David Perell and Rebecca Olason
- a little bit of laziness is good, giving someone a good job and operationalizing the work
- don't mistake busy-ness for business
- assistant - enjoy novelty, co-shape role
- david perell accomplished - articles, newsletters, twitter following, write of passage
- write 90 minutes a day, publish youtube videos, hobbies
- finding an assistant - how do I know if I'm ready?
- busy calendar and busy mind will destroy ability to create anything great - naval
- sluggish work, frustrated, overwhelmed, cash
- best if there's already a system - need x leads to generate y revenue
- misconceptions
- workload
- pay
- instant win
- no training
- best tasks: It's not that hard, but it takes a while
- questions to ask
- full vs part time
- timezone spectrum
- where do you need help
- personality type: find someone who different strengths who shares your values
- important to communicate boundaries
- weekly review
- tasks accomplished
- open questions
- blocks
- every urgent message is a failure in the system
- as few moving parts as possible
- position details
- 1099 contractor
- 20-25 h per week with room to grow
- recommended pay: $18-22 per hour
- long-term expectations
- test candidate by requesting a detailed response to job posting:
- 16 sentence email
- subject line
- paragraph 1 (ask for specific font/colors for each paragraph)
- paragraph 2
- paragraph 3
- paragraph 4
- resume
- more expensive option: use https://greatassistant.com/DavidPerell for serious candidates
- interview questions
- job fit: what gives you satisfaction
- compatibility: how do you learn best
- personality: how do you stay organized
- as a leader, must set clear expectations
- NO to "I'll know it when I see it"
- e.g. Cocoa-Cola's 1915 creative brief: "a bottle so distinct it could be recognized by touch in the dark or when lying broken on the ground"
- the 11 laws of showrunning
- the path - always describe a path to success
- next steps - don't leave a meeting until everyone has directions
- the gift of clear directives - every clear directive is a gift b/c it relieves the staff of the stress of having to divine your goals
- trust - a clear directive is a way of saying I've taken the time to figure out your goal, now I'm trusting you to take that knowledge and figure out the process
- mistakes will happen. don't get mad!
- make checklists and SOPs to create organizational capital and prevent repeated mistakes
- reality has a surprising amount of detail
- meet 2x a week
- pick tasks that take 20-60 min
- clear enough to define, short enough to learn fast, long enough to save time
- general admin
- respond to emails
- managing you
- the middle 80%
- publish videos and articles
- upload and proofread newsletters
- rookie mistakes
- hard to teach tasks
- tasks that require a lot of training
- one-off tasks
- limiting tasks to admin
- what should I spend more time doing?
- energy
- unique gifts
- alive
- flow state
- personal monopoly
- feels like play to me but looks like work to others
- what should I spend less time doing?
- dread
- boring
- others can do it as well as you
- things you procrasinate on
- repetitive, time-consuming activities
- key information
- general: address, DOB, key contacts, reward accounts and frequent flyer numbers
- booking travel: no flights before 12pm, non-stop, window, ecnomy plus, preferred airports
- 3-month window needed to save you time
- watch one, do one, teach one (write SOP)
- time tracking:
- figure out blocks, get good data
- delegation
- vision - design a company that is actually fun to work for
- resources
- definition of done
- making the public-facing tone clear if assistant is answering emails for you
- give feedback intermittantly rather than all at once
- good intentions don't work. mechanisms matter.
- create a system so the problem doesn't arise in the future
- optimize for more than time, e.g. number of times things change hands
- passwords, sensitive info - share only after building trust with other tasks