Playbook
I do not just take tasks off your plate. I bring a repeatable operating system for making the whole thing run better. Here is exactly how I work.
The operating loop
The same method I bring to any role, from day one.
01
I map where the time actually goes: what is manual, what is duplicated, and what lives only in one person's head. You cannot fix what you have not mapped.
02
I turn the mess into a system: clear ownership, documented SOPs, and a cadence the whole team can follow without me in the room.
03
I remove the busywork: calendar triage, meeting notes to action items, inbox handling, and reporting that builds itself. AI drafts, I verify.
04
I hold the weekly rhythm: a Monday set-up, midweek focus protection, and a Friday close-the-loop, so the important never becomes urgent.
05
I make the work visible: live dashboards, the numbers that matter, and a clear picture of what shipped, what slipped, and what is next.
06
I guard the human work: judgment, relationships, and discretion. The parts no tool can do, and the reason the role exists.
The first 90 days
What hiring me actually looks like, week by week.
Days 1 to 30
I shadow how you actually work, map the current workflows, and get the calendar and inbox under control. A few quick wins so you feel the difference in week one.
Days 31 to 60
I document the SOPs, set the operating cadence, and automate the three biggest time-sinks. Tribal knowledge becomes something the whole team can run.
Days 61 to 90
Reporting runs on its own, I am anticipating needs before they are asked, and I bring you a short list of the next improvements worth making.
What you can expect from me
Thirty field guides, free and ungated. The newest is the true story of a hiring test answered with a working tool instead of a memo. The newest fifteen each end with a printable one-page tool you can use with your team this week: an agenda, a ledger, a capability grid, a feedback card, a load sheet, a retro sheet, a definition of done. Each one is a practical operating method rather than an essay: the sequence, the artefacts, and the parts people usually get wrong. Written for founders and for the assistants, chiefs of staff and operations people who run the work.
Career
How I answered a hiring test by building the tool instead of describing it, and was hired before the call ended. The repeatable method: the smallest real version, run as a working session, plus the honest chapter on when a memo is the right answer.
The tool it describes is live on the tools page
Read the PDF
Field guide
Running a project with ten one-page artifacts, from charter to closure. Opinionated defaults, named failure modes like watermelon reporting and two Accountables, and the weekly rhythm that ties the ten tools together.
For anyone handed a project and a deadline without a method
Read the PDF
Meetings
Meetings worth attending in a small team. What one actually costs, the test before you send the invite, and how to run one that ends early.
Includes the meeting one-pager
Read the PDF
Team culture
Whether people say the difficult thing. What the evidence supports and what it does not, and how a small team builds this without a workshop.
Includes the speaking-up audit
Read the PDF
Skills
Getting better at something specific with no training budget. What the evidence supports, honestly, and a six-week structure that fits a real week.
Includes the six-week practice plan
Read the PDF
Starting a job
Your own first ninety days, particularly when the company has no onboarding. What to ask, what to produce, and the conversation to request at day thirty.
Includes the first ninety days plan
Read the PDF
Standards
Defining what good looks like so people stop guessing. Why most underperformance is an undefined standard, and how to build one from work you already have.
Includes the definition of done card
Read the PDF
Goals
Setting goals a small team will actually hit. What forty years of research found, why SMART is not the theory, and the three conditions a goal needs around it.
Includes the goal setting sheet
Read the PDF
Performance
Performance conversations without the annual review theatre. Four quarterly questions, evidence captured while it is accurate, and why pay belongs in a different meeting.
Includes the quarterly check-in sheet
Read the PDF
Workload
Managing your own workload when everything is a priority. The arithmetic almost nobody does, and four ways to renegotiate without saying no.
Includes the weekly load sheet
Read the PDF
Career
Building the evidence for your own progression in a business too small to have a career framework. What to record, how to translate it, and how to ask.
Includes the evidence log
Read the PDF
Team improvement
A structured look back that produces one thing that actually changes. Why most retrospectives fail, and how to run one outside a software team.
Includes the retrospective sheet
Read the PDF
Management
The meeting people say they want more of, and most teams either skip or waste. Whose meeting it is, what to talk about when nothing is wrong, and why cancelling costs more than the half hour.
Includes a one-page shared agenda you can use this week
Read the PDF
Accountability
An accountability rhythm for a small team without micromanaging anyone. What gets recorded, what gets read aloud, and what happens when something has been open for three weeks.
Includes the weekly commitment ledger
Read the PDF
Capability
A capability map for a small team. Who can actually do what, where the single points of failure are, and how to cross-train on purpose rather than during an emergency.
Includes the team capability grid
Read the PDF
Feedback
Over a third of feedback makes performance worse. What separates the kind that helps from the kind that harms, and the four sentences that keep it on the right side.
Includes the feedback prep card
Read the PDF
First-time managers
Becoming a manager for the first time, usually with no training. What changes, what you will get wrong first, and what you actually owe each person.
Includes the first ninety days checklist
Read the PDF
Delegation
Why work you delegated comes back, and the thirty day sequence that makes it stay gone. Sorting by transferability, a four part definition of done, and the authority ladder.
For founders and the people receiving the work
Read the PDF
Career
Executive Assistant to Chief of Staff. What the job actually is, what the compensation data really says, the glorified assistant trap, and how to decide whether you want it.
For assistants weighing the move, and leaders deciding what to hire
Read the PDF
Operations
Installing an operating rhythm in ninety days. Four artefacts, the decision log, and why most cadences quietly die in week six.
For anyone whose job is making a business predictable
Read the PDF
Career
Measuring work that is invisible when it is done well. What to track, the monthly note, the raise conversation, and the statistics I refuse to use.
For operators proving value, and leaders deciding what it is worth
Read the PDF
Continuity
Documenting your role so the business runs without you. Why indispensable is a ceiling rather than a compliment, and how to actually take a holiday.
For the person who cannot be absent, and the leader who cannot afford it
Read the PDF
Managing up
Working with an executive who is disorganised, unresponsive, or both. Three failure patterns, chasing without nagging, and disagreeing upward.
For the person doing the managing up
Read the PDF
Onboarding
Bringing someone into a small business with no programme, no handbook and no HR. Two hours of preparation that changes the whole first month.
For whoever ends up owning onboarding, which is usually you
Read the PDF
Communication
A communication system for a whole company rather than one inbox. One route in, four destinations, and three tiers deciding what reaches whom.
For teams where every person has become a switchboard
Read the PDF
Agency
Running an agency so work ships without heroics. Utilization and realization, where margin actually leaks, the intake gate, and the uncomfortable client conversation.
For agency owners and the operations person holding delivery together
Read the PDF
Hiring
Bringing in your first operations person. Defining the role, screening for judgment rather than experience, the paid trial, and why good hires fail.
For founders making the hire, and candidates assessing the process
Read the PDF
Field guide
Using AI to do less busywork and more of the work that matters. The operating loop, thirty prompts, and the golden rule that AI drafts and you decide.
For assistants, chiefs of staff and operations people
Read the PDF
Field guide
Being indispensable to a leader you may never meet. Earning trust across an ocean, turning the time-zone gap into an advantage, and writing so nothing gets lost.
For assistants supporting the world from anywhere in it
Read the PDF
Field guide
Supporting a leader building something from nothing. Thriving in ambiguity, protecting the one scarce resource, and being the company's first operations.
For assistants in the chaos of a startup
Read the PDFWhere these cite a study I have named it, dated it, and stated its limits. Several of them also name a widely repeated statistic I deliberately did not use, including the claim that an assistant saves an executive eight hours a week, which traces to a 2018 staffing-firm survey and is routinely misattributed to Harvard Business Review.
Available for remote Executive Assistant, Project Manager, Operations, and Chief of Staff roles with strong US timezone overlap.
Get in touch