We all have long lists of the things that we need to be doing for life admin. From sewing on children’s school labels, to the ironing, food shop, and paying the gas bill; it can seem endless. Quite often, there will be a few tasks that you simply put off because you put them as a low priority or just don’t want to spend your free time doing them. But at the end of the day, they need to be done. So here are some simple tips to manage your life admin so that it doesn’t take over, and you don’t have to feel like there is always something to do.
Write a List
It seems that there are two types of people in the world; list writers and non-list writers. But if you want to get on to of life admin, then writing a list is a good place to start, whether you’re a ‘list’ person or not. Plus, the benefit of writing it all down and ticking it off a list means a release of endorphins, the hormone to help you feel good. So write down what is left to do and then start ticking off.
Use Time Wisely
There will be some spare pockets of time that you will get. Five minutes here or ten minutes there. But instead of scrolling through your Instagram feed and essentially wasting the time, you could use the time more wisely. If you look to increase productivity with Urbanest, for example, you will see that there are many things like social media that can be a distraction to your productivity. So use the time to reply to emails, write down your to-do list or shopping list, pay a bill, or make a phone call that you’ve been putting off.
I set one morning a week aside for life admin too, this includes answering emails, filling in forms and getting things posted off. I use this time for little tasks, I often sell bits and pieces on eBay so use one morning to sort this out and look to sending a parcel the easy way! This saves time and money which is important to me.
Do One Chore a Night
If you put off cleaning the house or doing the laundry, then it can be harder to start when the tasks have been piling up and up. So instead, you could set yourself a task for each night of the week, so you know that on a Tuesday it means cleaning the toilets, for instance. When you break it down like that, and it becomes part of the routine, it becomes much simpler to do.
Prioritise Your Tasks
So you’ve got your list of things to do; where do you start? Knowing what needs to be done the soonest is a great way to help you to know where to start. It will also stop you from simply doing the ‘easy’ tasks first, and procrastinating with the less fun tasks. Go from urgent to not urgent (for example, the things that need to be done today or tomorrow, to the things that are more long-term). Paying an overdue credit card bill is going to be urgent, whereas switching energy provider isn’t going to be as urgent, as examples.
Do you have any tips or hacks that help you to deal with your life admin? It would be great to hear your tips to success. I find that for me not getting behind in my life admin tasks is key if I get behind I then avoid it altogether thinking it will take ages to sort back out.
