My original organizing guru was David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, a seminal productivity book explaining in detail his methodology for handling projects, organizing an office and time management. He advised taking one day a week to handle all the loose ends and administrative duties and suggested Friday as the best day to do it.
Podcaster and author Mel Robbins also recommends taking a day to handle loose ends, but she says once a year will do ya. If I only took one day a year to handle loose ends, my life would be a disaster. Yet Allen’s preferred one day a week is something I’ve never been able to implement, and he admits that it is the one tool of his that his followers are least likely to fully utilize.
One day a quarter still doesn’t seem frequent enough to me. Monthly might be the sweet spot, and in that case, it would be easy to remember if we choose the same day each month. I nominate the 15th—the first is too fraught with things due and by the end of the month we need a spa day, not an admin day.
Once you’ve decided on the date, block it completely off on your calendar. Give yourself no excuses to ignore your personal administration duties. Schedule doctors’ appointments, coffees with friends and exercise classes on other days. Get your meals ready in advance so that you don’t have to break to handle food preparation.
The night before you might lay out on the dining room table or your desk the most urgent things you want to tackle. That way, in the morning you can start really working rather than dither about what to take on first and where the associated paperwork is located. It’s akin to the way Ernest Hemingway would stop writing when he knew what the next sentence was going to be so that he could start the next morning and get right into the flow.
Also get out any supplies you are going to need. Most neglected tasks are around paper, phone calls, online research and tasks and filing. You will need sticky notes, pens, a fully charged computer and phone, a labeler and label tape, and file folders.
After your first couple of tasks at your table or desk are completed, get up and move around, but with a purpose. Use the break to look on surfaces, in the car and in drawers for items that need addressing.
Maybe when you look in the car you take the opportunity to do a complete car clean out, something that a lot of people avoid until they get to a car wash and have to bag a bunch of stuff and drag it to the waiting area so that the vehicle can be vacuumed. There will probably be lots of items that don’t belong in the car. Don’t let them linger—bring them into the house and distribute them to their proper places (a dirty dish to the sink, a hair clip to the bathroom, extra sunglasses and gloves to wherever you store them, etc.
Don’t get so distracted by a task like cleaning out the car that you spend more than 30 to 45 minutes on it. This is not the time to get out the Armor All; If you have time at the end of the day, you can come back to the car and spiff it up. You want to be sure to handle all of the bills you need to pay, statements you need to check (bank and credit card), e-mails and letters you need to reply to and phone calls you need to return.
Try not to multi-task. You could return phone calls while cleaning out your car, but neither task will be done as well as it could be. There is something much more satisfying about completing one task at a time. It is like pulling a weed root and all. It is not likely to pop up again and need repulling—at least for a while.
Use the afternoon for errands—things you need to return, picking up something from a hardware store that has been on a list forever, shopping for a plant to replace (finally!) the dead one in the living room, and so on.
After experiencing the relief of one day a month dedicated to handling loose ends, we should probably admit that life would be better if we took care of some of this stuff on the daily. Choose a fifteen-minute chunk each day to handle something buggy. Set a timer and choose that day’s issue. With a daily fifteen minutes and a monthly Admin on the 15th, your life will suddenly seem incredibly manageable.
Note: You might have noticed that one vowel and one consonant has changed in my byline. I decided to make this year about two things: lightening up (literally and metaphorically) and identity. Changing my name was a big symbolic shift I’ve wanted to make since early 2020. I finally braved the lines at the County Clerk’s office (there were none) and downtown Napa parking (also a phantom problem, go figure) to make it a reality. A couple thousand dollars and copious official documents later, I feel lighter and more “on purpose.” As writer (and inspiration for my new name) Aldous Huxley might say, it’s a Brave New World.