Ground Floor/Sheila O'Flanagan: Most writers will do anything to stave off the moment when they put pen to paper or boot up the computer and open a new Word document.
There is a myriad excuses, of which tidying the desk comes pretty close to the top of the list, followed by tidying everything else in your immediate vicinity and making a plethora of urgent phone calls.
Then there's the dreaded email - collecting and then replying to them all can usefully waste at least an hour while you tell yourself that this is work, actually.
Things in the home office have been a bit chaotic lately. I've got caught up in lots of events that are not exactly writing but that I can loosely describe as "work".
Unfortunately, whenever I'm out of the house or away for a few days, things pile up and, the next thing you know, I'm able to spend an entire day doing nothing constructive, followed by another of flicking through the latest Viking Direct mail shot. (I do wish they'd stop sending me brochures about office furniture and brightly coloured post-its. I can while away an entire day conjuring up my fantasy office.)
I have been known to wail at various times that I need a housekeeper, wife or a personal assistant. But actually all I need is to be more organised.
The home office doesn't really have enough for two people to do and, besides, if someone organised me then my guilt quotient would rocket every time I didn't do what I was supposed to.
When you're working for yourself, you can't blame anyone or anything else for your inefficiencies. In the 24/7 mode of the modern work environment, however, most executives need someone to organise them, so I checked with my high-flying sister who is located in the IFSC (and keeps me up to date with the sandwich bar trends since I left) as to how the job of PA differs to those days when chief executives had private secretaries to run their lives.
According to Maureen, who has a PA, the most important part of the function is to add value to the business. This is done by effectively managing the time of the person they work for. (So a PA would organise me, not make me feel guilty!)
Most people, myself included, don't allow enough time to complete certain tasks and allow themselves to be distracted by other things. A good PA will stop this happening.
Given that almost everyone can use a computer and do their own basic keyboarding, the role of the PA is not usually to type up anything any more but to turn a jumbled document into a polished Power Point production, highlighting the key issues just as the executive intended. A good PA sounds like a good editor - making you say what you intended to say rather than what you wrote down!
There is still a certain perception that PAs are somewhat at the bottom of the corporate food chain, but that's really not the case. A scan through a number of CVs will usually show a mix of skills and experience - many PAs are multi-lingual, nearly all will have great IT abilities, and most have a greater overview of the business than their boss.
This is partly because many company executives share their PAs these days and so these people know what's happening in HR as well as marketing or business development and gave give their boss the heads up if something weird and wacky is coming their way.
This also means that a PA is not a junior member of the staff but a person that has made this position an option of choice.
It's a choice that more and more men are making. Not every guy wants to be the one making the 3 a.m. decisions but many are happy to be the person who makes sure they're carried out.
Probably the most famous PA in the world is a man, although I'm confident that no one in the IFSC would expect their PA to have all the people in Australia join hands and light a candle spelling out their name as Waylon Smithers did for Springfield's C Montgomery Burns in one episode of The Simpsons.
Most executives expect their PAs to debate issues with them, so that if they intend to do something really silly they're stopped in time. The key attribute, according to Maureen, is for the PA to know the business they're working for so that they know where the executive is coming from.
It's rare for PAs to organise the personal life of their boss these days. Most of them are far too busy! Part of me is almost convinced that someone else doing my organisational stuff would be a great idea. But then I wouldn't have any excuses for moaning about my lot!
If, however, you're a PA yourself, you might be interested in an upcoming conference, which is being held on Wednesday, February 4th, in the Burlington. It covers the role of a PA and how to achieve high levels of performance for yourself and be recognised within the company.
The fact that many of the speakers are women leads me to believe that male PAs haven't quite taken over the world yet, but there's still time.
The final session is about image. I don't know what the organisers have planned but apparently lots of men are going on grooming courses these days. Knowing the right tie to wear with your Armani suit is a big deal and recognising that a slap of Clarins for Men does wonders for those bags around your eyes can increase your confidence.
Of course, executives can always use electronic PDAs instead of hiring and firing them. But, at the end of a day communing with the keyboard, it's nice to be able to talk to a real person.
Even if they're making you feel bad because they're so much more efficient than you.
For more information see: www.pa-assist.ie
