An Executive Assistant

Chances are you schedule a ton of meetings if you’re an Executive Assistant / Admin Assistant. I am certain my fellow Executive Assistants have exchanged countless emails (banged their head against the desk) trying to nail down a time for a meeting that works for all 9 people but that “one” person. Result, start from scratch or get on a conference call. The funniest part is when us Executive Assistants can’t seem to find a mutual time that works to get on a call for a meeting that can’t be scheduled unless we get on that call! :) I can’t thank the stars enough when I can schedule a board meeting in no time with zero conflicts! Especially when the board members are in different time zones. So, I thought of listing some of the online tools available for this purpose. These tools come in handy for scheduling board meetings, conference calls, setting up interviews, internal meetings, etc. They are all real simple to operate, so I won’t go in detail about the description. Try out and see if something works for you. In my case, I use “When is Good” and “Doodle” when I have to schedule board meetings or even internal meetings to avoid the back and forth on email and help save time. 

Doodle, Tungle, When is Good, Meeting Wizard, Setster, Congregar and Presdo. 

Including screen shots from 2 tools that can help schedule meetings. 

Is it your first day of work as an Executive Assistant or Admin Assistant? Be prepared and hit the ground running. I was eager to personalize my computer from day one at my current work place. IMHO I have listed the must have software applications (mostly open source and free) for Executive Assistants and Admin Assistants. So get cracking and install the applications that fit your need. 

• Foxit Reader Fast and perfect for reading tons of PDF files.
• Cute PDF Install this to create PDF files from any document. Great way tool for Executive Assistants and Admin Assistants, no matter what your location.
• Dropbox Great way to store, sync and share files. Have instant access to all your files, no matter what your location. A handy tool for all Executive Assistant’s and Admin Assistant’s. 
• 7zip Perfect way to compress files / folders fast.
• Anti-Virus (AVG Free) Anti-Virus software trusted by more than 110 million users around the world to protect their computers.
• Skype Free calls over the internet anywhere in the world, video chat, conference call, international calls, the list is endless! A must have to stay connected.
• Pidgin Universal chat client. Very handy if you use multiple accounts to chat. Create an account with Pidgin and add your chat clients such as Yahoo!, Google Talk, MSN, AIM, Zephyr etc.
• Chrome  If like me you always have multiple tabs open, and one crashes, only that one rogue tab will close, leaving the entire browser unaffected,. Fast although uses to much memory space.
• Firefox  My favorite browser, fast, user-friendly and secure just like Chrome, but with additional features to customize the browser.
• Adblock Plus Annoyed by the pesky pop up ads? A must have to block them. Install as a add-on in Firefox.
• Xmarks A must have to synchronize bookmarks. I feel Xmarks come in handy for me to stay organized. I am never at a loss for information or passwords. No matter which computer I use, I always have access to all my bookmarks.
• VLC Media Player 2.2 downloads/sec, one the most popular video players around. Ditch windows media player.
• Pandora Zen! Soothing new age music playing in the background keeps me focused.
• Google Reader Read all your favorite sites in one convenient place.
• Gimp Great alternative to Photoshop, since it is free. 
• Picasa Automatically finds all the photos on your computer, organizing them in seconds. And I just love how easy it is to fix the red eye in photos with Picasa.
• Notepad  A cross between notepad and wordpad.
• WordWeb English thesaurus & dictionary that can look up words in any program.
• OpenOffice Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Presentations, Databases, great alternative to MS Office.
• Google Desktop, X1 Can’t find that email? Instant search is an important feature every Executive Assistant or Administrative Assistant should use.

Convert a word document or screen shot into a PDF document using CutePDF. I am (as mentioned in many posts) a fan of open source and free stuff. This is a great free software you can download onto your computer and use to convert documents. How does this work? Well when you download the CutePDF, it installs itself as a printer subsystem. So all you really need to do is choose CutePDF from the printer list and hit the “print” button. Voila! Really as simple as that. One of the handiest tools an Executive Assistant or Administrative Assistant can have owing to the large amounts of paperwork we handle and edit.

One thing I have found handy over the past few months is Google Voice. If you do not know about it, Google it! Currently it is by invitation only. I got my Google Voice number sometime last year, the service launched around March 2009.  You choose a number with the preferred area code from the numbers Google offers. Some great benefits of this service are:

• You can link all your current numbers to this one Google Voice number. So when someone calls, all the phones ring at the same time.
• You don’t have to give out your actual cell number to people. This is real handy! J
• Your voice mail is recorded online and a transcript is sent to your account.
• All in all it is a great thing to have. See, if someone can send you an invite, you will love it.

Last but not least comes in handy as an Administrative or Executive Assistant, when you do not want to really give the actual cell number of the person you support.