I had a full-time position as a personal assistant to the director of a medium-sized publisher in the area of tech and innovations. My tasks weren’t strictly concerned with the day-to-day work of the magazine but with the lines of organization and communication of the work that the director had.

The usual workday would start with an overview of the prepared list of urgent tasks, prewritten in the previous day then arranging them based on priority for the “to do” list. Those would include answering emails, making phone calls, and setting up planned meetings. A tip I would advise is to start with the ones that take the shortest time first. That way the sense of accomplishment would motivate you for the rest of the day.

The bulk of the work during the day was to mediate communication between clients, crew members, and PR agents, filter them and report to the director. At the end of the day, a to-do list was made for the next one.

In the second part of the day, I communicate with my client, based on the tasks from the morning and schedule around them. We pinpoint important work that needs to be done, and I start on the tasks that don’t require my client’s direct attention.

At the end of the day, I clean out, what has been achieved and pile the leftover tasks for the next day.

Overall it was an interesting work experience, one that tackled my problem-solving abilities and imposed a work ethic that required consistency and time management. A big downside is the endless road of work tasks. Simply put, the work never ends. And that’s why a healthy balance between the workload and private life is essential. A complete disconnection between the two would assure that you won’t leave yourself consumed by the constant issues that would require your attention.

Pros

Flexible work time, interesting problem-solving situations, the urgency to be organized.

Cons

Never ending amount of work, dependant on the client’s profit, the personal connection with the client is usually more important than the quality of work you do.

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