Recently, I was on holiday and when I arrived at my destination there was a copy of Mitch Albom’s book The Timekeeper in my room. I’ll let you read the story yourself, but the book is all about man’s obsession with time. How many of us tortured our parents or teachers with ‘What time is it’? or ‘Are we nearly there yet’? Think of all the games we played as children concerning time. One of my earliest memories at school for example was playing ‘What time is it Mister Wolf’? As adults we have time constraints put on us, but we are also very adept at putting them on ourselves.

While the Clergy only has a 0.81% probability of automation, according to data from the book “The Future of Jobs” the author believes even algorithms might one day replace the ordained! Earlier this year I attended one of the ‘Banter series’ at the Bullitt hotel entitled ‘The Robots are coming’ there is no doubt that artificial intelligence is here and growing at a rapid rate.

At the event there was a very lively discussing about artificial intelligence and jobs it will replace in coming years especially in manufacturing and supermarket sectors but equally about the ‘soft skills’ that robots can’t replace. I attended this event with one of my fellow Belfast PA Network committee members. Both Lorna and I can do our jobs because of cloud based technology, apps and smart devices but more so because of our emotional intelligence and emotional intelligence is something that can’t be taught to a robot (at least not yet!).

10 Admin tips to protect your mental sanity

How has your 2018 been so far? Are you frazzled? Every freelancer I’ve spoken to recently say they have been flat out this quarter and they are overwhelmed! In 2015 The Guardian published an article on ‘the disease of being busy’ you can imagine how much more prevalent this with the communication we are surrounded by in 2018. In February, I attended the Digital Marketing Sanity workshop organised by Fascinating Company about digital marketing tips to keep you sane but what about admin tips?

Back in November, I wrote an article for Women in Business about not letting time rule you and how to be more productive. I’ve learnt a lot of lessons in the last 4 months about how to keep sane in an increasingly insanely busy world which I’m hoping will benefit others.