Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
005: Scheduling the Inevitable, the Inspirational and an Hour of Power
1.1k Plays6 years ago
This episode covers another foundation for establishing a robust Life Admin system: scheduling.
Mia and Dinah discuss how most people have no set time when they do their Life Admin tasks, which often means doing only the ‘urgent’ and not the ‘important’. The important tasks weigh on your mind, yet you never complete them. Mia and her partner refer to these tasks as ‘blockers’: tasks you spend more time thinking about than they would actually take to do it.
They discuss how many of us have routines for our personal life but usually only schedule tasks and commitments at work. However, scheduling can be very useful for Life Admin. At its essence, scheduling embraces the idea that if it’s on the calendar it gets done.
They discuss three aspects of scheduling:
- To Do List tasks. Tasks can be divided into three types:
- ‘Hour of Power’ - requiring a focused effort. They recommend scheduling in an Hour of Power to tackle challenging tasks.
- ‘Two Minutes Too Easy’ - can be done as they arise.
- ‘Ten Minute Time Killers’ - chunky tasks that can be done in idle time.
- Inevitable tasks and activities - Tasks we know that will arise on a regular basis such as car servicing, hairdressing and dentist visits. Proactively schedule them in when it is convenient to you, rather than reacting to them.
- Inspirational and fun activities - Make time for what you want more of like movie nights, mountain bike riding, trips away with friends, gardening, book club and date nights.
Scheduling is a natural extension of using the shared calendar and To Do lists tackled in previous episodes.
The benefits of scheduling include:
- making time to get the important, distracting tasks done so you no longer have to dwell on them
- forcing you to make choices about how to best spend your time
- helping make new habits stick.
LIFE ADMIN HIGHS OF THE WEEK
- Mia talks about having an ‘unsubscribe festival’ - taking the time to unsubscribe from regular e-newsletters to eliminate the noise in her inbox.
- Dinah talks about cleaning the lingering paperwork from the desk in her study which makes it a much more inviting place to work.
LIFE ADMIN LOW OF THE WEEK
- Dinah talks about how she needed to renew her passport but she failed to get to the post office within the month required on the paperwork and so she now needs to redo it. Scheduling would’ve helped!
- Mia planned to start working on her digital photo backlog over the weekend but found the activity pairing strategy she employed didn’t work.
BOOK REVIEW
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Greg McKeown - book about evaluating what is essential in your life to regain control of your choices and focus on things that really matter.
RESOURCES
The Fly Lady - free daily, weekly and monthly routines and coaching for house cleaning and organisation.
Recommended
Transcript
Kroger's Fresh Produce Commitment
00:00:00
Speaker
At Kroger, we know the minute a tomato is picked off the vine, the fresh timer starts. The sooner we get our produce to you, the fresher it is. That's why we've completely overhauled our process to shorten the time from harvest to home for our tomatoes, strawberries, and salads. Because we know how much you love fresh produce, we give you more time to enjoy your tasty fruits and veggies at home. So whether you're shopping in-store, picking up, or prefer delivery, we're committed to bringing you the freshest produce possible. Kroger, fresh for everyone.
Podcast Introduction: Life Admin Life Hacks
00:00:34
Speaker
This is Life Admin Life Hacks, a podcast that gives you techniques, tips and tools to tackle your life admin more efficiently, to save your time, your money and improve your household harmony. I'm Diana Roe Roberts, a commercial and finance executive. And I'm Mia Northrop.
00:00:52
Speaker
a user experience designer, researcher, and writer. This episode, we'll talk about another one of the foundations to establishing a great life admin system, scheduling. Hello and welcome to Life Admin Life Hacks.
Why Schedule Life Admin Tasks?
00:01:06
Speaker
When we conducted a survey of our friends, almost 70% of the respondents had no set time when they did their life admin tasks. What this means is that usually you only do the urgent things and not the important. So the bills get paid eventually, but you never get around to sorting out your taxes or reviewing your insurance, your home loan, your super, or backing up your photos.
00:01:32
Speaker
But these important things you never get to keep grabbing your attention and subconsciously they become like demons that are grabbing hold of your brain and shaking it around. Scheduling is the answer. My partner and I call those lurking tasks.
00:01:48
Speaker
blockers, those ones that you know you should do, but you never make time for, because you just get stuck thinking about them. You can't quite let them go, but you can't actually commit to dealing with them, stress more about them than it takes to do them. An example springs to mind. I started a baby book for my son, which captures those first milestones of the first year, and I haven't finished it, and he's now five, and I've been feeling remorseful about that.
00:02:17
Speaker
kealously long time to mulling over a task. And I'm sure all of our listeners would have examples of things that they've got in their, oh my gosh, I should do list that have been dragging around for years. And I think, Mayor, we have two close friends, and I'm sure they'll know who they are as they're listening, who we have talked a lot about their inability to get their tax returns done. And those are definitely blockers for them.
00:02:43
Speaker
Yeah, I find it interesting the difference between scheduling these kinds of tasks and routines, because I'm a massive fan of routines to let you optimise a set of steps or tasks within a certain time so you don't just think about it, it just becomes automatic.
Three Aspects of Scheduling
00:02:58
Speaker
So in our house, we've got more than routines to get everybody up and out to school and work.
00:03:02
Speaker
We've got a get home from school routine where everyone gets their lunch boxes out and stuff goes on the bench. But I've never really embraced scheduling in my personal life. Work, yes, of course, you need to have schedules to have meetings and get things done. But in my personal life, part of me likes the idea, but part of me is kind of cringes at it. I think of this lack of continuity or freedom that it implies freaks me out on one level, but
00:03:27
Speaker
I'd love the idea of scheduling because at its essence, it's just that idea of if it's not a calendar, it gets done. Yeah. And I really think that it is that kind of balance between the cringe kind of thought of taking away the blank space. But if you don't actually schedule, you can't actually even create the blank space because you're always thinking about those sort of lurking tasks. That's true.
00:03:52
Speaker
So I think as we've been working through this, we think there are three aspects of scheduling when it comes to life admin. The first is really those to-do list tasks and thinking about which of those and how you might schedule those in. The second are kind of the inevitable tasks. They always crop up and you could actually schedule them in one go, say at the start of the year, like dentist checkups.
00:04:17
Speaker
And the third of them, the more fun, the more inspirational tasks, which you want to do, or they might support a habit or behavior or be something that brings you joy and scheduling those in, make sure that they actually happen. Yeah. I really like the fact that.
00:04:34
Speaker
Scheduling is just a natural extension of how to use your shared calendar and your to-do list. But that idea of weaving in some of those inspirational tasks like, you know, I want to have a monthly date night or I want to mountain bike more with my friends. Blocking out time in your calendar for that to happen supports not just the serious stuff, but the fun stuff in your life too.
Scheduling Strategies for Balance
00:04:56
Speaker
So Diana, let's tackle the to-do list tasks first because they, you know, they have a deadline. They usually have a high priority.
00:05:04
Speaker
what's the approach people can take to scheduling to-do-list tasks? Yeah, so I think that some to-do-list tasks naturally need to be scheduled in because they have a deadline. But for the other tasks, I think you can really divide them up into sort of three groups.
00:05:21
Speaker
The first is the tasks, and most of these tend to be the lurking tasks, which require some deep thinking, some focus, possibly some research, like changing electricity provider. And so our thinking is that those kinds of to-do lists tasks, you could schedule in say an hour, like an hour of power where you really give yourself the opportunity to focus on that challenging, chunky to-do list item.
00:05:47
Speaker
Whereas the other items in your to-do list can probably fall into two other categories. You know, really quick tasks that can be attended to straight away and maybe don't even need to be put on the to-do list. You can just do them as they come in. So those tasks, I think we can call them two minutes too easy, like filling out a quick permission slip for an excursion.
00:06:08
Speaker
And in between, you've got sort of chunkier tasks that are good to address in kind of idle time, like when you're in the car waiting to pick a child up from an activity or standing in a queue at the post office.
00:06:21
Speaker
And those are 10-minute time killers. And if you've got a smartphone and you've got your to-do list there, rather than scrolling through Facebook mindlessly for 10 minutes, you can use it to tackle something on your to-do list like researching and buying a present online. So if you approach your to-do list in those thinking about those three different buckets, you can really knock through items in a much more efficient way.
00:06:46
Speaker
Yeah. And our suggestion would be that the hour of power is something that you do schedule. So you might set a certain night each week or slot during the day if you have some spare capacity during the day. That is going to be your hour of power and you can choose what
Proactive Scheduling for Recurring Events
00:07:01
Speaker
activity of your to-do list that requires that focus or perhaps research. But the other categories
00:07:08
Speaker
or to-do list tasks that have fallen through that two-minute bucket or the 10-minute bucket, they don't really need to be scheduled. You just know that when that kind of free time comes up or if it's something immediate, you just do it. So, Mia, what sort of tasks do you think fit in the first bucket of those inevitable tasks? Well, for me, inevitable tasks are things that are not going to come up during the year.
00:07:30
Speaker
And rather than be reactive about it, I'm going to take initiative and set time from the get go. So this could be the fact that, you know, I know my car's going to need to be serviced every year and it usually falls within March.
00:07:43
Speaker
and instead of waiting for the thing to pop up on my dashboard, instead of waiting to get an email from the mechanic saying you're due, I could just email them now and say, I want to pop it in. I've got a much better chance of getting one of those complimentary little courtesy cars and not having to do it on a night that's raining where I've got to squeeze in the car servicing between some breakfast meeting and picking up someone from netball, which seems inevitable. So things like car servicing.
00:08:10
Speaker
exercise classes and activities that I know are going to happen. Put them in the calendar.
00:08:15
Speaker
similarly you might like to tackle things like hairdresser appointments for the whole family especially if you're one of those people whose hair grows quickly and you need the six weeks you know getting in there I have curly hair I go to the hairdresser once maybe twice a year but I could book them now I put the kids in dentist visits I know I'm gonna hit there every six months let's book it in now because I actually hate that moment at the end of an appointment whether it's for a hairdresser or your dentist or
00:08:44
Speaker
even if it's a chiropractor, and they say, you know, should we book you in for your next appointment now? And I never know when is a good time. I never have my calendar. I never feel prepared to go, yeah, sure, and get out my diary and just pick some random day. But if I can control that and do it from home and send off emails or book things online,
00:09:03
Speaker
whether it's appointments like that or I know if I've got committee meetings or even rehearsals or practice or volunteering, if I can put all that in my calendar ahead of time, I feel so much better about it.
Meal Planning and Household Organization
00:09:18
Speaker
So I think the interesting one for me is meal planning. And so, interestingly, instead of the meal planning and the grocery shopping, and I sort of, I guess going back to what you were talking about before about routines, I'd got myself into a routine of doing the meal planning and the grocery shopping online while my son was at his sort of ninja class.
00:09:37
Speaker
And I had this sort of hour and a half of dead time that I was using to do that activity. But then things changed because I hadn't actually scheduled it in the calendar. It was kind of just a paired thing. And now I don't actually have that time anymore because someone else is taking him to that class. All of a sudden, everything kind of went into disarray in our household because there was no time to do the grocery shopping. Whereas if I'd sort of had it scheduled in my calendar,
00:10:06
Speaker
I would have realized that because I'm changing things around, I need to reschedule the time to be able to do that as well. So it was interesting that the lack of actually formalizing that schedule for that time, which is a really important task to keep our family organized, you know, unintended consequence of what I thought was a good thing of someone taking him to that class. I felt silly when I first thought about putting something like the meal planning and the shopping on my calendar. And also the laundry, the two days a week I do laundry.
00:10:36
Speaker
It's actually come in handy on days when I've known that I'm not going to be at home to attend to those things. Then my partner can see on the calendar, oh, Mia's traveling for work, or she's not available for whatever reason on these days. And these are the two days that she normally does laundry. If I don't hit the laundry now, no one's going to have socks and jocks for the next few days. So I've got to attend to the laundry. And it's again, one of those
00:11:00
Speaker
ways to avoid that conversation or having to do those instructions about, I'm going to go to Sydney for the day. And today's the day I do laundry. So don't forget blah, blah, blah, blah. Instead, I can do that. It's on the calendar. Exactly. Yeah, definitely the on the calendar.
00:11:16
Speaker
Yesterday we had to pick up a birthday cake for my son's birthday party and I had scheduled it into the calendar. And so it just made it so easy because it was in there with the address, the time and everything. And so there was no chance we would forget it. So there's that third category of things to put on schedules.
00:11:38
Speaker
that can support you making time for what you want more of.
Using Calendar for Prioritization
00:11:42
Speaker
So a few years ago, we set up a monthly movie night, which I have loved. It's on a Monday night and it is a great way to ease into the week. And we set up the dates in January for the whole year ahead. We had like five people, six, how many of us? Five people coming.
00:12:01
Speaker
work, kids, travel, all of that stuff had to be taken into consideration. But because we could plan way in advance, most of the time, all of us are there. Are there any other examples of those kinds of inspirational, aspirational activities that you've wanted to lock down into a calendar?
00:12:20
Speaker
Yeah, so we've got another family that actually we were friends with when we lived overseas and they live on the complete other side of Melbourne. So we really don't get to see them very often, but we have made a commitment to go camping two weekends a year. So at the beginning of the year, we agree which of the two weekends we're going to go camping together as a family and we schedule them in. And that makes a big difference to make sure that we actually keep that friendship going.
00:12:46
Speaker
And we also, you know, get to connect over being outdoors with our kids, which is something both families really value. So that's been a great thing to really lock into the to the calendar. Yeah, I think visiting family, friends or monthly gardening, book club, date nights, if you want to have regular dinners with friends or family, or if you know each year that you're going to host, you know, a grand final barbecue on that Australia Day, you want people to come by or you're going to actually have birthday parties for the kids.
00:13:14
Speaker
that aren't on their actual birthdays. If you know all of that in advance, you can put it in a calendar and essentially it supports whatever you hold important in your life, whatever you want to direct more energy towards. If you're locking it into your calendar, then your calendar actually reflects your priorities in life.
00:13:32
Speaker
And I do think some people hesitate to do it because then they think, oh, other things will come up and it will be challenging. But you can always reschedule it. It's just making sure that there is some time, you know, locked away. And if you have to change the date because of something else comes up, that's okay. It's not like it has to be set in stone, but it really, it's, it's that commitment that you're going to make the time to actually, and you know, that you've tried to lock it in as early as possible. Yeah.
00:13:59
Speaker
I like the idea of thinking about it as this foundation. It's like, this is my new baseline for the year. I'm still flexible. I can change things, but at least I've got a foundation that reflects the kinds of things I want to do this year.
Personal Scheduling Implementations
00:14:10
Speaker
Or you might use the calendar as a sort of scheduling idea to restrict how much time you spend doing something. So if you think I'm watching too much TV, I am reading way too late into the night. I need to give myself a bedtime or a limit on when and how I use social media or
00:14:28
Speaker
decide when I'm going to stop looking at work emails, then you might set aside chunks of the day in your calendar where I'm like, okay, for 30 minutes between X and Z, I'm going to feast on social media and then that's it. Or I'm giving myself a bedtime at 10 o'clock because I really would rather spend my time exercising and the lure of reality television. I need a note of reason to turn off that TV. So you can use scheduling to restrict some time, some activities as well.
00:14:57
Speaker
So how are you going to be using these ideas in your life right now? How are you going to apply this? So what I did do is after I kind of went through that big cathartic or scary exercise, depending on how you look at it, to sort of re-establish my to-do list system, I really realized there's lots of those important things that I sort of never got around to that were sitting there on the to-do list. So I really set aside some time every week
00:15:23
Speaker
where I'm really focusing on getting those important things done. So for me, it's kind of an ongoing hour of power that I'm having every Sunday night. And I'm using that time to really try and pick off one item off my
00:15:39
Speaker
important to-do list every week. And also then, if for some reason I can't finish it on a Sunday night because I actually need to speak to someone, then I schedule some time in my diary during the week to finish that activity so that I'm slowly picking off one task at a time. And what about you, Mia? I've got a few things I've popped in. So I mentioned, you know, some of those inspirational activities like
00:16:06
Speaker
movie nights and choir and things like that that I like to go along to. I've made myself a Sunday get set hour where I do admin for our holiday house. So we've got a shack that we rent out on Airbnb. And inevitably there is some emails and some instructions that need to be sent out. So I do that. And then I spend about 30 minutes just looking at the week ahead, making sure I know what's happening and the ducks are in a row and emails are set and sort of planning.
00:16:36
Speaker
And then Tuesday night, I've set aside for an hour of power. So that's the night when my partner usually works late every week. And that's the time I'm going to set aside for those tasks that don't necessarily have a deadline, but just never get done. I find myself within like 10 minute time killer kind of stuff, I find myself doing that when the kids have their screen time. So I try and stay off my screen when they're not having screen time because
00:17:04
Speaker
They just hassle me about me being on my phone. And they're having a great time. I'll get out of my computer and just get some tasks done or call people that I had to do. I've also locked in.
00:17:15
Speaker
things like gardening once a month because we used to do that regularly a few years ago and I made a massive difference to keeping on top of the gardening. We didn't do it last year and you can tell. You can tell. So we're going to reinstate that. And the other thing I wanted to lock in was some weekends away with my girlfriends.
00:17:36
Speaker
They've got to be one of the hardest things in the world to organise just because everyone's availability and the sheer importance of women. Hard to extricate them from their families and work lives. So I want to lock them ahead of time. And I'm going to put the dentist in the hairdresser in advance. That'll make me feel great. I won't have that little moment of, oh, don't ask me that question.
00:18:02
Speaker
Yeah, I recently locked in the orthodontist appointments for the next year, because I have to go every six weeks at the moment. And although the orthodontist, you know, they're like, oh, we only schedule two appointments at a time. I'm like, no, no, really, I'm sure you've got a calendar there. Let's just lock them in so that I can make sure that nothing comes up in my work calendar that's going to clash with them, or if it does, that I can actually do something about it, you know, rather than becoming less and less flexible as time goes on.
00:18:30
Speaker
I also really thinking that I'd like to start at the beginning of the next year of really locking, you know, sitting down and locking some of those other things in the more inspirational tasks around, you know, maybe spending some more time with my husband, locking in some more date nights, things like that.
00:18:48
Speaker
One of the other things I've really want to lock in for next year is our family holidays because this year we really struggled to actually find times that worked and we've got we really want to do a ski trip next year so I really want to lock in the dates for that quite early and you know lock away the organizing of it so that it actually happens.
00:19:07
Speaker
It's quite wise for businesses that have services to let people or suggested people to lock in their dates in advance so that they get guaranteed return customers.
Stress Reduction through Scheduling
00:19:20
Speaker
The place where I go and I go to the chiropractor and have a current session and a massage and they give you a year's worth of appointments. So when you sign up at to be sort of wellness plan,
00:19:33
Speaker
they will give you a discounted rate on the treatments and then they will lock in your preferred day and time.
00:19:40
Speaker
every month or whatever the frequency might be for you for the entire year, which is fantastic. So that they obviously have this guaranteed stream of income. I know people are gonna go, oh, I don't know if I need it this month. If it's in the calendar, you're kind of like, oh, I've got it booked in. Who doesn't feel great after a massage? I'm just going to go. So it's quite a savvy business approach, but it's also incredibly convenient for me because I don't have to think about it. And of course, like I'm always canceled for whatever reason. I don't need it that month.
00:20:11
Speaker
Yeah, I think that interestingly, I think it's becoming more and more common and it's sort of also linked to those kind of subscription services of things now. So now I actually just get the food for our dog just is on auto delivery subscription. So I don't have to think about it anymore. It just arrives at the front door. I do think that kind of, you know, it's just makes one less thing I have to worry about. I don't have to have that on my to-do list anymore because it just happens. Yeah.
00:20:38
Speaker
The people who are looking for a bit of structure around how to schedule and routine things, routinize things for getting their house in order, they might want to check out the Fly Lady website. This is kind of a thing we've mentioned in a previous episode around to-do lists, but she gives quite a prescriptive approach to how you might
00:20:59
Speaker
look at your house and she gives you a monthly focus for a new habit related to your house. So each month there might be a habit such as menu planning. Then there's a weekly focus for the zone in your house that you're going to organize and clean. So for one week it might be the bathroom, the next week it's the kitchen. And then there's a daily focus for your attention. So one day it might be tasks that you're procrastinating about or decluttering your bag in your car.
00:21:25
Speaker
It's supported with daily emails and apps, and she kind of coaches you through tackling every room in your house. So that's one way to get some of those inevitable, what to do list tasks done as well. So obviously there's quite a bit of effort involved in setting up
Quality of Life Improvements via Scheduling
00:21:40
Speaker
these schedules. Why do you think this is an important thing to tackle?
00:21:43
Speaker
I think it comes back to what I talked about at the beginning. It's those lurking tasks that, you know, continue to kind of grab your attention and they really deplete your energy. So if you don't actually schedule the time in to actually tackle those important tasks, to get to those important things,
00:22:00
Speaker
You never actually get to them, you just keep thinking about them. And when you do actually achieve them, when I just recently finally sorted out my superannuation, it just felt amazing. It was a really big high, a dopamine hit.
00:22:19
Speaker
crossing that off my to-do list, that thing that I've been thinking about for years. So it really improves your quality of life once you sort of get those important things off the list. What about for you, Maya? Why do you think it's important? I agree. There's definitely that peace of mind, knowing that the important things are getting done.
00:22:37
Speaker
And it definitely helps you fight procrastination if it's something that you have put in a specific date and time for. But I also like the fact that it forces you to make choices about how to best spend your time. We've all got a 24 hour day constraint and it forces you to think about what kinds of activities and tasks and habits you want to make time for. And it's also supports the way that new habits stick. So if it's in the calendar,
00:23:05
Speaker
it's there every day or week or how long the frequency is, it's gonna support that consistency and the repetition and the lack of decision-making required for that new habit to get momentum. And really, for some of these, you know, hour of power, you might think, oh, that's not a lot of time to do anything, but chipping away at tasks over time, you can accomplish a lot. You know, an hour a week steadily looking at these different activities, you can get so much done in the span of a year.
00:23:33
Speaker
Well, I think that wraps up everything we've got to think about scheduling for this episode.
Hosts' Highs and Lows in Life Admin
00:23:37
Speaker
We'd love to hear what some of the listeners schedule in and if they achieve more by scheduling in their life admin tasks. So Mia, do you have a life admin high of the week?
00:23:49
Speaker
I do. I've had myself a little unsubscribe festival this last week. I wanted to reduce the emails coming into my inbox and be a bit more discerning about what email newsletters I was actually using and enjoying. And usually I would just see them pop in and roll my eyes and hit delete.
00:24:08
Speaker
This week I actually took the time to unsubscribe instead of just delaying the problem to another time. I just was finding that so many emails are weekly, which is just overkill. I need to slow my life down a little. I can't keep up with the suggestions of the things to do in Melbourne and the awesome places I should be taking my kids and the art that's on. Maybe on a fortnightly basis, maybe monthly.
00:24:32
Speaker
much, weekly is just too much and I thought maybe I should just make a little folder and I can flick emails in there for reading length one but I thought Mia be real you're never going to go into that folder ever and you'll just see the numbers growing and get stressed about it so I just unsubscribed and if I miss them in the future I'll resubscribe but that's probably not going to happen and now I have three emails in my inbox
00:24:57
Speaker
I think I've got 11,000, so I think I've got some unsubscribing to do. There's so many people who look at their phones and it's like 8,000 in red on their home screens. I'm like, how do you?
00:25:12
Speaker
How do you even look at that and not just fall into the fetal position? But we're talking about life. I've been high. What's your side? So actually, I went into our study and I cleared some lingering kind of paperwork off our study desk.
00:25:27
Speaker
So it was actually some old magazines and various things that we hadn't known what to do with. And my husband and I were quite brutal and finally just cleared everything off our desk. So literally on the desk, there is now just one little container with some pens. And so it just feels so enjoyable to walk into the study now and to see the desk. And so I've now actually started working at the desk because I never used to want to work there.
00:25:56
Speaker
because it was too messy, so I always used to work in the dining room. But now I'm really loving sitting in the study and having that sort of clean and clear place to do my life admin and also sadly sometimes when I have to work from home. Let's include a photo of this Nirvana desk situation in the show notes. Okay, we'll do. It's amazing.
00:26:19
Speaker
Tell me, Lesa, is there a life admin load to balance out that amazing little achievement? There is one actually. So I had to renew my passport and it's actually a really easy process now. You just get onto the passport website and you fill in some details and you print out the form. And so I had taken myself off and had my passport photos done. So all I needed to do was go to the post office and to submit the form.
00:26:48
Speaker
And so I'd looked at the website for my local post office and it said, you don't even have to make an appointment at your post office. You can just turn up any time. So, of course, I thought, oh, well, I'll just pop that in my bag and I walk past that post office all the time. I'll definitely pop in one day.
00:27:06
Speaker
But of course, the days have worn on and it's been a month since I printed out the form and you have to go to the post office within a month of printing out the form.
Challenges in Personal Organization
00:27:16
Speaker
Is that because of the passport photos need to be, you know? No.
00:27:21
Speaker
I've got six months with the photos, but the actual form they say, you know, and it gets, when you print it out, it has a date on it and it says you have to go to the post office within one month. And now that I haven't, I'm going to have to redo the form. Like it's not going to take very long. It's just frustrating that I have to redo it again. So it's kind of apt given we've just talked about scheduling because if only I had scheduled it in my calendar, even if I didn't have to book it with the post office, I would have done it. So the lesson is schedule it in.
00:27:51
Speaker
Yeah, it's one of those things. I can do this any time, which means I'm never going to do it. Direct. Does he have that in your handbag for a month? I had it in my handbag for a month. Together with my passport too, which is probably not a great idea to pay the passport with you. And I kept finding it going, oh, there it is. As I'm, you know, getting out to pay something. So anyway, I'm hoping that this week I will reverse that sin. And what about you, Mia? What was your life at Minlo?
00:28:21
Speaker
I'm planning to make a start on my digital photo backlog over the weekend. And my grand plan was I was going to take my computer to the holiday house. We've got this shack. It's got no wifi. At nighttime you can read, you can play board games or you can watch free-to-air television. And I thought, perfect. I will watch ABC2 comedy, big Saturday night. I'll have my laptop on my lap and I will go through the photos. And this will be my new ritual.
00:28:50
Speaker
But I didn't even take it out of its case. I didn't turn it on. I don't think I took it out of the bedroom. I just sat on the couch laughing but feeling guilty because I was still not doing my photos.
Review of 'Essentialism' and Conclusion
00:29:03
Speaker
And we are dedicating our next episode to talking about this because I'm so aware of the onslaught of photos that's about to happen over Christmas and the holidays. And I've got 10,000 photos on my computer and I
00:29:17
Speaker
don't do anything with them. No one ever sees them. The kids don't even, there's just nothing. So that was my low. I don't think that your pairing habit is quite working there. So you might have to come up with something else to pair with. So I think you're also going to do a sort of book review for us this episode.
00:29:37
Speaker
Yes, my book review. This app is Essentialism, The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeon. I read this book in two days. It's very approachable and really practical. Essentially, it is about
00:29:53
Speaker
Thinking about all the things that are going on in your life, the activities, the people, the habits, and having a think about whether you actually need to maintain them or whether you should be letting them go.
00:30:10
Speaker
Written in four sections, the first section is essence and talks about the mindset of an essentialist. So it talks about empowering people to recognize when you actually have a choice and making those choices. Sort of moving from that idea of I have to do this, I have to do that too. I choose to do this. It's talking about how to wave trade-offs. The second section's about exploring. And it's prompting you about how you might be more discerning and identifying what is vital in your life as is trivial.
00:30:37
Speaker
The next section focuses on how to eliminate that trivial stuff, how to cut it out. And then the final section's called Execute, so how to make the vital things effortless. And it really prompts you to consider how you can feel your life with doing all of the right things for the right reason at the right time for you. I loved one of the quotes that I had at the start of one of the chapters, a Socrates quote that said, beware the barrenness of a busy life.
00:31:04
Speaker
And I know that I have lots of friends and family members who are so busy all of the time, but yet don't really feel like they're getting to the things that really give them joy or they're not really spending their time in the way they'd like to be spending their time. So it's an enjoyable, accessible, thought-provoking read to help you get to that place where you feel more control of how you're spending your time.
00:31:27
Speaker
and your energy and get into some things that feel more important to you. Well, it sounds like a great book, Mayor. I think I feel like I need to read it after the busyness of my last week. That wraps us up for this episode. Remember to try out our life hacks for scheduling this week.
00:31:43
Speaker
Make some decisions about the types of things you'd like to dedicate time to each week. Schedule inspirational tasks, activities and habits that are important to you. Schedule the inevitable tasks so you can stop thinking about them. And consider scheduling in an hour of power dedicated to clearing some of the dreaded life admin tasks in your to-do list.
00:32:04
Speaker
If you'd like to join us on our life admin journey, please head to our Facebook page, life admin life hacks to follow us and share your thoughts on what we're doing and feel free to post any comments or certainly post suggestions that we might be able to use. We hope to see you there. Thanks for listening. Show notes for this episode are available at life admin lifehacks.com. If you're a fan, please subscribe and share the love and tell a friend or review us in your podcasting app.