Should You Text Your Boss?

photo credit: ydhsu

While perusing the many blogs that I follow, I saw this blog post on LifeHacker about the etiquette of texting your boss.  It started me thinking about how much technology has changed during my career and how we respond to it as Administrative and Executive Assistants.  Using text messages is a good example of technology that we can embrace.

Like all technology, though, texting can be good and bad.  You need to have guidelines to follow when using texting to contact your boss.  Some of the questions/guidelines I can think of would be:

Always ask the boss if [...] Continue Reading…

Maintaining Your Office Supply Cabinet

Most of the time when we take a new administrative assistant or executive assistant position, part of our job duties is to order and maintain office supplies.  Often, there is an already existing office supply cabinet, and we simply take note of what is currently used and reorder as necessary.

If you have to set up your office supply cabinet from nothing, though, what all do you need to order?  Obviously, some specifics will be dictated by the type of office you work in and local preferences, but some generalities can certainly be added to your list.
Pens and Pencils
I generally [...] Continue Reading…

Ask the Admin: Managing E-mail for the Boss

This question came from Jody:
Did you get any feedback on how assistants typically work with their boss’ email?

My boss has never had anyone help him with his vast quantities of email and I am wondering where to look for best practices.
I did not get any comments on the post I previously wrote about managing the boss’s e-mail, but I did go out and find some discussions I had previously seen on other sites.

There were two discussions on Office Arrow, both with some good tips:

Managing my boss’ inbox on my computer
Managing someone else’s inbox – tips?

Patricia on Laughing All The [...] Continue Reading…

How To Find Your Electronic Files Faster

In Part 5 of Setting Up a Filing System, I said I’d show you how to set up Windows Explorer to help you find your files faster.  Many of you may know Windows Explorer as My Computer, since that is the name Windows gives the shortcut.
Windows Explorer Default View
The default view of files in Windows Explorer is the Icon view (click on the thumbnail to see in full size).

This view has a number of disadvantages:

Each file takes up more room on the page, so you have to scroll more to see all the files.
The files are alphabetized from right [...] Continue Reading…

Is It Safe To Copy Documents

If you have a newer digital copier, the answer may be no.  According to a story on CBS, most digital copiers made since 2002 contain a hard drive, which keeps digital copies of documents you copied in the past.  And guess what?  When your lease on that equipment is up, the leasing company most likely isn’t reformatting the hard drive before it resells the copier.

CBS looked at 4 randomly selected copiers out of 6,000  in a warehouse in New Jersey, and found copies of paystubs including names, addresses and social security numbers, a list of gang members wanted for [...] Continue Reading…

Tips for a Successful Business as a Virtual Assistant

  Today’s we have a guest post from James Mowery of Laptop Computers. Working as a virtual assistant sounds like an easy way to make money working from home. In reality, it can be a roller coaster ride between times when you have too much work and times when you don’t have any at all. There are a few things that you can do to help your virtual assistant career become a little more predictable from month to month. Don’t Rely on One Client Alone Make sure that you have access to several different [...] Continue Reading…

Setting Up A Filing System Part 5: More on Naming Computer Files

I talked about naming computer files in Part 4 of Setting Up a Filing System, but I mostly talked about Windows file naming conventions.  In comments, Layne made another suggestion: I would like to suggest in your series on “How To” set up a filing system electronically if you would include a write up on naming files. Some suggestions that make it easy to locate, uses consistency so when you sort you would see all the memo, letters, etc. separately. That kind of thing. I know you get the gist of what I’m saying. I [...] Continue Reading…

Screening Sales Calls

I’ve talked before about Screening Calls to Make Your Boss More Productive, but I didn’t discuss sales calls in particular.  Telemarketers are wily characters that will do their best to try and fake you out and get you to put their calls through.  It’s your job as an administrative or executive assistant to hold the line and not let them through. The Easy Calls Some calls are obviously sales calls “May I speak to the person in charge of purchasing decisions for XYZ?” “Who do you currently buy your [...] Continue Reading…

Weekly Links Roundup – April 9, 2010

Here we are again, links gathered from around the web for your perusal.  I’ve started to leave the retweet links in the lists, in case you’re interested in looking up the person I got the link from.  If there’s no RT name, then it’s one I came across on my own. Administrative Assistant Blog, Executive Assistant – Fully Utilize Your Talents – Optimization http://bit.ly/bb8Yep Six Questions to Ask for Powerful Testimonials | Copyblogger http://bit.ly/cYR3GH RT @danielscocco: New on Daily Blog Tips: 10 Tips to Manage Criticism http://bit.ly/cfJWLx [...] Continue Reading…

How to Share a Distribution List in Outlook

If you’re like me, you’re always creating different distribution lists to ease regular e-mailing.  I’ll have them for my boss’s direct reports, for his Chamber of Commerce contacts, for the Board of a non-profit he’s on.  Invariably, someone will realize I have the list and want to use it.  Sharing a private distribution list is actually quite easy. Open Microsoft Outlook, then open a new message. Open your Contacts in Outlook. Arrange your windows so that you can see both the new message and your contacts list. [...] Continue Reading…