Thursday Things — Feb 27th, 2025

Question: Do you ever do Calendar Audits? If so, please be sure to check out the section after today’s Tech Tip!

In case you’re new here, CCing my EA is a bite-sized newsletter dedicated to Executive Assistants like yourself.

Every Thursday, we deliver a quick email with 5 new job listings, 3 fun posts, and 1 helpful tech tip straight to your inbox. 📬

5 new job listings

1. Intuit, $87.3k - $118.5k, Hybrid (Mountain View, CA)

2. XPRIZE, $68.6k - $79k, Remote

3. Spyre Therapeutics, $125k - $143k, Remote

4. Attentive, $82k - $105k, Remote

5. Zillow, $105.9k - $169.1k, Hybrid (Seattle, WA)

We only post jobs under 7 days old, but some may expire before you open this email.

3 posts you might’ve missed

#1

I think this is the most useful life tip I’ve come across all month! 💡

The best part is, it’s totally helpful at work as well (as illustrated by the top comment on the post):

#2

Start your kids early. 💪

#3

I especially love the way the question “If you had an extra 5 hours in your week, what would you focus on?” is framed. 🔥

The “5 hours” constraint makes it feel much more actionable than the typical “If you could wave a magic wand, which often feels too abstract.

#Bonus

If you’re looking for EAs on LinkedIn to follow, I totally recommend checking out this blog post Nicky Christmas just dropped on Tuesday compiling top voices in the EA community.

Quite a few of the past posts featured on CCing my EA were authored by EAs on this list, so you can trust the list is legit. 😎

1 Tech Tip

The Four-Part AI Prompt Formula 📋

This four-part prompt formula has recently been making its way around the Internet because it helps you get precise and high-quality responses from AI on the first try.

You should think of AI as a genius 8-year-old — it will do a great job of following your instructions, but only if your instructions are sufficiently clear. And that’s exactly where this four-part prompt comes in :)

Let’s break it down:

1. The Goal: Set Clear Expectations

This is where you tell the AI exactly what you need and who you want it to be. It's like briefing a new team member on a task!

Instead of: "Find me a hotel in Chicago."

Try: "I'm an EA booking a crucial business trip for my executive. You're a seasoned corporate travel expert who understands what business travelers truly need — reliable Wi-Fi, convenient meeting spaces, and easy airport access."

This immediately focuses the AI on your specific needs rather than generic travel advice.

2. Return Format: How You Want Your Answer

This tells the AI exactly how to package its response for you. Remember, AI will follow your formatting instructions precisely!

If you're:

• Building a spreadsheet → Ask for CSV format

• Creating a presentation → Request bullet points with clear headers

• Sharing with your IT department → Specify JSON format

This small step saves enormous time by eliminating reformatting work later.

3. Warnings: Help the AI Avoid Common Pitfalls

Just like you might caution a colleague about potential issues, this section prevents frustrating mistakes before they happen.

For a travel booking prompt, add something like: "Double-check that recommended hotels are actually open during our travel dates, have consistently positive business traveler reviews for Wi-Fi reliability, and aren't currently undergoing renovations."

This anticipates problems and saves you from that dreaded back-and-forth.

4. Context Dump: Share Your Insider Knowledge

This is your secret weapon! The context section allows you to share all that valuable background information that makes you so effective in your role.

Consider including:

• Your executive's preferences ("My executive prefers quiet rooms away from elevators")

• Past successes and failures ("The Langham worked perfectly last quarter because...")

• Special requirements ("Always needs early check-in due to flight schedules")

• Timing constraints ("Meetings begin at 8am, so proximity to the conference center is essential")

The more relevant context you provide, the more the AI response will feel like it came from someone who truly knows your executive.

Just to make it more clear, here’s an example of how you might prompt something like ChatGPT to help prepare a Meeting Brief:

• Goal: I'm an executive assistant preparing a brief for my executive before an important meeting. You're an expert briefing specialist who can organize complex information into concise, actionable summaries. Create a comprehensive yet scannable meeting brief that highlights essential information.

• Return Format: Structure the brief with these sections: Meeting Objective, Attendees (with relevant background/history with our company), Key Discussion Points, Recommended Talking Points for my executive, Potential Challenges, and Next Steps.

• Warnings: Ensure the brief remains under two pages when printed. Avoid including speculative information. Highlight any conflicting interests among attendees. Make sure each talking point aligns with our company's established position on the topic.

• Context Dump: The meeting is with a potential strategic partner in the healthcare technology sector. My executive has met with their CEO twice before but not with their full leadership team. Our company is exploring potential integration of their patient management system with our healthcare analytics platform. Previous discussions revealed concerns about data security protocols. My executive tends to focus on long-term strategic benefits but may need prompting to address specific technical compatibility questions that will likely arise.

I know this seems like a lot of extra work and we’d all prefer to take shortcuts, so I’ll clarify that the decreasing order of importance for these 4-prompts is as follows: 1. Goal, 2. Context, 3. Return Format, 4. Warning.

Hope this helps you get more out of your AI chatbots!

If you ever need a refresher on past Tech Tips without digging through your emails, they’re all available in a single post right here.

Thank you for reading!

An gentle reminder to please reach out if you’ve ever done a calendar audit for your exec!

See you next Thursday~

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