Personal Assistant Experience, and moving forward in the new year

Ok, I've had experience having a secretary and being the kind of guy I was, I wasn't able to train her properly and there were things that could have been done better.

One of the things I came out of the experience is that I should be able to verbally describe goals and skills more effectively and strategically. It may sound simple but, when your juggling work and the development of another person, everything stops being "simple".

Well, I really need to make another me. at least outsource that part of me that can do documentation, spreadsheets, able to understand complicated and chronically de-railed conversations, and hopefully gain the same enthusiasm for the aspects of work as myself.

Describing the skillset because easier when I had to describe the skillset I wanted to master for myself. reading a ton of help and training books also helped, because the table of contents basically tries to describe the skillset in one sentence or idea.

What I want from a Personnal Assistant:


  • Linux Non-Professional User - I use Linux, he/she has to be able to use linux and synch with my own tools. 
  • LibreOffice and Open Source Applications User - I use open source, he/she should be able to use the same tools as myself. 
  • Little Manager: Organized and Compulsively so, take a note from me and start applying the Project Management System and Cycle to small things. Get used to breaking things down to actions and tasks, so that she/he can plan the best way of organizing and undertaking the action. After getting used to that practice, project and forecast work and strategize best use of both of our time. 
  • Working as a Team. This is where the feedback loop begins: a weekly report regarding what she has learned regarding the industry. Slowly work towards a team effort. the habits and conditioning of constant communication and until the familiarity to make decisions based on the teams priorities kick in.   
  • Share the work of following up with me. My absent-mindedness is from the an unusual workload. I cannot expect someone not to be absent-minded doing what I do, but we can break things up in tasks and spheres of responsibilities. 
  • Help me Collect data.  There is another step before this can be effectively done, and that is being able to analyze and sort data. the ability to see what is relevant data comes from experience with using and sifting through a lot of it. This means going with me and being there as I sift through data and see how I see things. When he/she gets enough experience with this, i can delegate the collection of data for my analysis. 
  • Help me Document and Write. My job is also to analyze and compress data to manageable chunks for management. Part of a manager is also to do Analysis for higher ranks of management. There is a lot of writing involved because I cannot get lost in the Leaky Abstraction I've given the Management, I have to be able to dig deeper when needed. This is where a ton of writing comes in, documentation so that I and those around me won't forget and can always look back upon. When something happens, the data should allow a layman to navigate easily to what he or she really needs.  
  • Free up my time so that I can write. To be "writer" one has to like writing for its own purpose. That means I have to have my own time to write, and I get to write my own stuff if she/he gets to free up my time to write stuff. Anyway, the pressure and responsibilities ultimately fall on me, and historically as a boss I've always taken greatest amount of responsibility.
  • Help me train other PAs. When this all done and documented, lets train more PAs to cover the 24x5 hour shift of our company. If we create a profile for better PAs, we are a BPO we can outsource the service. This allows us a greater sampling specimen of performance to further improve PAs. 

The plan is that in this new year, we'll set better things in motion and start on a better footing. We need to be really really efficient. Part of what

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