How I start my day
During the car ride to the office, I listen to a podcast, the news, music or take the opportunity to make a phone call to catch up with family and friends.
I arrive at the office at 7:30 a.m., ready to face the challenges of the day. The first thing I do is check my notebook with the pending tasks and consult the calendar so I don’t forget any meeting. I also clean out my e-mail.
My tools
You could say that Office 365 is my best ally. I communicate via Teams, video calling is a constant. We use it to organize projects, meetings and virtual interviews. Excel is my favorite tool for managing dashboards, reporting and even project planning. I rely on PowerPoint for certain communications where I want to draw conclusions visually.
I am taking up Power BI again, my goal this year is to be able to close the dashboard in this tool, which is more visual and self-explanatory. Power Automate, which I discovered thanks to internal trainings, helps me to automate communications and reduce human errors. It has a multitude of functions that can reduce the administrative burden where we don’t add value, to save time where we do add value.
Power Apps are micro applications with great potential for specific uses. For example, the “NINE” created for the management of Talentum interns, “ABACO” for economic offers and “VICTORIA”, which I hope will be available soon. Artificial Intelligence is going to become my “virtual partner”. I am learning everything we can achieve with generative AI, attending courses, listening to talks, reading and making my first prompts. I am convinced that it will help us to be more productive and enrich our work.
SharePoint and OneDrive are essential for storing and sharing all documentation, and Outlook for mail management. I also use SuccessFactors, a tool through which we manage the recruitment process, from the publication of the vacancy to the onboarding of the candidate. I forgot to mention OneNote, which for me is the perfect notebook.
My best moment of the day
Finishing an important project, such as the successful completion of a selection process, the implementation of a new tool, or a new automation, is always a source of pride and celebration. I like to share a few moments with the team, sometimes over a quick coffee, but mostly catching up on dailies. However, on a daily basis, the best moment is the hug and kisses from my family, who support me to do my best.
My tricks for getting organized
At the end of the day, I write down the to-dos for the next day. Sometimes in a notebook, sometimes in an email to myself, and sometimes I make a space in the calendar to do it if it requires more time. I tend to use my memory a lot, but it “relaxes” me to write it down to lower my mental load. I also discovered the Reminders app on iPhone that helps me in this regard (it makes lists, sorts them by categories and I can even create alarms).
I don’t like to be a bottleneck, and I try to be available to respond as quickly as possible. When I need to concentrate, for example, during an interview, I set the “do not disturb” status. As for emails, I try to file them as they arrive. I get overwhelmed when I see a huge list in my inbox, so I try to keep it clean. I use Outlook labels to mark emails that require a response or that I will need to retrieve for important information.
As a little trick, I also use the calendar with colors, I mark in another color the emails from my superiors to prioritize them and I have programmed a 1 minute delay for the outgoing mail, to correct errors just in time.
