Field guide · At Work Everywhere
AI for Executive & Admin Assistants
Somebody has already forwarded you the chart with your job title at the end of it. This is the reply: the email, the brief, the itinerary and the minutes, faster and still yours.
Words for this work: executive assistant, EA, admin, administrative assistant, secretary, office manager, chief of staff, receptionist, personal assistant, PA, scheduler.
The short answer
For executive & admin assistants, the writing an AI chat tool is genuinely good at is the writing around the work rather than the work itself: composing emails from scratch — yours and your exec’s, scheduling messages, meeting briefs, minutes, follow-ups, itineraries, trip one-pagers, run-of-shows, vendor emails, decision memos, weekly digests, managing-up messages, the career work you keep postponing, and the getting-ahead work that builds your next role. Chapter by chapter that is about eleven hours in a normal week — That’s eleven hours in a normal week. Your first week will be slower — you’re learning a tool. By week three, the numbers above are realistic. Chapter 12 gives you the 30-day plan to get there.
What it does not do: your job. It does not composing emails from scratch — yours and your exec’s for you without you reading it first. And it has one dangerous habit worth knowing before you type anything into it. The AI’s one dangerous habit: stating false things (dates, flight times, commitments, “decisions” your notes never contained) in a confident voice. The industry calls it “hallucination.” The fix is the 60-second check: numbers, promises, rules.
Where the hours go
Six blocks of writing, largest first, as the book counts them. The chapter each one is worked through in is on the right. These are the figures from this book's own promise page — the same table for all twenty-five books is on one page here.
- Composing emails from scratch — yours and your exec’s~3 hoursChapter 4
- Scheduling messages, meeting briefs, minutes, follow-ups~2.5 hoursChapter 5
- Decision memos, weekly digests, managing-up messages~2 hoursChapter 7
- Itineraries, trip one-pagers, run-of-shows, vendor emails~1.5 hoursChapter 6
- The career work you keep postponing~1 hourChapter 8
- The getting-ahead work that builds your next role~1 hourChapter 9
That’s eleven hours in a normal week. Your first week will be slower — you’re learning a tool. By week three, the numbers above are realistic. Chapter 12 gives you the 30-day plan to get there.
The eight kinds of writing
The 150 prompts in the book are grouped the way the work is grouped. It is the shape of a week for executive & admin assistants, whether or not you ever buy anything: if your week looks like this list, the tool has somewhere to start.
- 1–15Setup & Voice15 prompts
- 16–40Correspondence25 prompts
- 41–65Calendar & Meetings25 prompts
- 66–85Travel & Events20 prompts
- 86–105The Exec Partnership20 prompts
- 106–120Career & Visibility15 prompts
- 121–145Getting Ahead25 prompts
- 146–150Admin & Momentum5 prompts
All 150 titles are listed free, and twelve are printed in full.
Three of the prompts, in full
Not a sampler: these are the three the book itself rates highest. Its promise page values six blocks of writing in hours, and these come from the three worth the most — one prompt each, printed as they stand. The bracketed parts are where you type; everything else is the wording. Nine more are printed in full on the prompt page for this book, and every one of the 150 is listed there by name.
“My voice. Three escalating nudges to [ROLE] who owes me [THE THING] due [WHEN]. Nudge 1 (gentle): good faith, one line, deadline restated. Nudge 2 (firm): what I need, hard date, what it blocks — plus an easy out. Nudge 3 (escalation): factual note that I’m flagging the delay to [EXEC / OWNER] so the schedule can be re-planned — no blame, pure logistics. Each under 50 words.”
“Turn my raw typed meeting notes into formal minutes. Structure: MEETING / DATE / ATTENDEES [left as brackets — I fill names in the final doc]; DECISIONS (numbered, exact wording agreed); ACTION ITEMS (table: action, owner as [ROLE], due date); DISCUSSED BUT UNRESOLVED; NEXT MEETING. Use only what’s in my notes — anything unclear or missing becomes [CHECK: question]. Never fill a gap. Notes: [PASTE].”
“Build a one-page decision memo from my notes. Format: THE DECISION (one sentence, with deadline); OPTIONS (each: two lines — what it is, strongest point for, strongest point against, cost as [BRACKET]); WHAT THE MATERIALS DON’T ANSWER; RECOMMENDATION (only if I gave you one — never generate your own; otherwise write ‘For discussion’). Only what I provide. Notes: [DE-IDENTIFIED SUMMARY].”
What to check, every time
Four kinds of box repeat through every task chapter. Two of them are the reason this is a book for executive & admin assistants and not a book about AI.
COPY THIS
a ready prompt. Copy it, change the [BRACKETED] parts, paste it in.
TRY IT NOW
a five-minute exercise using your own real work (de-identified — you’ll learn the habit on page one). Do these. They’re the whole point.
WATCH OUT
where the AI gets things wrong on this task, and the 60-second check that catches it.
RULES CORNER
the compliance flag: what never goes into a chat window, and why.
The words, in this trade
The plain-English AI vocabulary is on the series glossary. These are the ones specific to executive & admin assistants — where the tool meets the paperwork that already has a name.
- The two-lane system
- Company content in company-approved tools only; generic drafting, skills, and your own career material in your personal account, with [BRACKETS] everywhere. The lanes never merge (Chapter 10, Rule 2).
- Business/enterprise account
- The employer-provided tier (Copilot in Microsoft 365, Gemini in Workspace, ChatGPT/Claude Team) with contractual data terms and admin controls. The only lane where real company content belongs.
- All-party consent
- The recording law in some states: *everyone* in a conversation must consent before it’s recorded or auto-transcribed. Verify your state and your company’s policy before any bot joins any meeting. Minutes from your own typed notes are always safe.
- Delegated authority
- The explicit agreement about what you may send, sign, or approve in your exec’s name. Drafting is always yours; sending beyond the agreement never is (Chapter 10, Rule 4).
If you start on Monday
The order matters more than the effort. Chapter 1 is “Your Head Start”, and it is about what you already know. Chapter 2, “The 30-Minute Setup”, is thirty minutes of setup you do once. Chapter 3 is “How to Talk to It” — the one real skill, and everything after it assumes you have it. The last chapter, “Your First 30 Days”, is a dated plan rather than advice.
You can read the entire opening argument, About the Article Someone Forwarded You, without buying anything: 2,200 words, about 10 minutes.
Questions people actually ask
Can AI do composing emails from scratch — yours and your exec’s for executive & admin assistants?
It can write the draft; you still decide. This is the single biggest block of time in the trade — the book puts it at 3 hours a week in chapter 4 — and the prompt library gives it 25 worded prompts under “Correspondence”. The titles of all 150 are listed free.
Will AI replace executive & admin assistants?
No, and this series argues the opposite at length. It is a good tool for words: it does the writing around the job, not the job. The book's own line is “this book will not tell you AI is magic. It’s a power tool. It kicks. We’ll show you where — including the two places an assistant absolutely cannot afford a slip: your employer’s confidential information, and your executive’s name.” The whole opening argument is free to read, 2,200 words, no sign-up.
Where does AI get things wrong in this work?
In one specific way, and it is worth knowing before you start. The AI’s one dangerous habit: stating false things (dates, flight times, commitments, “decisions” your notes never contained) in a confident voice. The industry calls it “hallucination.” The fix is the 60-second check: numbers, promises, rules. Every task chapter carries a WATCH OUT box: where the AI gets things wrong on this task, and the 60-second check that catches it.
What should never go into a chat window?
That question has its own box in every task chapter — the compliance flag: what never goes into a chat window, and why. — and its own chapter: The Rules You Can’t Afford to Break. The short version is that the compliance line for executive & admin assistants is not the same as the one for any other trade, which is why there are twenty-five books instead of one.
Do I need to pay for ChatGPT or Claude to do this?
Not yet. The free tiers of both tools will carry you through this entire book’s TRY IT NOW exercises and your first few weeks of real use. You’ll know it’s time to pay (about $20/month) when you hit the free tier’s daily limits during a normal workday — that’s the signal the tool is earning its keep. Chapter 11 covers what the money buys, and where a company-provided Copilot or Gemini fits in.
How long before it actually saves time?
That’s eleven hours in a normal week. Your first week will be slower — you’re learning a tool. By week three, the numbers above are realistic. Chapter 12 gives you the 30-day plan to get there.
The book this comes out of
AI on the Job: Executive & Admin Assistants Edition
Twelve chapters and 150 ready prompts, a glossary that explains the words nobody explained, and thirty days of small steps at the end. Every figure on this page is from it.