Summer flies by, and you have to think and act fast in order to make the most of every moment. Unfortunately, time is limited, and planning and organizing your summer can easily get in the way of actually enjoying yourself.
Hiring a personal assistant can help you avoid this dilemma and spend your summer the way you ought to be.
Planning Vacations, Summer Camps, and Other Events
Summer is a time for getting away, exploring, and being active. Of course, most of this requires time-consuming planning.
Whether you’re going on an international vacation or just camping a couple of hours away, your personal assistant can make reservations, purchase tickets, create itineraries and packing lists, and make sure you have everything you need with you. If you need to sign your children up for summer events, such as a summer camp or childcare, your personal assistant can also research your options and organize all the necessary details.
The result is a summer of doing, without having to think too much beforehand.
Time doesn’t stop while you’re away having fun: At home, your flowers still need watered and your dog still needs walked. While you can ask a friend to do this for you, you’ll still have to face coming home to an empty fridge, dusty home, and piles of mail. Your personal assistant can go the extra mile to create a welcoming home for you to return to.
The sun is shining and you’re yearning to feel its warmth; but your chores won’t do themselves, so you’re stuck inside.
As an alternative to this dismal scene, your personal assistant can handle your errands, household management, and chores so that you don’t have to. Imagine coming home from work to a home that’s tidy and organized, and a meal that’s prepped and ready to be cooked. Nothing’s stopping you from soaking up all the sunshine you can get.
If you have kids, you know that summer ends as soon as back-to-school season starts, when you have to start shopping for school supplies and getting organized for the new school year. To make summer stretch just a little bit longer, your personal assistant can handle the necessary preparations for you, such as picking up supplies, scheduling necessary appointments, and even planning and prepping for school lunches.
In honor of Administrative Professionals’ Day, we want to acknowledge all the hard work that administrative professionals, executive assistants, and secretaries do. Your efforts can make the difference between poor- and high-quality work, and between a day where everything goes terribly wrong and one where everything falls into place.
However, administrative professionals’ responsibilities should end with the workday, and sometimes the best thing you can do is recognize when calling in additional help is necessary. Here are three signs that your boss could use a personal assistant at home.
They’re Neglecting Obligations at Home
Sometimes, professional success comes at the cost of one’s home life.
If you notice that your boss seems to be neglecting things at home — whether that includes chores and household management, appointments, or even relationships — it may be a sign that they need extra help. A personal assistant can remove these obligations by taking care of them on a weekly basis.
They Aren’t Taking Proper Care of Themselves
Lack of self-care is a sure sign that someone is overtaxed. If you begin to notice that your boss isn’t getting enough sleep, eating well, exercising, relaxing, or otherwise taking care of themselves, now is the time to speak up.
A personal assistant can help your boss free up time for self-care activities by eliminating time-consuming responsibilities at home. They can even help your boss eat healthier by meal planning, shopping, and prepping.
They’re Stressed About Nonwork-Related Issues
When everything at work is going well and your boss still seems stressed, the stressors responsible likely lie at home. No matter how much you do to make life at the office easier, your boss can still be stressed by outside issues, and they may eventually begin to affect their work performance.
If any of these signs sound familiar, consider suggesting that your boss get a personal assistant. Pepper’s Personal Assistants can help with household management, errands, and chores, lending the same order to their home life that you lend to their work life. In the end, everyone in your office will benefit from a less stressed, more relaxed boss!
When people don’t dedicate any time to taking care of themselves, they often overlook exercise and nutrition. While skipping a workout or opting for takeout to save time is sometimes necessary, making this your norm will take its toll on your physical health. If you fail to take care of your body, you won’t ever feel at your best.
However, your self-care routine doesn’t even have to include a proper diet and exercise in order for it to benefit your physical health (although it should). When you relax, your body triggers the relaxation response, which is essentially the opposite of the fight-or-flight response. This state helps you avoid anxiety and burnout, which is important to prevent chronic stress from damaging your health long-term and decreasing your immunity.
Mental Health
Those who don’t dedicate time to their self-care are more likely to experience low self-esteem, resentment, and unhappiness. And the burnout we mentioned above can have quite an impact on mental health as well.
Practicing self-care has been proven to increase productivity and positive thinking and impart feelings of well-being and calm. Plus, taking care of your body helps you to feel confident and good about yourself.
Ways to Practice Self-Care
Self-care looks different for every individual, but the time you set aside for yourself should include at least some of the following ideas:
When trying to find time to devote to your self-care, focus on two things.
First, prioritize your own well-being. If your priorities always lie elsewhere, you’ll never find the time (or energy) for yourself. Prioritizing yourself may mean accepting the fact that you can’t do everything — at least not on your own.
And second, you have to let others help you. Trying to perfectly juggle your work, home, relationships, and self-care is a recipe for disaster.
Hiring a personal assistant is a great way to free up time for yourself without neglecting any of your other responsibilities. Pepper’s Personal Assistants is here to help with your household management, errands, and chores, so you can spend that time and energy on something more deserving: yourself.
Ready to invest more time in yourself? Get started with a personal assistant today!
A new year means new vacations, and vacations start with making the necessary arrangements. Whether you’re fleeing to a warmer city to break up the remaining winter months, thinking ahead to spring break, or just dreaming up some weekend trips, a personal assistant can help reduce the stress of vacation planning.
Booking Flights and Hotels
Looking for flights and hotels, especially if you’re trying to get a good deal or are tied to specific dates, can be extremely time consuming. Let your personal assistant know when and where you’d like to take your vacation, what accomodations you expect from your flight and hotel, and anything else that’s pertinent. They can present you with several options and make all the arrangements after you’ve chosen which you like best.
Creating an Itinerary
If you’re visiting a new place for the first time, you’ll want to make the most of your stay there and see as much as possible; and even if your trip is a stay-at-the-beach-all-day kind of vacation, having some plans made ahead of time is smart. Your personal assistant can find and book any must-do activities; purchase and print tickets to shows, museums, and the like so you can avoid long lines; and make dinner reservations for you and your fellow travelers.
Creating Packing Lists
Your personal assistant will be aware of where you’re going and what you’re doing, making them the perfect person to create a detailed packing list for your trip. You may prefer to decide which specific items to include to fulfill the list, but they’ll know best if any scheduled activities require specific footwear, for example, or if the weather will be fluctuating during your stay. When you’re frantically packing at the last minute, you’ll appreciate not having to worry about forgetting anything important.
A new season means a whole new set of home maintenance tasks. Use this list to ensure that you keep everything in your home working properly this winter.
Clean Your Gutters
If debris are blocking up your gutters, water can accumulate against the roof and damage it, the siding, and any wood trim, potentially causing leaks or ice dams. You’ll also want to repair any damaged gutters or fascia boards.
Service Your Furnace
Have a technician clean and service your furnace or heat pump ahead of time. Otherwise, you could end up freezing and waiting around once the cold spell hits and technicians get busy.
Inspect Your Chimney
Get your chimney inspected and cleaned early on this winter season to make sure it’s in good shape. Heavy creosote buildup or blockage from other debris could cause carbon monoxide to back up into your home, or even start a chimney fire.
Check Your Sump Pump
If your home has a sump pump, you should be testing it every few months; this is especially important after a dry season and before a wet one. To see whether the pump is working, gradually pour a few gallons of water into the pit. More thorough instructions should be included in your owner’s manual.
Turn Off Outdoor Faucets
To prevent undrained water from freezing and bursting your pipes, disconnect your hoses and drain any water remaining in the faucets. Turn off the shut-off valve in your home if your faucets are not frostproof.
Drain Your Irrigation System
You won’t be using them for a while, so have a professional drain all the pipes associated with your sprinkler system to prevent them from freezing or leaking.
Caulk Around Doors and Windows
If any of your doors or windows have gaps greater than the width of a nickel between their frames and the siding, apply exterior caulk to prevent leaks on stormy days. Apply weatherstripping around doors, making sure that it blocks out all signs of daylight from within your home.
Clean and Inspect Your Roof
Clear off leaves and pine needles, which hold moisture that can damage your roof. Inspect the roof for shingles that are loose, damaged, or missing, as they could allow melting snow to leak into your home.
Winterize Your Pool and Hot Tub
Just covering your pool for the winter isn’t enough — you’ll need to check your pool chemistry every two months, throw out old pool chemicals, and add a special enzyme product to the water. Hot tubs require some work too, whether you plan on using them throughout the winter or not.
Deep Clean Your House
You’ll be spending a lot more time indoors this season, so to create a nice and comfortable environment, a deep cleaning is in order. In addition to your typical cleaning routine, wipe out cupboards and drawers, purge old food from the fridge and freezer, and go through old bills and paperwork. Decluttering and freshening up your space will make cozying up inside that much more enjoyable!
How Pepper’s Personal Assistants Can Help
Don’t know how or where to start? Let Pepper’s Personal Assistants lend a hand. We can take care of some tasks ourselves, and contract outside professionals to do the rest, freeing you up to relax and enjoy the holiday season.
Being a great personal assistant requires more than just completing to-do lists. The very best personal assistants work actively to better themselves and their services, and are aware that there’s always room for improvement. Whether you work in households or offices, the following tips should help you make that happen.
Be Observant
Good personal assistants follow direction well, but great personal assistants pick up on little things and go the extra mile without even having to be asked. Being observant will allow you greater insight into your boss’s preferences, likes, and dislikes, and help you improve your services accordingly. You may even learn from your boss and how they manage their home or business!
Take Notes
Even the best personal assistants struggle to remember everything, which is why taking notes is essential. Never find yourself without a writing utensil. When your boss spontaneously starts explaining something to you, you’ll want to have details to reference later. We’d even recommend jotting down things that may not seem important, as you never know which details will be of use.
Take Responsibility for Your Mistakes
Most bosses will forgive a mistake, but only if you come forward with it and admit that it was your fault. Making excuses or pretending that you don’t know what happened won’t impress anyone. Instead, own your error and clearly explain how you’ll avoid repeating it in the future. If you keep doing the same thing wrong your boss will think that you don’t learn from your mistakes.
Keep Your Boss Informed
Don’t keep your boss guessing about what’s going on in their home or workplace. This is especially true with things that have gone awry, but is also the case with pleasant surprises. Hearing about something from a coworker or neighbor will make your boss feel ill informed and out of the loop. They may even become suspicious about what’s going on behind the scenes.
Don’t Share Your Boss’s Information
This one should go without saying. As a personal assistant, you’ll be exposed to some of your boss’s personal and confidential information — don’t share it. This would be incredibly unprofessional and would jeopardize both your current position and your future employment opportunities.
Become Indispensable
If you do everything else right, our last recommendation should come naturally. The very best personal assistant is one that becomes absolutely necessary to their boss’s everyday life. This means that you’re anticipating their needs, using your observations to manage everything according to their preferences, and generally making their life easier. It may sound like a lot, but for the best personal assistants, it’s just part of the job.
Pepper’s Personal Assistants specializes in residential personal assistant services. If you think you have the skills to make a great personal assistant, apply to join our team!
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