I reasonably often get asked about the value of executive assistants and other support staff. My estimate is that me + executive assistant is about 110%-200% of the value of me alone.
The range is so wide because I feel very unsure about increasing vs diminishing returns. If having an ExA is equivalent to doing (say) 20% more work in a week, does that increase the value of a week by more or less than 20%? My honest guess is that, for many sorts of work we’re doing, the “increasing returns” model is closer to the truth, because so many sorts of work have winner-takes-all or rich-get-richer effects. The most widely-read books or articles get read far more than slightly-worse books or articles; the public perception of an academic position at Oxford is much greater than a position at UCL, even though the difficulty of getting the former is not that much greater than the difficulty of getting the latter.
(Of course, there are also diminishing returns, which makes figuring this out so hard. E.g. there are only so many podcasts one can go on, and the listenership drops off rapidly.)
I think people normally think of the value of ExAs as just saving you time: doing things like emails, scheduling, and purchasing. In my experience, this is only a small part of the value-add. The bigger value-add comes from: (i) doing things that you just didn’t have capacity to do, or helping you do things to a higher level of quality; (ii) qualitative benefits that aren’t just about saving or gaining time. On (ii): For me that’s (a) meaning that I know that important emails, tasks, etc, won’t get overlooked, which dramatically reduces my stress levels, decreases burnout risk, and means I can do more deep work rather than feeling I need to check my emails and other messages every hour; (b) helping me prioritise (especially advising on when to say no to things, and making it easier to say no to things). Depending on the person, they can also bring skills that I simply lack, like graphic design, facility with spreadsheets, or mathematical knowledge.
Some caveats:
It is notable to me, and an argument against my view, that some of the highest-performing people I know don’t use ExAs. I’m not quite sure what’s going on there. My guess is that if you’re a really super-productive person, the benefits I list above aren’t as great for you.
It’s definitely an investment. It’s a short-term cost (to hire the person, think about a new structure for your life and workflow, think about what can be delegated, think about information security and data privacy, etc) for a longer-term gain.
You should in general be cautious about hiring, and that applies to this, too: once you’ve hired someone, you now have an ongoing responsibility to them and their wellbeing, you have to think about things like compensation, performance evaluation, feedback, and so on.
I reasonably often get asked about the value of executive assistants and other support staff. My estimate is that me + executive assistant is about 110%-200% of the value of me alone.
The range is so wide because I feel very unsure about increasing vs diminishing returns. If having an ExA is equivalent to doing (say) 20% more work in a week, does that increase the value of a week by more or less than 20%? My honest guess is that, for many sorts of work we’re doing, the “increasing returns” model is closer to the truth, because so many sorts of work have winner-takes-all or rich-get-richer effects. The most widely-read books or articles get read far more than slightly-worse books or articles; the public perception of an academic position at Oxford is much greater than a position at UCL, even though the difficulty of getting the former is not that much greater than the difficulty of getting the latter.
(Of course, there are also diminishing returns, which makes figuring this out so hard. E.g. there are only so many podcasts one can go on, and the listenership drops off rapidly.)
I think people normally think of the value of ExAs as just saving you time: doing things like emails, scheduling, and purchasing. In my experience, this is only a small part of the value-add. The bigger value-add comes from: (i) doing things that you just didn’t have capacity to do, or helping you do things to a higher level of quality; (ii) qualitative benefits that aren’t just about saving or gaining time. On (ii): For me that’s (a) meaning that I know that important emails, tasks, etc, won’t get overlooked, which dramatically reduces my stress levels, decreases burnout risk, and means I can do more deep work rather than feeling I need to check my emails and other messages every hour; (b) helping me prioritise (especially advising on when to say no to things, and making it easier to say no to things). Depending on the person, they can also bring skills that I simply lack, like graphic design, facility with spreadsheets, or mathematical knowledge.
Some caveats:
It is notable to me, and an argument against my view, that some of the highest-performing people I know don’t use ExAs. I’m not quite sure what’s going on there. My guess is that if you’re a really super-productive person, the benefits I list above aren’t as great for you.
It’s definitely an investment. It’s a short-term cost (to hire the person, think about a new structure for your life and workflow, think about what can be delegated, think about information security and data privacy, etc) for a longer-term gain.
You should in general be cautious about hiring, and that applies to this, too: once you’ve hired someone, you now have an ongoing responsibility to them and their wellbeing, you have to think about things like compensation, performance evaluation, feedback, and so on.