Joan Burge's Administrative Blog

5 Must-Have Techniques to Earning ‘Inner Circle’ Status and Respect”   If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my 39+ years serving the administrative profession, it’s this: No matter how good we are – in fact, no matter how stellar our performance is – there’s always some way to improve and become better, faster and smarter. And that’s precisely what we need to do to thrive, not just survive, in today’s ultra competitive marketplace!

Supporting a boss who is in another office, or even another country, can be a real challenge for even the most organized of assistants.  It can be done, though, with a good work plan in place and the right tools.  With technology constantly increasing our ability to stay in touch, supporting someone on the other side of the world is becoming more common place in our industry.  Virtual Assistants have built a whole industry around the idea of virtual support, and they often have clients around the world.

It's summer time and I bet you want to kick back and relax on the weekend and evening. I imagine many of you are having cook outs, going camping, boating on the weekend, and just chilling out. Did you know summer is a good time to get organized at work? For most businesses, summer is a little quieter. Then when September comes, most of us are in full swing until the New Year.

Thanks to 100s of you who have sent Dave and me your well wishes, prayers, and cards. We certainly needed every bit of encouragement. Dave and I have been through quite a test of faith and hope the past 3 weeks. I have learned more nursing skills than I ever would wish to have learned (I am very squeamish, on top of it) and Dave has been fighting daily battles in his own way. With the rally of so many friends, family, the Office Dynamics staff, and even those of you from countries I have never traveled to, we have been able to get through this very difficult time.

They say confession is good for the soul, so let me just come clean from the outset: I despise morning radio deejays. Their inane banter, endless contests, silly sound bites and shallow comments bore me. The deejay pairings, so formulaically “good guy/wild girl” duos, made my teeth ache for a dentist’s drill!

The skill you need to develop if you want to live a happier, more satisfying professional and personal life is the ability to ask the "what ifs" that can see you through a blip in your day or a catastrophe.

Welcome back from the weekend! Our blog-a-thon is still going strong! We'll have another coaching session to give away this week along with surprise gifts! I thought I’d keep this week’s motivator on the lighter side. With the onset of spring, now would be a good time to do a little clean up. Here are a few ideas.

I am so impressed with the caliber of executive assistants I worked with today via an online meeting. This is a new client who has enlisted my services for a live virtual webcast. Today, the team held their first "meeting" to review several items. Attendees were in various geographic locations.

When I think of VAAs, I think of 2 kinds. One is the group who work as independent contractors/own their own virtual administrative assistant business. The second group are assistants who work for a corporation or business and work virtually with the management team. Jennie says: "Some administrative assistants at our company have teams that are located in different cities/states (satellite offices). There are unique challenges that are encountered by these assistants. Additionally some assistants have more than one district manager responsibility in another city/state."

Are you a list maker? Scraps of paper cluttering your desk? Did you know that you don’t see them any longer after 7 days (according to psychological research) They truly become visual clutter.