In Your Shoes - Jacqui Strachan

Getting Organised

Monday morning is my catch up time, finding out what’s happened since Friday, although I always read emails over the weekend unless they have an “Urgent” tag attached to them in which case I deal with them immediately I leave the others for Monday.

I start by making my “To Do List”, this gives me the basis for the day and the weeks work, although, I usually find that by 1030 I have ripped it up and started again.

As I provide call management for a few clients, Monday can be busy on the phones – by lunchtime I can start to feel a bit schizophrenic – it’s a good job my VOIP phone always reminds me who I am supposed to be before I answer it.

Monday is also the day I check the diaries of the clients to whom I provide diary support, if there are flights being taken that week I check them in, download boarding passes, check their car parking, print fast track passes and make sure they are sitting in the right area of the plane, if they have chauffeurs booked I also drop them a quick reminder email there is nothing worse than having a client sitting waiting at 0400 for a driver who has forgotten about them.

Accommodation and restaurant bookings are also double checked.

I have one client who I provide a weekly meeting sheet for – just to remind him  who he is meeting on what day, at what time and where.

Its not bad weather wise today, so I should be able to get a walk around Forfar Loch fitted in before dinner time.

Rock 'n' Roll Lifestyle

Today is being dedicated to one client, they are out of the country at present making a film – yes, my life is so rock and roll.

They have left me in charge of their book keeping and making their bank payments and today I must finish the bank reconciliations for their 6 companies before producing their VAT returns for submission later in the month.

I have also been emailed a list of things I have to research, purchase and arrange for shipping to South Africa, one is proving to be a bit problematic – Light Paint (yes, this really does exist, it’s not a wind up by the SFX crew) the paint is made by a British company but unfortunately, it’s an aerosol which means that although I can purchase it on Amazon and get it delivered to my home I can’t get Kuehne and Nagel to agree to ship it, so now I have to find a partnered company in Cape Town who sells this particular product.  As luck would have it (and 2 hours’ worth of work on the www) it turns out that this paint is specifically popular with cyclists as it makes bikes particularly visible at night by headlights from cars and believe it or not there is a bike shop less than 5 minutes’ walk from the film studios who stock it – result.

Tuesday is Body Balance at the Community Campus Leisure Centre, still haven’t quite got the hang of yoga or pilates.

London's Calling

After the daily routine of checking emails and bank balances, I plan on spending the rest of the morning booking flights for a customer who lives in Scotland but works in London Monday to Friday.  I usually have a running forward plan so today I am booking flights for the middle of May till the middle of June, this hopefully ensures that the prices aren’t too scary.

After the seats have been booked and I have a reference code its just a matter then of adding it to his Google diary and sending him an invitation so that he can use it to get his boarding pass at later date.

I have an extra incoming call support job this week, I am answering a mobile phone and passing on messages for a client who is away on holiday with his family.  Some of his customers believe that they can bypass the system and get dealt with quicker if they phone “The Boss” rather than the normal shop number – they get a bit of a shock when a woman answers the phone and offers to take a message.

Paul is off to London tonight so its time to take him to the station to get his train to Edinburgh then maybe home in time for a walk – weather permitting.

a quiet office

Today seems different somehow, although I have been working as a virtual SmartPA partner and latterly as a SmartPA Ambassador for just over 3 years normally there is two of us here, I have an office upstairs, and as all 3 of our children have left home we had spare bedrooms it seemed silly to leave them empty, so we transformed one into a purpose built office for me. and Paul works downstairs but today its just me and it seems very quiet.

I want to finish off a customer’s year end accounts this morning, so I can pass them onto the accountants and after that I am starting on a fixed term job, I was contacted by a lovely lady who is building and opening a new Montessori nursery, at the moment she is going ever so slightly mad as she is trying to cope with  builders, recruitment, potential children and kitting out the nursery all on her own, so for the next couple of months I am going to be helping her with whatever she can’t cope with.  Today I am arranging a fire safety check and installation of fire extinguishers and emergency exit signage, buying all the equipment for the staff kitchen/lounge area – hours of fun on amazon and finally sending out open day invitation emails to parents who have expressed an interest in having their children attend the nursery.

Lastly, I must remember to pick Paul up.

simple...

Today can often be one of those days, I spend all week waiting for people to respond to emails I have sent them and then at 1625 they all respond at once!

I have a weekly expenditure spreadsheet to complete for my film company, a foreign travel spreadsheet to complete for another.

There is a pharmacy delivery to arrange via Pharmacy2U to a client who is in France at the moment and this afternoon I will be setting up a new company within Sage Line 50 for a new client who only came on board last week.  He has two companies one in the UK and one in Jordan, its this one that I have to set up, using Jordanian Dinar as the base currency, then when that bit is done its just a matter of backloading invoices and receipts from this year and checking the bank movements – simples.