Assistant Hacks: Secret Weapons You Wish You Had Sooner

From your THA editors

Every assistant has a toolkit. Out of sheer survival instinct, we collect tangible, and sometimes intangible, secret weapons that we quietly rely on to keep our bosses happy, our inboxes (somewhat) manageable, and our sanity intact. From Google alerts to snack stashes, we can’t assistant well without them.

We asked Hollywood assistants across our community to anonymously share hacks, apps, and habits that keep them afloat. Read on for tools that just might change your workday–or at least save you from a mild meltdown.

THA Community’s Secret Weapons:

“My boss likes for me to remind her about 10 mins before her meetings begin. To make sure I don’t lose track of time, I start every day with setting my own phone alarms 10 mins before my boss’ meetings. As soon as the alarm goes off, I know to message her right away. However, I will suggest being careful when using this weapon. You want to make sure you’re not in a meeting or in a sensitive area when your alarm goes off.”

“Delayed sending in Outlook is my savior. I have a 20-second delay on sending any emails from my computer. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve recalled emails before they were sent so I can add or edit something, especially if my exec has just given me last-minute information that suddenly changes things! This feature has saved me (and my fellow EAs) countless headaches and confusion. Any email that needs to go out immediately without delay, I send on my phone.“

"I set up a kanban board in Airtable to visually track my tasks. I have to-do, in progress, and done sections. Seeing it all laid out visually helps me prioritize and stay on top of moving tasks."

"I use Speechify to listen to scripts while driving to work! It’s an AI document reading app. B*tch, we in the future! It’s not perfect—sometimes the AI voice butchers names and unnecessarily reads page numbers—but it gets the job done. It’s a total game changer when I don’t have time to sit down and read something before my boss wants to discuss it with me."

“I use a bullet journal with a separate spread for each exec that tracks their incoming materials, various meetings to set (notes, generals, pitches), and to jot down any numbers I take during calls. I make a fresh spread each week which makes it really helpful when I have to send end of week emails including all the information!”

“I keep a professional event survival kit in my car at all times–hairbrush, fine tooth comb, nail file, press-nails, stockings, dry shampoo, a little bit of makeup–so I am ready to look my best even when I am rushing from a meeting to a premiere. Sometimes I even treat my backseat like a closet and keep fit options back there.”

“I personally like to color code my emails. I create various folders to put my emails in. However, before I file them away, I label them a color based on the kind of email they are. For example, emails that my boss sends directly to me are coded yellow. Show emails are coded blue. Department emails are coded green. This process makes it easy for me to search for specific information and stay organized.”

“I cannot live without my highlighters/color scheme. I have one for my notebook and for my google docs sheet I update everyday. In my notebook: pink is for meeting notes, purple are things my boss said in passing that I need to do, and orange is from our internal meetings. In my google doc, yellow are meetings I’m setting, green is meetings our other asst. is setting, and blue is things to read. It’s the only way to keep everything in order.”

“I have a specific Spotify playlist for when it’s time to grind. It’s mostly house/EDM. But I have sort of Pavlov-ed my brain into listening to music cues when it’s time to focus vs time to relax. You’d be surprised how much it helps.”

“TruePeopleSearch.com is kinda my dirty little secret. It’s not 100% reliable, but if I need to match a phone number to a name, it’s usually pretty solid and one of the better free options out there."

“Schedule send is so useful for me as an assistant who has to send out a daily morning email to my exec. I write the email the day before and by schedule sending it for the following day, I guarantee that it is sent out at the proper time regardless of how hectic the morning gets.”

“Everyone has their favorite to-do list method, but I love Things. Things just works–it's a to-do tracker that has options for recurring tasks, checklists within tasks, and bigger projects/areas to set tasks in. That with a physical to do list to catch anything that gets said in meetings will have your assistant machine HUMMING.”

“I use Outlook folders to treat my inbox like a to-do list. Once something’s handled, it gets filed away into a folder. That way, the only emails I see are the ones that still need my attention. If it’s not in my inbox, it’s off my plate, mentally and visually."

“WorldTimeBuddy is the only way I can set meetings across time zones. I keep mine open with locations set to LA, NY, London, and Sydney.”

“Does Xanax count? No, but really, my biggest ‘secret weapon’ isn’t anything I do in-office, it’s how I manage stress out of office. Without my therapist, my gym membership, and my PTO, I think I would be an infinitely worse assistant. I had to learn the hard way that prioritizing your job above all else is the quickest way to burnout, so now I spend just as much time and energy setting up my personal schedule to optimize my health and well-being as I do my bosses’. It’s the only way to do it!”

Let us know if you think you’ll add any of these tools or methods to your arsenal. Who knows, they might finally put those weekly crash-outs to rest.