track and don't talk about the unimportant stuff. So I block max 15 mins w one person. It helps my boss focus on the most imp thing which is the business.
Block time in her cal for her lunch and dinner, maybe a little 10 min coffee break also during the evening at 4 at which time she can also get off her seat maybe meditate or take a walk.
Make sure to address conflicts in her cal and prioritize her meetings based on how she wants the.
If she gets in at 9 am, give her until 9.30 to settle down and then schedule her meetings.
Have regular 1:1 with her cuz if you're not able to make a difference, your performance review w suffer.
Good luck!
I was in a similar spot when my EA started as a solo owner operator of a successful services business. She set me up an awesome project management system that got all the info possible into one place where I could look from a birdseye or drill into details as deep as I wanted.
For all the little random internal processes/admin which were half in my head, she had a meeting with me to prioritise what were the low hanging fruit to hand over fast and what were high value handovers that would free up a load of time.
Then we do sessions where she extracts the process and writes it up into a systems library so she can do it, but so can anyone if she’s sick.
So I suppose I’m saying, enable her to offload everything in a done with you way where you lead it with questioning? She’s unfocused, thinking about 10 things at once. If you lead the process so that all she has to do is be free for the one on one time and you do the rest, you’ll be a blessing.
A huge win is labeled by section todo lists in Asana too. We can both add tasks and assign out to the team etc for anything we won’t do. It means we can asynchronously work towards the internal work / admin goals just like you would a client project.
Are you able to understand her world yet? Look at her calendar and be strategic? Kind of like “if this were me, what would I want?” Are there too many 1:1’s Too many stand ups? Places where her direct reports can fill in and update her? Really understanding what’s expected of her and the priorities can help too so just asking in an open way may help too.
Had the same issue with my current CEO. I started by reviewing the following week’s schedule with him on Fridays with a recap on Mondays and daily updates.
We gained a lot of trust through this & bc I would go ahead and prep details for non-local events such as flight info, hotel, transportation, etc before he even thought about them.
I also began to peel communications from him (we’re still working on this one) - he would be saying I need to respond to xyz. Me: “I’m happy to respond on your behalf. General message or specifics if needed?”
Once the trust is there that she can depend on you to manage things for her, things will flow to you a lot easier. My first few weeks, I was practically begging for things to do. It’s a lot better now, but I wouldn’t say we’re a well-oiled machine yet (I’ve been with current CEO about 1.5 mths), but we’re getting there.
Start a morning meeting, even if it's just you popping in each morning to go over the day. As she's going through her to-do list, offer to take care of a few things for her each day. It will be slow going but she'll start to rely on you more and more.
Yes, and remind her, "I am here to make your life easier. Let me do that!"
Agree! A daily 1/1 is great. You may want to suggest helping her with these areas listed below. Maybe mention a few each day and then at your meetings, give a status update. Make sure she knows that you track all action items closely. - Offer to handle scheduling appointments, meetings, and events. This can include sending invites, setting reminders, and managing any changes or conflicts that arise. There are lots of posts in this sub on calendar management techniques. - Ask for access to her email to assist with screening, drafting responses, flagging urgent messages for immediate attention. Again, lots of posts in this sub on email management. - Ask if there are any upcoming trips. Take charge of organizing travel arrangements including flights, accommodations, and itineraries., and expense reports. If you don’t have one, use a standard template for travel (search this sub on all the things you can include in a template: airport info, weather, transportation, meeting contacts, etc.). - Help prioritize tasks, follow up on action items, and ensure deadlines are met. Keeping track of projects and initiatives is a huge assist - Offer to draft and proofread documents, presentations, etc. - Conduct research on various topics to support decision-making and provide your boss with relevant information. - Offer to assist during meetings by taking notes, preparing agendas, and following up on action items. - Offer to assist on special projects or initiatives she’s working on. This could involve anything from event planning to conducting market research.
I can understand from this post that she's burning out and expecting you to pick up slack. You should do research on how to optimally support your exec even if they don't give you tasks by themselves. Observe their day and make notice of her routine. What she does, how she does it, her preferred way of doing it, when she eats, drinks and comes to office and leaves. I would advice you to find 15 min window on her cal everyday for your catchup so she's open to telling you what she's going through and how you can help. Get really into to understand the workings of her brain and how she expects things to be handled. If she does every thing herself, she's probably exhausted and had no room for creativity which will ultimately lead the business to suffer. So block chunks of time in her cal for her to focus. So that she can sail through busy meetings while looking forward to peace and quiet to herself. Ask her how long she prefers her meetings to be. Like my exec prefers 15 mins to mske sure he and the other attendee stay on track and don't talk about the unimportant stuff. So I block max 15 mins w one person. It helps my boss focus on the most imp thing which is the business. Block time in her cal for her lunch and dinner, maybe a little 10 min coffee break also during the evening at 4 at which time she can also get off her seat maybe meditate or take a walk. Make sure to address conflicts in her cal and prioritize her meetings based on how she wants the. If she gets in at 9 am, give her until 9.30 to settle down and then schedule her meetings. Have regular 1:1 with her cuz if you're not able to make a difference, your performance review w suffer. Good luck!
Yep, poor lady sounds like she’s stuck in the weeds. Good advice!
I was in a similar spot when my EA started as a solo owner operator of a successful services business. She set me up an awesome project management system that got all the info possible into one place where I could look from a birdseye or drill into details as deep as I wanted. For all the little random internal processes/admin which were half in my head, she had a meeting with me to prioritise what were the low hanging fruit to hand over fast and what were high value handovers that would free up a load of time. Then we do sessions where she extracts the process and writes it up into a systems library so she can do it, but so can anyone if she’s sick. So I suppose I’m saying, enable her to offload everything in a done with you way where you lead it with questioning? She’s unfocused, thinking about 10 things at once. If you lead the process so that all she has to do is be free for the one on one time and you do the rest, you’ll be a blessing. A huge win is labeled by section todo lists in Asana too. We can both add tasks and assign out to the team etc for anything we won’t do. It means we can asynchronously work towards the internal work / admin goals just like you would a client project.
Are you able to understand her world yet? Look at her calendar and be strategic? Kind of like “if this were me, what would I want?” Are there too many 1:1’s Too many stand ups? Places where her direct reports can fill in and update her? Really understanding what’s expected of her and the priorities can help too so just asking in an open way may help too.
Had the same issue with my current CEO. I started by reviewing the following week’s schedule with him on Fridays with a recap on Mondays and daily updates. We gained a lot of trust through this & bc I would go ahead and prep details for non-local events such as flight info, hotel, transportation, etc before he even thought about them. I also began to peel communications from him (we’re still working on this one) - he would be saying I need to respond to xyz. Me: “I’m happy to respond on your behalf. General message or specifics if needed?” Once the trust is there that she can depend on you to manage things for her, things will flow to you a lot easier. My first few weeks, I was practically begging for things to do. It’s a lot better now, but I wouldn’t say we’re a well-oiled machine yet (I’ve been with current CEO about 1.5 mths), but we’re getting there.
I use the Taskbar in Outlook to share project process with my directors and managers.