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Comment by sillysaurusx | Hacker News Reader

If you need a personal assistant for your day to day life due to how much you're working, consider the idea that perhaps you're working too much.

CEO or not, no one needs to let their work consume their life.

It's your job to set an example for the rest of the team. Others might see how much you're working and assume that they need to, too. I've seen it happen a few times.

EDIT: Sorry, I failed to mention, my comment is in response to "personal tasks first and foremost." Having someone arrange meetings is a perfect business use case.

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My interpretation was that the person likes doing their work and wants to outsource distractions. For a fixed amount of work / day, it's better to spend as much as possible where you're most effective, imo. I have a cleaner and order takeout not because I'm theoretically too busy to clean and cook, but because I'd rather outsource so I can do other stuff.

Put another way, trade is better for everyone.

But it doesn't matter if you like doing your work. If you're working all the time, to the point where you can't arrange a doctor's appointment, you're working way too much. When you're in a leadership position, it's a matter of time until it impacts the rest of the team.

The one personal task that takes a lot of time that I'd consider outsourcing would be to go to the store to pick up my prescriptions. But even that gives me a chance to reflect. It's really quite hard to imagine that it's a significant loss not having a personal assistant.

What are some tasks that need to be outsourced?

(Another way to phrase it: The rest of their team probably don't have personal assistants. If it's a work necessity, they should consider making a personal assistant a company benefit.)

Why is it that doctors appointments are something that you need to set aside time to make, personally? Why can't somebody else do that for OP?

I don't personally need an assistant, even though I work at the same company as my CEO (who has a personal assistant as well). Him having one doesn't mean everybody needs one.

> If it's a work necessity, they should consider making a personal assistant a company benefit

I have seen workplaces with concierge service for employees to handle personal tasks - I'm actually surprised this isn't more popular. Tech companies definitely are known for meals and snacks and coffee being provided, I think that is in the same direction.

To your question, scheduling meetings and travel can be a huge time suck, especially for a CEO that would have lots of both and rapidly changing plans. Logistics for meetings - "party planning" can be a big job and depending on the size of the company there may not be someone separate to do that.

Personal stuff like changing addresses, filling forms for whatever, waiting to have a mattress delivered (I had a former boss send an EA for this), anything where you have to be on hold on the phone. All this admin stuff only increases as you get busy, and it would be great to have someone to deal with it.

Plus there are always special projects - pulling info together for a presentation or something, looking for a vendor for something. I think I'm talking myself into hiring one...

It's telling that most of your examples are business related, whereas OP said that personal tasks are first and foremost. But if you actually try to name some personal tasks, it becomes difficult. The sole realistic example seems to be "anything where you have to be on hold on the phone."

I don't think that life admin tasks increase as you get busy. Life stays the same, and work consumes proportionally more.

Would you use an EA to take your kid to school? Pick them up? Your life needs to be on hold for those things, but to me it feels really strange that some people would want to outsource it in the name of work.

> It's telling that most of your examples are business related, whereas OP said that personal tasks are first and foremost

Yeah that might be because I have no life and am mainly thinking about business :) I don't think anyone is talking about outsourcing family stuff. I agree that would be something to be concerned about.

I've had my PA arrange doctor's appointments, it's great. It's not a matter of working too much, it's that I only have so much mental energy to go around. Decisions can be draining. Dealing with people can be draining. These things aren't draining to the same extent for everyone.

These days with everybody understaffed, making a doctor's appointment can be very time-consuming, as well! You might on hold / re-routed and the whole call could take 15 or 20 minutes, which is a lot in the middle of the day.

> My interpretation was that the person likes doing their work and wants to outsource distractions

This is true. For additional context, I’m also a single man in his late 20s, with the blessing/curse of ADHD.

Whilst I can throw myself into my work (and enjoy it very much), I have little interest/motivation to follow up all the other odds-and-ends in my life.

That might mean something trivial, like keeping the kitchen stocked with healthy food. Or more meaningful tasks — like expenses and invoicing — which are essential, but bore me to death…

As I’m lucky enough to be in a position to do so, if I can get some extra help to sort out everything that’s not my forte, I can focus my energy where it matters: on things I’m good at, and enjoy.

Yes I identify completely. I spent most of the day today dealing with a bunch of address change stuff and other admin I'd been putting off for months and still have a huge stack of personal admin like that that I shudder and do something else every time I think about. If you can justify the cost, having someone to handle the boring stuff sounds awesome.

I'm certainly no doctor or authorized to give any diagnosis, but not being interested in running errands like grocery shopping, or tasks like invoicing, is not related to, or a sign of, ADHD. I think most people, including myself, find those tasks boring and tedious and would rather do other things.

Nobody likes boring tasks but some people pathologically avoid them while simultaneously worrying about the fact they haven't done them.

Some people --> tons of normal, non-ADHD people

OP doesn't imply he has ADHD because of not being interested in errands. Quite the opposite.

They are working too much, so now they’re hiring someone to do some of that work, such that their overall work burden is reduced and more focused on the tasks they prefer to work on.

>If you need a personal assistant for your day to day life due to how much you're working, consider the idea that perhaps you're working too much.

Isn't that exactly the point? That OP did consider that they're working too much and are looking to delegate some of that work to someone else.

You're right, I phrased that poorly. I added an edit to clarify. My mistake.

What got to me was the idea that people want a personal assistant to run their lives, rather than their business. That seemed like a red flag, but it sounds like a lot of people disagree.

Because you consider some things to be part of your “personal life” that many people don’t want to be part of their life at all.

I love butter but I don’t want to churn it. So I just buy it from the store. Is that paying the store to run my life?

Says the person that didn't make their own forks

Arranging a dentist appointment and making your own fork is a very different amount of time commitment.

And yet both can be too much for some people.

Exactly this!

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