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Your Influence Changes Everything
Protect the Signal
What you do matters.
We honor the everyday impact of executive assistants.
One Reminder of Your Impact.
This series reflects a truth you already live.
It may be invisible.
But it changes everything.
Stay Sharp - Stay Intentional - Stay Indispensable.
A Moment of Context
Because every story begins in a real moment you already recognize.
Some days, the list never ends. An email answered spawns three more. A calendar cleared makes room for something else to fill it. You close one loop and two more appear, and by six o'clock you've been in motion for ten hours and can't quite say what any of it was for.
It's not a productivity problem. You are, without question, getting things done.
The question underneath the exhaustion is harder to sit with: which things. Not everything that demands your attention deserves it. Not every fire is the one that matters. Somewhere in the noise, there is a signal. The handful of things that actually move your exec, the team, the outcome forward. Everything else is static.
This is a story about a keeper who learned the difference.
In The Wild
Real-World Find
This is a piece tracing Steve Jobs' "signal vs. noise" habit back to a story from Kevin O'Leary. Jobs ran his to-do list the same way he ran Apple's product line, cut to three to five things that mattered, everything else tossed as noise.
I recommend reading it because of the diagnostic near the bottom: questions that show you exactly where noise can creep into a week. And because every habit it prescribes, blocking focus time, killing dead meetings, keeping a "stop doing" list is stuff we've been doing for someone else for years.
→ Read the piece here: Signal vs. Noise: Why Top Performers Don’t Waste Time on the Wrong Things
From One EA to Another
Essentialism ~ Greg McKeown
I picked this book up expecting another productivity book and got something closer to a mirror. This book isn't talking about how to do more, it’s talking about the discipline of deciding what's worth doing at all. Read it as validation, not homework. This gives you the language to use for the difference between essential and everything else.
→ Find the Book Here: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
Worth Watching
How To Multiply Your Time | Rory Vaden | TEDxDouglasville
18 Minutes 32 seconds
Vaden calls it "emotional permission" to say no. For most of us, it's Tuesday. We've been eliminating, automating, and delegating for years; we just never had a TEDx stage to call it a framework. Watch it anyway. It's validating to hear someone explain, out loud, the thing you've been doing the whole time.
What all this says about the EA Effect
You are never praised for what you remove. The meeting you declined to add to the calendar, the request you redirected, the noise you absorbed so it never reached your exec at all. None of it shows up as a line item. It shows up as clarity. As a calendar that makes sense. As a leader who can see the one thing that matters because you dimmed the ten that didn't.
Getting things done was never the hard part. Knowing what deserves the light is.
Your value isn't measured in how much you're keeping lit.
It's measured in how clearly the one true signal comes through because you made room for it.
Why The EA Effect Matters
An organization that confuses motion for progress will eventually run aground, no matter how hard everyone is working. Someone has to hold the distinction between what's urgent and what's important, between what's loud and what's true. That discernment is not a soft skill. It's the thing that keeps the whole harbor safe.
When you protect the signal, you're not doing less. You're making sure the effort that does happen actually lands.
This Week's EA Effect in Action
Before you add one more thing today, ask: does this need to be lit right now, or can it go dark for a while?
Clearing the noise is still work. It just doesn't look like work and that's exactly why it matters.
Now on to other stuff
Bookmarks
Not everything that is bookmarked is groundbreaking but it's always worth your time. This is my collection of links, reads, products, podcasts, videos, and rabbit holes that caught my attention. If it made it here, it means I found it interesting enough to share.
Some weeks this section is packed, other weeks it's quiet. It all depends on what I’m interested in this week. No affiliations, no sponsorships. Just good stuff I want to share.
If you've come across something worth sharing, reply to this email with it. I'd love to see what's on your radar. I may feature it in a future issue.
Anyone remember Reader's Digest? Turns out it didn't retire to Florida. It's alive, well, and still online. Respect to the little magazine that refused to die.
New hobby unlocked: art journaling. Let's be clear, I am not an artist, but I am creative in my own delightfully chaotic way. The best part? Zero talent required to enjoy the process (or actually like what I end up making).
→ Watch a video about it here: You’ll see what I mean.
I'm a documentary lover, so if that's your thing too, you already know Ken Burns. If not: he and his team, make phenomenal documentaries. The kind where they'll spend a decade on a single one. Meticulously researched, beautifully produced, every time.
The Echo of Small Kindnesses. This one got me right in the feels. Imagine if humanity actually operated like this. A girl can dream.
I have a paid subscription to Consumer Reports. Go ahead, say it. “Isn’t that for grown-ups?” But hear me out. In a world of fake reviews, sus star ratings, and "my neighbor swears by it" recommendations, CR is the one place giving me the real, unbiased scoop before I spend my money. That's worth every penny. They have tons of free information too.
The Dream Desk
Summer where I live is an endurance test. This week, all I've wanted is cool mountain air and a long trail underfoot. I asked AI to build the office to match. Here's what it came up with. I could see myself working here.
Where's your dream office this week?
Reply to this email with your idea or your own image.
Ambient Luxuries
Your desk might be covered in to-dos, but your mind? That deserves a view. Each week, we’ll drop a dreamy background and soundtrack to help you through the day like the behind-the-scenes wizard you are. Headphones in, magic on.
Note: These links are publicly available and not affiliated with us just something we love and want to share.
The EA Effect is not just a newsletter.
It's a weekly reminder of your influence.
If you’re curious to explore other issues on influence, prioritization, emotional intelligence, and leading without a title you’ll find them all on the website.
Browse when you have a moment.
We’re glad you’re here.
TheEAEffect.com · See you next week.
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