I've been secretary for a little bit now, full time employed, average family size, and a lodge of 210 members. The 150 years of garbage and empty utility envelopes, piled in the secretaries office,made a very difficult barrier to entry to this Office. I have converted nearly every reoccurring document to MS Word/Excel etc., organized and purged the office setup processes and procedures, all with lengthy notes and how-to's. All in my dropbox account so i can access it anywhere. I've set a term limit for myself and will train an assistant as soon as one presents himself to assume the office after me, assuming he is accepted.
In short, I've discovered that, for myself, the job isn't difficult or even hard at all... But requires attention to detail, excellent organizational and task management skills.
The only time chaos rears its head is during the hour or so before stated opens. The members seem to think this is a good time to dump their tasks on the secretary. The solution I have found to this is to vacate the secretaries office that evening. Oddly I become invisible! Any 'real' business will be mentioned during stated.