For the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to implement a weekly admin day, usually on Sunday or Monday. This is a concept I borrowed from Muchelle B, who explains her weekly routine here.
The idea is simple: take a few hours once a week to capture any nagging tasks, check your calendar for the next week, do some cleaning of your apartment, etc. Because I’m such an Asana lover, I input these as subtasks into a weekly recurring task called “Weekly Admin Day”. That way I don’t forget! It’s been working really well so far.
My favourite part of this routine is the brain dump section. It’s exactly what it sounds like – you think through each area of your life and write down anything that comes to mind that you want to fix, do, or plan. Some of the items will be tiny things, others big, but it’s so reassuring and helpful to have it all captured in one place. Then, as part of the weekly admin day, you actually go through the list and do any of the tiny things you could do immediately without leaving your house.
This does a few things: first, it clears out my brain. I no longer have to feel responsible for holding onto all those little thoughts, because they’re written down for me to see. Second, it makes things into action items rather than worries. If I can see it, I can probably do something about it.
It’s so reassuring and satisfying to go down the list and “cross off” anything I’ve done using a highlighter (I always do this, I think I got it from Elise Cripe). I’ve noticed that so many things seem to happen naturally, on their own, over the course of the week. Others I do actively, but none of it ends up feeling like a very big deal.
This morning I woke up with a lot of little things on my mind, which were distracting and nagging at me. So I started a new brain dump list! Only a few things written down and I’m feeling better already.
