A few weekends ago I was a proctor for the SSAT test. This is a test that students take who wish to enter into a private school such as Lake Forest Academy where I work. Believe it or not, we administer this test every month and usually have a houseful of students taking it. We have repeats who are looking to achieve a better score, and new students not sure of what the exam entails.
Some of the students looked very nervous and anxious while
others looked cool, calm and collected.
It made me think about how we, as Administrative Professionals, are
often “tested” and how we “look” when we are.
Now of course I do not mean “tested” as in sitting for an
exam. I mean “tested” within our daily work
life or even our home life. How prepared
are we? Do we perform nervously or
anxiously, or are we cool, calm and collected?
Here are some tips to look cool, calm and collected when you are being
“tested”.
Stop judging yourself. When I am under pressure, I tend to talk to myself. Many times I will catch myself chattering negatively. Stop it! This will continue to put undo pressure on yourself. Do yourself a favor and quiet your negative chatter. Consciously choose to change the chatter to positive thoughts. Positive thoughts are your secret weapon.
Surround yourself with your Inner Circle. Just like you should choose positive thoughts, you should choose positive people to be around. Avoid the negative Nellys of the world. It is more difficult to stay calm when you have doom and gloom in your ear. It will drain your energy and make you more anxious.
Choose one! It is very easy when you are being “tested” to jump from task to task. Stay focused. Commit to one small task at a time and break down the large tasks into smaller tasks so that you can concentrate your efforts. Mistakes happen when you jump from one thing to the next. Take the time, choose one task and commit yourself to focus.
You have all the tools you need to keep yourself cool, calm
and collected. You know them. I need to be reminded (often) of these three
tips and once I remember, I take a breath and dig in.
Here’s to more cool, calm and collected days in 2019. You have got this!!!!
Welcome all of my visitors from my old website and welcome to all new visitors.
I will be posting new content every Monday, hopefully, on all things pertaining to being an ADMIN!!!! I truly love what I do and have done it a few years, ha ha ha. I have many ideas for posts that will hopefully help you on your journey as they have on mine.
Thank you for taking the time to hop on over here. If there is anything specific that you would like to see in a post, please do not hesitate to let me know. My goal is for both you and I to learn together from each other.
This week at Lake Forest Academy, where I work, we had an active shooter drill. At first I was upset that we needed to perform such a drill but it now makes me look at every room I am in – at school, in a restaurant, in my home, at Target. You name it, I am now looking for the best way to protect myself and others.
Some of the things we learned I would like to share with you:
If at all possible, flee from the scene. Do not run in a straight line when you are fleeing. Weave in and out and side to side unevenly. It is much more difficult to hoot a person in motion.
If you are unable to flee, lock the door of the room you are in or if you are able to get to a room with no windows (such as a closet) go inside, lock the door and turn off the lights. Make yourself as small as possible and hide as far away from the door as possible.
If someone is with you, do not talk. Do not use your cell phone after you have altered authorities. Even if you are in a room without windows, the light from your cell phone can show from areas around the door frame such as underneath the door.
It is unfortunate that we need to plan for such an event, but as Administrative Professionals this is what we do. We plan for the unexpected. Work with others in your area to come up with a plan. Write up your plan and keep the plan in your procedures manual. Don’t have a procedures manual? Grab some help from Julie Perrine.
I have to be honest, I am not at a 100% today and have not been since before Thanksgiving. I am not sure why, but I am just not “on”. I read recently that we go through ebbs and flows in our lives, but I do not like the feeling of not being my usual self.
I especially do not like feeling this way at work. Just going through the motions, not being totally engaged is not how I want to be perceived . . . ever! So to make sure that I do not stay in this funk, or slip further into mental distraught, I try to keep a few things in mind.
Positive Attitude – Even thought I am not my happy go lucky self, I still do my best to be kind to others and keep a positive attitude about my work and dealings with others. It is hard to stay in a funk if you are smiling.
Keep Busy – I like to keep myself busy with tasks that do not need me to be super focused or analytical. Tackling the filing, cleaning out my inbox or organizing the supply cabinet are not the most glamorous tasks, but accomplishing these items gives you the satisfaction of checking them off your to do list and they do not require you to be deeply engaged.
Journal – Writing down three or more things that I am grateful for or that happened to me during the day that made me feel good, is such a small thing to do. That being said, journaling these positive things can have a major impact on my attitude which will bring me full circle to working my way back to 100% me!
How do you turn your frown upside down? Please share so that we may all learn from your insight.
I am a HUGE fan of professional development! If you do not believe me, read every blog post I have ever written, or have a conversation with me about how to . . . fill in the blank. Looking to improve yourself? Seek out professional development. Want to get ahead in your career? Seek out professional development. Need to solve an issue you have been wrestling with? Say it with me; seek out professional development.
Professional Development comes in many forms: books, magazines, newspapers, blog posts, podcasts, webinars, networking to name a few. In this blog post I would like to list for you some conferences that you might find of interest.
There are many different kinds of professional development/seminars/conferences that you can attend:
Subject specific seminars – I attended a two day conference on Microsoft Excel. It was an intense program on learning everything you would want and need to know about using Excel. Here are a few that I have been looking at:
Industry specific – I attended a conference two summers ago put on by ISACS (Independent Schools Association of the Central States). It was specific to the type of school that I work at and was geared towards Admins. I met some of my inner circle members at this conference.
Administrative Professional specific – This is the type of conference that I enjoy most. There is usually a theme to the conference, the presenters speak about pertinent subjects that they tie into the theme and are relatable to our day-to-day experiences and the networking is amazing! In a previous post, I shared that I attended the IAAP Summit this past July. I am still, four months later, so very pumped about the information I obtained at Summit and continue to put into use the lessons that I learned. Here are some excellent conferences that are geared specifically for the Admin:
I am sure there are many more conferences that I did not mention. If you have attended a conference, or are interested in a conference that is appropriate for someone in the Administrative Profession, please leave a comment below.
Next week, I will blog about ways to go about getting approval for your professional development.
A few weeks back, I wrote a blogpost on AI and how we as a profession cannot be replaced by AI therefore we should not fear it. That being said, we will not go very far on our good looks and charm. Professional Development is the key and there are many ways to obtain knowledge so that we grow in our positions. Here are a few ways that I have incorporated Professional Development.
I went back to school at obtained my Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management. I know that this is not an avenue for everyone, but I know that I am currently contemplating taking a class or two at my local community college on writing and maybe a language. Many high schools in my area also have night classes that offer fun classes as well as traditional subjects. Park districts and libraries also offer single evening courses on varying topics. Come up with something you would like to learn and research where it is being taught. You will get hooked on continuing education. It is addictive!!!
There is also in-house training. Does your employer offer training in house, or can you organize a lunch-and-learn with your fellow admins? You will be amazed at what you can learn from others in your organization. SCORE!!!!
There is so much out there for us to continue growing our knowledge base. If you take advantage of just one of the suggestions I made here, you will make yourself more valuable to your employer and more marketable in the workforce. Whatever you decide, I am here for you (as are most of the people I have created links for above) and happy to answer any questions, you might have.
Here’s to your Professional Development. Cheers!!!
Yesterday, on my Facebook page, I shared a link to a documentary called The Global Generation about Lake Forest Academy where I work and my son Jacob went to school. I mentioned that I hoped after watching the documentary that you would be able to understand why I am so passionate about my place of employment and my hope for peace and harmony within our world.
In watching our students talking about how they found friends from around the globe and discovered that they were so similar yet different. It made me think about how, as an Admin, we interact with many people during the day who are the same yet different. I thought I would reflect on the wise words of the students and apply them to our outstanding profession in our efforts to #LeadUp. (IAAP Summit 2018)
Understanding and Appreciation for all. Everyone has something to offer. We should encourage others and “celebrate the intersection of all our stories”. Help your executive to see what you bring to the table and BRING IT!!!! If we do not open up, we will not be heard. In this same manner, listen to what your executive is saying. Not in just their words, but in their actions. And don’t forget your co-workers.
Cultivate a community “where human differences are acknowledged, respected valued and viewed as essential”. We can be the change that is needed. We are miracle workers who have power that we do not realize we have OR we realize we have it, but others do not. Once again, it is our responsibility to #LeadUp and show how to acknowledge, respect, value and view as essential all members of our team, employer and our profession.
“We will become stronger if we become closer as a global community”. As Admins, we need to build each other up. We need to help each other to achieve our goals. If I should help you achieve your goals, it is a step closer that I and all other Admins will be to our own goals. And as an Admin who has been around the block a few times, I want to help bring our community closer for the future of our profession. “The challenges we face empower us.”Lets become stronger together!!!
“Education is the key to becoming a better human being. Dig deep!!!!” “Generalizations are based on a lack of first-hand knowledge”. Would you listen to these students?!?! They are begging for us to set the stage for them to come in and rule the world!!! Do you see yourself in these words? Trying to make a difference as an Admin? Trying to change the culture of where we have been and where we know we should be? Be the change!!!
I am so grateful for my relationships with Admins from across the globe. I am in awe of these Admins as well as those that are in other industries within a few steps from my front door . I am so eager to learn from all Admins who are different from me. No matter what business your employer is in, or where your office is located, Admins perform many similar tasks. We can learn so much from each other, please share yourself with others. Be kind and offer to help those who are unfamiliar with our profession. Speak up, my friends . . . #LeadUp!!!!
In my initial blog post and in my “About” section on this blog, I mentioned how I am on a journey to change the world. Please, PLEASE, join me. Teach me, show me, walk along side me as we take this journey together. Thank you.
Our annual reviews at Lake Forest Academy take place between the end of January to the beginning of March. I am working on mine right now. (Insert the sound of a record scratching here) What?!?!?!? Yep . . . I have learned the hard way that I need to be preparing for my annual review the day after my annual review (I need at least the day to bask in the positive feedback OR to lick my wounds)
It is hard to remember all the things you did over the course of a year. Keeping a list makes preparing for the review a snap. Here is an easy way to make your list:
Each day before you head home from the office, write down three (3) things that you accomplished that day. You can start out by adding the things you do every day, but as you continue this practice you will begin to write down the things that are not exactly on your job description. By putting these items down daily on your list you can begin to show the progression of skills learned. This is also a good way to keep track of how much time you spend each day on certain projects if you want to take it to that level.
And of course at the end of each month, you will want to continue culling your list as well as at the end of a quarter. Then you will start the process all over again stopping at each quarter.
BOOM!!! Here is your review the start of your review. Now before you go all crazy on me because I have only pointed out the positives, you will want to look at the lessons you have learned. Just as I keep a daily/weekly/monthly list for the things I have done, I like to keep the same daily/weekly/monthly lists for what I call “insight”. Everyone makes mistakes, but what did you learn from it? How would you approach this issue differently? What measures have you taken to insure it does not happen again? Have you found new ways of doing something that takes less time?
I use a two page weekly calendar that I got for free. I take each day and divide it in half. One side for the accomplishments and the other for the insight I gained. I have also used both an Excel spreadsheet and OneNote to keep track of these two lists.
By putting these lists together, you make it easy on yourself for when you need to talk about your accomplishments, professional development (you took upon yourself to obtain) or issues that you need your Executives help on resolving. And if you send this to your Executive on a Quarterly basis, and then send all four (4) Quarters to you Executive right before your yearly review, you will make your Executive’s job easier (because you have essentially prepared your review for them) which is our favorite thing to do. Right?!?! And, BONUS – it can relieve the anxiety we often feel when review time is upon us.
There is so much to glean from these lists including having a reference on how you are coming along on achieving your goals. This is a blog post all by itself that I hope to tackle in the future. If you have some ideas on how to prepare for an annual reviews, please share with us all.
Everyone is talking about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to take over the Admin role. Hogwash, I say! We Admins are way too smart, in many aspects, that AI cannot duplicate. Such things as innovative thinking, compassion, empathy, self and social awareness, reflection, authenticity, gut instincts, tolerance, management of your thoughts/emotions, collaboration and relationship development to name a few.
In this blog post, I would like to talk about what AI can do for Admins that will give us time to pursue opportunities that will help us become the strategic partner we are all capable of being.
Appointments
When adding an appointment on a paper calendar, we need to hand write every occurrence whether it is weekly, or monthly or yearly. With AI, when you add an appointment to your calendar app it can automatically have the dates repeated whether daily, weekly on a specific day of the week, monthly on say the first Sunday of the month, yearly on a specific date, only on work days or you can customize it to your specific needs and include an end date. We have become so accustom to this that we do not realize how much time it has saved us. Thank you, AI.
Spreadsheet importing has saved me hours of time entering dates into my electronic calendar. This is the ultimate in customizing your calendar input. In a spreadsheet program you can enter information as you desire it to show up in your calendar. Once you have input everything you want, import it into your calendar. In one quick click, I have imported a year’s worth of meetings, classes, and travel. Here is an example of how we use it for our Advisory time at Lake Forest Academy. We have Advisory on certain days starting at 9:40 am and other days at 10:10 am. These days are somewhat random so you could not go in and ask for the event to repeat.
When I use this template for our school year, I have over 2,000 entries to import. It is such a time saver!!! AND if I need to put these on my Executive’s calendar, instead of going in and copying each one of my entries to their calendar, I just import this document into my executive’s calendar. Genius!!!!
Confirm schedules
In my calendar settings, I have set my calendar to send me a Daily Agenda email. When I am sipping my hot cup of coffee in the morning, this is one of the first emails I look at to remind me of all that will be happening during the day. This has saved me many times when I have forgotten that I have an early morning meeting and I am lazily hanging in my chair with that cup of coffee.
Notifications/reminders are another AI that has saved me from being late for an event. I set up both notifications and email reminders for every appointment I put in my calendar. I go a little overboard, but this is what works for me. I set up email reminders for 15 minutes, 5 minutes and 1 minute prior to the appointment. This way I know when I need to start wrapping up whatever I am working on (15 min), gather up the supplies I need for the next appointment (5 min) and then head over to the next appointment (1 min). I also use this to remind myself a week in advance that I need to purchase a birthday card or gift, or a day in advance that I need to bake for Advisory.
Attendee confirmation has saved me many hours of phone conversations that start out as “I will be at the meeting” to ending up to be 15 minute conversations. I also ask in my calendar request to let me know if the attendee will be attending the meeting in person or remotely. I love that no phone call needs to be made to answer this question. An attendee can indicate that they are coming, but it will be remotely by adding a comment to the request. Brilliant!!!
Phone calls
On our smart phones, we can hold down the big button at the bottom of the face of our phones and ask to call a person or recite the telephone number we wish to call. OR
“Alexa, what is the number for . . .” “The number for . . . is . . . Would you like me to call?” Microphone drop. Exit stage left.
Order Supplies
I love how on the commercials for refrigerators, AI can see that you are running low or out of something and automatically put it on your shopping list. In our offices we can use AI when we order supplies via the internet. Many companies allow you to set up a repeat send of supplies. If you know you run out of an item about every two weeks, you can set up that a shipment will arrive every two weeks just in the nick of time.
Email organization
File automation is an awesome AI trick! By creating filters for emails, my inbox does not fill up with items that I want to read, but do not want these emails to clutter my inbox. You can filter with email addresses, or keywords. An example of how I use is with the keyword “advisory”. All emails that have been emailed to me with the word “advisory” in them will automatically go into my Advisory File. When I arrive in Advisory (because I have imported all of my advisory meetings and have set my notifications) I can go to my Advisory file and read all of the emails from this one location instead of looking through all my emails in my inbox and possibly missing one. If you are not doing this, research how to do on your email platform. You can thank me later.
Task/Reminder is a time saving feature that each email platform has. I am so very passionate about this feature in Gmail/Calendar that I have taught a class on this a few times at my school. Because there is so much to cover on this powerful feature, and this post is already long, I will attack this in another blog post soon. I promise!
Boomerang is a free application (10 a month) or you can pay for more uses. I use just the free version. This app allows you to remove an email from your inbox and have it come back into your inbox when you want it. Very helpful for when you are slammed with a ton of work currently, but you know that next week or next Wednesday you will have time to tackle this email. I reply to the email saying that I will work on this next week and then Boomerang it for next week and it comes out of my inbox. On the other hand, if I have some free time and want to set up an email that should be delivered next Thursday at 3pm, I can write the email and send it to Boomerang to deliver next Thursday at 3pm. I love this kind of organization that allows me to use my time wisely.
As I mentioned, this blog has gone on way to long. There are so many other AI apps to use that I could not possibly list them all here. Both Vickie Sokol Evans of RedCape and Melissa Esquibel are amazing sources for more AI tips and tricks. You should become familiar with these knowledgeable women and their work.
By using Artificial Intelligence for these types of task, instead of worrying that AI will be taking your job, you are empowering yourself to grow and develop as a strategic partner. By making yourself a strategic partner, you are making yourself more valuable to your Executive, your company and the Admin industry. Take time to invest in yourself by using Artificial Intelligence to your advantage.
Jackie
PS: If you have any tips that I did not mention here, please leave a comment so we all can benefit from your knowledge. Thank you.
We just had our Reunion celebration this weekend at Lake Forest Academy. One of my Inner Circle colleagues asked if she could borrow a dress. I have received many dresses from her and it made me think about how costly it is to build a work wardrobe when you are coming back to work full-time.
Working at the Academy, we have many events to attend like our Welcome Back Dinner, Reunion and Gala to name a few. These special events happen every year and require cocktail attire. There is also the day-to-day work attire that I did not have to wear to help kindergarteners get there wet snow suits off. With limited funds, I needed to look professional and be creative on how I obtained the professional look I wanted. Here are some of the ways that I upped my work attire for everyday office, board of trustee meetings and the special events held at our school.
dressbarn has been a favorite of mine for all of the wardrobe needs I have. I like to wear dresses for my everyday work wardrobe and have found the majority of my dresses on the $19.99 clearance rack in the back of my local store. The dresses I purchase at this price usually are at the middle to the end of the season, but they wear great and have lasted for several years. My sister-in-law, Bertha, gives me coupons for purchasing items that are not on the clearance rack and they always seem to be having some sort of sale. I also purchase tops, blazers and work pants at dressbarn. To top it off, dressbarn has an educator discount. BONUS!!!! (Talbots has an educator discount as well)
TJMaxx is another favorite of mine. This summer I needed a few new dresses for the IAAP Summit in Austin, TX and I found beautiful Calvin Klein dresses for $29.99! TJMaxx carries many designer brands at greatly reduced prices. I purchased three (3) dresses for less than I would have paid for one in a department store.
I normally would not shop at Macy’s because I find their pricing to be a little out of my range. However, they offer this free service called My Stylist to help you fill in the gaps of your work wardrobe. A fashion consultant met with me to see what my needs were. I asked for only pieces that were on sale. I had many complete outfits brought to the dressing room and I just tried on and picked what I wanted. It was a wonderful way to find what you need.
Goodwill and my local consignment shop in town have been a great source for cocktail fashion finds. I don’t think I have mentioned it yet, but I do not like to shop. I go in looking for something and then leave. This is very easy to do in these types of shops.
My last little fashion nugget is a necessity for those of us who live in the Midwest. My holy grail of fashion is . . . Commando Ultimate Opaque Matte Tights. As I stated earlier, I like to wear dresses. Tights are a necessity during our cold season. I purchase mine at Nordstrom at the hefty price of $36 a pair. But before you think I have lost my mind, let me break it down for you. My current pair (which I will be replacing this fall) has lasted me two (2) entire years. In wearing these tights 2 to 3 times a week from October to March I calculated $.69 per wear (2 times a week for 26 weeks for 2 years). That is a significant return on my investment.
So if you are heading back to work full-time, or need to spruce up your current work wardrobe, give these ideas a try. If you have some great ways that you have frugally added to your closet, please share with us.
