Lia · RIA
Best practices
How to teach your Lia the right way
You have probably noticed it: you give your assistant instructions, she gets to work at full speed and follows them perfectly, and a few days later she seems to forget what you taught her, comes back apologizing and skips some tasks. If that has happened to you, don't worry: you are not the only one, and there is a fix.
Lia's desk #
Picture Lia with a desk. Everything she needs to do her job sits on top of it: your firm's rules, the conversations in progress, each client's details, the scheduled tasks. Every time she replies to someone, she rereads the whole desk. There is no drawer and no archive: what is on the desk is what she knows at that moment. But the desk has a limited size.
When the desk fills up, Lia summarizes #
When the desk fills up, Lia does what any professional would do with a desk buried in paper: she summarizes. She condenses what was there into a kind of minutes and clears space to keep working. We call this compaction.
A good summary keeps what matters. But a summary is a summary, and it always loses some detail. And the fuller the desk, the more paper has to fit into the same minutes, and the more gets left out.
Why Lia "forgets" #
This is where the problem lies. If the desk starts the day covered by a huge manual, with repeated rules, exceptions and long documents, there is little room left for the work. The desk fills up faster, the summaries get tighter, and the instruction you gave on Tuesday may not survive until Friday.
There is a second effect, much like an intern buried in paperwork: even before the desk fills up, too much information dilutes attention. When everything looks important, the rules that really matter compete with the ones that make no difference.
Five habits to keep Lia's desk organized #
The good news is that there is a fix. To help your Lia keep her desk in order, follow these five habits.
1. Send rules one at a time, and say why #
- ❌ "Don't book early meetings."
- ✅ "Only offer meetings from 9:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., because before that the attorney is in court."
- ❌ "I want you to keep your replies to clients short."
- ✅ "I want you to reply to clients in 30 words or fewer, because long messages drive leads away."
Explaining the reason helps Lia apply the rule correctly and adapt to exceptions, without needing a new rule for every unexpected case. That way you don't overload her desk.
2. Don't repeat: replace #
If one of your rules has changed, don't send the new version as if it were one more rule. Ask her explicitly to replace the previous rule. That way she drops the old one and her desk stays free of ambiguity.
3. Prefer the general rule to the exception #
Every exception is one more sheet of paper on the desk. Before you create a rule for a specific case, ask yourself whether a general rule could cover this case and the next ones.
4. Reference material is not a rule #
Follow-up cadence, fee schedule, intake flowchart: that is reference. Lia should look it up when she needs it, not carry it around all the time. That keeps her desk clear and free for the work.
5. Clean up every now and then #
Ask Lia: "List the rules you follow today." Read the list carefully and tell her which ones no longer apply. A tidy desk remembers more.
What RIA does on our side #
While you take care of what you teach, we take care of the workspace:
- We track the size of each Lia's desk and how often she has had to summarize.
- We adjust the desk's limit so she never works with it overloaded.
- We review manuals that have grown too large, with your approval, without losing any important rule.
At one of the firms we work with, this review cut the manual from 2,615 lines to 261. The volume of conversations stayed the same, processing dropped by half, and Lia went back to remembering her tasks and carrying them out the way she was taught.
Does your Lia seem forgetful lately? Email [email protected] and we will review her desk with you.
Frequently asked questions #
Why does Lia forget a rule I already taught her? #
Because her desk has a limited size. When it fills up, Lia summarizes what was on it, and every summary loses some detail. The more instructions on the desk, the sooner that happens.
Does sending the same rule again help? #
No. Repeating it only adds one more sheet to the desk. If the rule has changed, ask Lia to replace the previous one.
How do I know which rules Lia is following? #
Ask her: "List the rules you follow today." Read the list carefully and tell her which ones no longer apply.
Are a fee schedule and a follow-up cadence rules? #
No. They are reference material: Lia looks them up when she needs them, instead of keeping them on the desk all the time.
Does RIA review my Lia's manual? #
Yes. Our support team reviews manuals that have grown too large, with your approval and without losing any important rule. Email [email protected] to request a review.
Published October 16, 2026 by Aldo Vicente, RIA. Markdown version for AI: how-to-teach-your-lia-the-right-way.md · All articles in English · Blog em português