I just had the opportunity to talk with someone who has been Executive Assistant to several EAs, including researchers. Here are the answers they gave to my questions:
As a rough estimate, how much research time do you think your efforts enabled, if any? - I’m not sure. 10 hours per week?
What are the things you do that save the EA/researcher most time/energy?
- It is different for each person. But here is my current best guess at some common things: - Communication management. Organizing the inbox, filtering out spam. Drafting emails. Highlighting anything urgent and important to the EA/researcher. - Calendar management. Acting as a ‘gatekeeper’ who can say no to things easily for them. Scheduling meetings in such a way that optimizes for the way that EA/researcher works best. - Reminding the EA/researcher about upcoming deadlines, so they don’t have to use brain capacity tracking/worrying about that. - Being a voice of reason when the EA/researcher is led towards spending time on something less important. - Occasional big ongoing projects which they would have to do otherwise. - Errands, purchases, small annoying tasks like dealing with customer service representatives etc.
(There’s a good amount of overlap here with Matthew’s experience, I notice.)
I just had the opportunity to talk with someone who has been Executive Assistant to several EAs, including researchers. Here are the answers they gave to my questions:
As a rough estimate, how much research time do you think your efforts enabled, if any?
- I’m not sure. 10 hours per week?
What are the things you do that save the EA/researcher most time/energy?
- It is different for each person. But here is my current best guess at some common things:
- Communication management. Organizing the inbox, filtering out spam. Drafting emails. Highlighting anything urgent and important to the EA/researcher.
- Calendar management. Acting as a ‘gatekeeper’ who can say no to things easily for them. Scheduling meetings in such a way that optimizes for the way that EA/researcher works best.
- Reminding the EA/researcher about upcoming deadlines, so they don’t have to use brain capacity tracking/worrying about that.
- Being a voice of reason when the EA/researcher is led towards spending time on something less important.
- Occasional big ongoing projects which they would have to do otherwise.
- Errands, purchases, small annoying tasks like dealing with customer service representatives etc.
(There’s a good amount of overlap here with Matthew’s experience, I notice.)