Rewrite The Playbook
Episode: The Real Reason Executive Calendars Never Stabilise
Before we begin, I want to say this quietly and clearly.
If 2025 felt harder than you expected, even though you were organised, experienced, and doing everything “right”, there is nothing wrong with you.
This episode is about naming what was actually happening last year and why we need to call it what it was.
Before we dive in, this episode is brought to you by my course, The Elite EA Academy. The January intake is open now, and it’s where executive assistants learn to think like an executive and become trusted business partners. You can learn more in the show notes.
Welcome back to Rewrite The Playbook. I’m really excited to be here with you for a brand new season. It feels good to be back in your ears.
I’ve had a big break between seasons, not because I wanted time away from the podcast, but because I’ve been training. A lot.
Over the past few months, I’ve been inside organisations all over the world, running workshops, delivering keynotes, and supporting the incredible humans inside The Elite EA Academy. While that didn’t leave much room for podcasting, it absolutely fuelled me with ideas.
In many ways, this new season exists because of that time away.
I’ve always found that when I step back from things, the dots start to connect. There’s actually science behind this. It’s called mind wandering. If you needed a permission slip to take a break, let this be it. It’s productive.
This episode is doing two jobs.
It’s closing the year that was, and it’s opening a new season of conversations that ask us to be more honest about how work is really functioning right now and what that means for executive assistants and executive offices.
Last year, in various capacities, I worked with easily a thousand executive assistants. Different industries. Different organisation sizes. Different geographies.
That’s a lot of conversations.
And across all of them, one experience kept repeating.
Not poor time management.
Not lack of capability.
Not motivation.
Constant reprioritisation.
Calendars being rebuilt weekly. Plans that made sense on Monday dissolving by Wednesday. Executive assistants quietly wondering why they couldn’t get on top of things, despite working harder than ever.
What I saw was not individual failure.
It was systemic strain.
Here’s the truth I want to name as we start a new year.
Reprioritisation is not a planning problem.
It’s a capacity red flag.
When teams shrink but expectations don’t, pressure doesn’t disappear. It redistributes. Leaders feel it first. Then it moves into decision-making. And the first place it becomes visible is the calendar.
This is why so many EAs felt like they were constantly rearranging the furniture while the foundations were shifting underneath them.
Before we move on, I want to slow this down for a moment.
Not all reprioritisation is the same.
Some reprioritisation is healthy. Some of it is necessary. Some of it is simply part of working in dynamic environments.
But what I saw most of this year wasn’t that.
What I saw fell into three very different types. And if you’re an EA, learning to tell them apart is one of the most powerful skills you can develop.
The first type is strategic reprioritisation.
This is when priorities shift because new information emerges. A decision is made deliberately. Something moves up, something else moves down, and the trade-off is acknowledged.
This kind of reprioritisation feels contained. It still respects capacity. Most EAs can support this easily because it’s coherent.
The second type is reactive reprioritisation.
This is where many teams spent 2025.
Everything feels urgent. Context is constantly changing. Decisions are made under pressure, not direction. Calendars get reshuffled because something louder arrived, not because something more important did.
This is exhausting, but it’s still solvable. With the right conversations and operating rhythm, teams can stabilise here.
The third type is structural reprioritisation.
This is the one we don’t talk about enough.
This is when priorities keep shifting because the organisation is operating beyond its true capacity. Nothing ever really settles. Even top priorities don’t get protected. And EAs are left managing the consequences rather than the work.
This is not a planning issue.
It’s a design issue.
And this is where reprioritisation becomes a red flag.
If this was your year, I want you to hear this clearly.
It’s very likely you were not disorganised.
Most of the EAs I spent time with weren’t.
It’s likely you were operating inside a system whose structure no longer matched its load.
That distinction matters.
Because when we label this as a personal productivity issue, we push the burden onto individuals. But when we recognise it as a capacity signal, we can finally have more meaningful conversations about how work is actually resourced.
And if you’re an EA, you’re in a prime position to notice this and name it, regardless of your level or title.
This matters as we move into 2026.
What I’m already seeing is leaders leaning more heavily on executive assistants to triage, anchor workflow, and create clarity around what actually needs to happen now.
This has always been part of the role, but the intensity has increased.
Not because EAs should carry more, but because EAs are closest to the patterns.
The real gap for many organisations right now isn’t effort.
It’s operating rhythm.
And executive assistants have a uniquely valuable lens on that.
The EAs who are most valued right now aren’t working harder.
They’re noticing where focus fractures. They’re spotting where priorities compete. They’re seeing where capacity is being stretched before anything formally breaks.
This work often happens quietly. It rarely shows up in role descriptions. And it’s not always recognised as strategic.
But it is.
And it’s becoming more important, not less.
Before we close, I want to offer you one simple reflection.
Think about a single priority from 2025. Not the one that was meant to be the biggest, but the one that actually absorbed the most time and attention.
Now notice the difference between what was planned and what was required.
That difference isn’t failure.
It’s information.
And information is what allows you to move into the new year with stronger footing, rather than carrying quiet self-doubt forward.
This is the level of work I care most about.
Not doing more. Not pushing harder.
But helping executive assistants articulate what they see, trust their judgement, and stand behind the influence they already have.
That’s the thinking I work with inside The Elite EA Academy. Not as something else to add to your to-do list, but as a space to build language, perspective, and confidence around work that has often gone unseen.
My hope for you as we step into 2026 is this.
That you can look back on the year that was with more generosity towards yourself. That you can recognise what was structural strain, not personal failure. And that you move forward trusting your judgement, your pattern recognition, and your capacity to influence how work actually gets done.
Thank you for being here. Thank you for the thoughtfulness and quiet leadership you bring to this work.
I’m really looking forward to the conversations we’ll have this season. If this episode resonated and you’d like to continue this work, you can find more information about The Elite EA Academy in the show notes.
I’ll be back in your feed soon.
Show notes
The Elite EA Academy
This is where I continue this work with executive assistants who want to better understand the patterns they’re seeing, develop language for their judgement, and stand behind the influence they already have. January intake is open now.
👉 https://www.rachaelbonetti.com/the-elite-ea-academy
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