Regular To Do Lists

Further to my last blog about categorising and prioritising to do lists, what do you do when you have tasks which you have to do on a daily, weekly, monthly or yearly basis?  You could write a to do list every day/week and put these items on it each one or, for the daily or weekly tasks, you could not put them on your list at all, after all you do them on a daily or weekly basis so you won’t forget them, right?

If you’re like me, you won’t forget to do them but it is still useful to be able to cross an item off the list.  I find this helps on days where I have had to re-shuffle some of my tasks and some of the regular tasks have been pushed back from the time or day that I would normally do them.  For example, for one client I send out their invoices on the first Wednesday of the month but sometimes other work takes priority and I don’t get to it on that day so I have to push it back to Thursday or Friday.  If I don’t have it on my to do list it can easily be forgotten if I haven’t done it on the usual day.

So, do you use a paper or computer to do list?  I use both.  I have a computer to do list on Outlook to put in my repeat, or recurring, tasks and then print it out and add other tasks to it as they come in.  I find that a task list attached to my email (eg Outlook, Windows Live, Google) is particularly useful for creating follow-up tasks for emails received or sent.

Going back to my regular tasks which may be pushed back, I find that being able to set reminders for these is particularly useful as when the reminder comes up, I can choose to “snooze” it for anything from 5 minutes to about 5 days.  This means that I am reminded that the task is still outstanding at a later time.

Administrative Manager? Me?

With over 15 years experience as an administrator/secretary when I joined the Institute of Qualified Professional Secretaries (IQPS) in 2008 I was allowed to join as a full member even though I didn’t have any of the formal qualifications they required for new members, experience counts!  When the IQPS became the Institute of Professional Administrators (IPA) my full membership was carried forward, again based on my years of experience.  At the end of last year, the IPA merged with the Institute of Administrative Managers (InstAM) and, again, my membership was transferred as a full membership even though I do not have a level 6 Diploma in Business and Administrative Management (or equivalent).

When I received my new membership pack for the InstAM, they also sent me a copy of the Manager magazine from the end of last year.  In it, there was an article about administrative managers which got me thinking.  I’ve always thought of myself as an administrator/secretary/bookkeeper and never considered that I am a manager.  However, even as the sole administrator in the charity where I currently work part-time, I am actually an administrative manager as part of my job is to process CRB checks for the volunteers and co-ordinate their availability and training as well as work with the Manager and Senior Worker of the schemes to make sure that the volunteers (and staff) know what they are doing.  I am the volunteers’ first point of contact.

In my own business, I am responsible for ensuring that my clients get their paperwork to me on time so that I can make sure that their records are kept up to date and all tax returns etc are filed on time.

So, I am an administrative manager, I just didn’t know it.

Your PA Solution – Training Part 2

Originally I thought I should split my training in two, one for bookkeeping training/qualifications and the other for the administration training/qualifications. Now that I come to write the one about administration I realise that most of my “training” has been on the job and gained over the past 20 years of working.

I have done some courses, most of them whilst I was at the Prudential in my first couple of years. I did a “telephone answering” course, a problem solving course and a time management course (I still have and use the filofax that I was given on this course). I also did courses for Lotus 123 and WordPerfect. These are a bit obsolete now though as I don’t think anyone uses these software packages any more. Although, Lotus 123 and WordPerfect were the precursors to Excel and Word and I still use some of the formulas and keyboard shortcuts that I learnt using those.

The training I have had which can’t be taught on a course but rather on the job applies to filing, organisation and time management. Yes, I went on a course for time management but whilst you can be told what you should be doing there is no substitute for putting it in to practice, especially when you have two or more people telling you that their work is most important. You need to be able to ask them for deadlines and then organise your time and work accordingly. I have found that as long as you ask for a deadline and beat it your boss, or client, is happy. However, if you don’t think you are going to make a deadline, you need to be able to see it and let the client know as soon as possible and let them have an estimated time of completion.

I am currently doing the PA Diploma with Pitman to help keep myself up to date with changes in Microsoft Office packages and a few other bits and pieces. That is more for CPD (Continuing Professional Development) though and I will save that for another blog. It is going well and so far I have completed five or six modules and have passed all of them with distinction.

Your PA Solution – Experience

This is the second of my series of blogs “About Me” (and Your PA Solution). This one is about the experience I have which I can bring to assisting clients with the administration tasks in their business.

I have over 20 years experience providing administration support within businesses of various sizes. I started at a large pension provider in 1990. Over the next 6½ years I progressed from junior administrator into a supervisory role with sole responsibility for life assurance schemes within a pension department. I left that role when my son was small as the time taken for traveling to work from home was almost as long as the hours I spent there on a part-time basis.

Following on from life assurance, I went on to be a legal secretary and worked for the Senior Partner of, what was then, a relatively small firm of solicitors with 12 partners. It started out as a job share with another secretary until she went on maternity leave and then decided not to return to the role and I became the Senior Partner’s sole secretary, on a part-time basis working 22½ hours per week. Somehow I managed to organise my time effectively enough to complete all work required of me within the hours I was at work. I left this job, after 4½ years, when we moved from Basingstoke to York – it’s a bit far to commute from Yorkshire to Hampshire!

Following our move to York, I went to work as a legal secretary, this time in the wills and probate department in a small firm of solicitors. Unfortunately, I did not feel I was being used to my full ability and capability so I left to return to the financial sector, working as an administrator for a small pension provider. Although the administration work kept me busy, I wanted a change in direction so left administration behind and returned to full-time education in September 2004.

Whilst at college and university where I obtained my HND in Sport & Exercise Science (Therapy) and BSc in Sport & Exercise Science, I started working at a supermarket chain whilst studying. This enabled me to gain new skills in the customer facing market as well as continuing to hone my organisational, time management and other lifestyle skills. The benefits of working there are so good that I am still there after 7 years! Only for 7½ hours per week though.

Upon graduating in 2007, I decided that although I was interested in sport and exercise, my passion is paperwork so I returned to a business support role as PA to two partners of a commercial finance brokers. This role was very varied and no two days were the same. Unfortunately, when the recession hit I was unable to continue my employment with the company and left in June 2010.

For the past 18 years, I have also provided full administration and bookkeeping support for my husband’s business, Teach-2-Drive Driver and Instructor Training.

Coming next: Training – bookkeeping

Who are Your PA Solution – Background

Actually, a better question would be “Who is Your PA Solution?” as the company is me, myself and I.  So, who am I?  I am Fiona, a mother, wife, housekeeper, chief bottle washer, nutrition planner and the list goes on.  I am also an administrator and part-qualified bookkeeper with over 20 years experience in providing administrative and secretarial support.  This is what I love doing and am fortunate enough that this is what I get paid to do.

I went back to college/university at the age of 33 to get my degree and then promptly went back into administration upon graduation at the age of 35 as I discovered that the paperwork is what I love!  I know a lot of business owners don’t like paperwork.  Well, why would they?  They didn’t start their own business to do paperwork, they set up their business to provide the service or product that they specialise in.  An example of this is my husband, Rob Sefton, who is a driving instructor (specialising in fleet driver training) and driving instructor trainer (he trains those who are mad enough to want to become driving instructors!).  He is fantastic at his job and still enjoys it after 27 years!  However, put him in front of a computer or paperwork and he stresses, a lot.  I on the other hand could not spend 7 hours a day in a car assessing and improving someone’s driving.  So, we both have our areas of expertise.  My husband uses mine, I have provided full administrative and bookkeeping support to his business for over 18 years, and whenever I get in a car with him I have no choice but to use his.

As well as administration work, I also work for a large supermarket chain in one of their smaller shops.  I started the job when I returned to college/university as a part-time student job and can’t give up the discount card!  On a more serious note, it gets me out there meeting people and interacting with clients from different backgrounds and age groups.  It also gives me an opportunity to work as part of a team as well as on my own.

Pick Something and Do It

This blog was prompted by a daily post blog which I have been following with my personal blog and the topic yesterday was: “Share one thing that you learned recently.”  I don’t think I learned this recently but it is something which came back to me last week (and again this morning while I was sat in an office and gave the same advice to someone else).

Last week I was asked by a client/friend for help with the bookkeeping for a small local charity.  Of course I said I’d help as the charity means so much to my family and me, the fact that they are paying me is a bonus.  Then I walked into the office and saw the enormity of the task before me.  Seeing the amount of work to be done I wasn’t sure where to start.  Where do you start when there is so much to be done and not a lot of time to do it?  What I reminded myself how to do (or learned) this past week is that when you are presented with a huge job like that, it really doesn’t matter where you start, just pick something and start with that.  It will all fall into place and you can set up a system to make it better later.

I was reminded of this again today when another girl in the office was overwhelmed with the work she had on her desk and asked “where do I start?”  I said, “it doesn’t matter, just pick something to complete and do it.”