Life admin. We’ve all gotta do it. But what happens when it all gets too much?
I am definitely coming to the conclusion that adulting is hard. It’s always possible to play a comparison game and come away feeling entirely hard done by or as if there’s nothing to complain about — but the truth is, it’s just hard.
In learning this lesson, I can recognise a nasty cycle that’s been playing out in my life pretty much since I was old enough to take agency for my own decisions. The cycle encourages an enthusiastic, compulsive “yes!” to every opportunity. It says perfection is the only way forward. And it does not leave any wiggle room for the inevitable curveballs that come my way.
What I see is that the cycle goes round to a sense of exhaustion (sometimes it’s been full on burnout), a period of enforced rest, and then back on the treadmill of feeling like I should do, do, do.
It’s at the point of exhaustion where any kind of life admin goes out the window.
The washing piles up; the birthday card gets sent late; it becomes possible to write messages in the dust; the unread notifications on my phone hit double digits; the birthday card doesn’t get sent at all; the cupboards become cluttered; there’s only an onion and some questionable cheese in which to whip up dinner with; endless apologies for being late and/or double booking; three reminder letters have to come before I take action; the birthday card doesn’t even get bought…
And so on.
Admin by Sarah is the first thing I’ve ever done in my life where I’ve forcibly made myself slow down. My boundaries are stricter. I don’t automatically say “yes!” to everything. I’m taking my time.
Life admin is still a lot. There’s always stuff to do and logistics to juggle and communication required. But something I keep telling myself is:
After a week of beginning to feel overwhelm creep in and squash me, I took steps this weekend to tackle some of the life admin that had been on my list forever. This time it was sorting out my shoes. I gave myself all day to complete the task. I broke it down into chunks. I took regular breaks, including a dog walk where it ended up snowing.
I got to the end and the automatic thought, “but you didn’t do everything” raised its ugly head.
My response?
“I can’t do everything all at once.”
Kinder, realistic and more uplifting than continuing the trajectory of self-punishment for not being able to simultaneously spin every single plate perfectly.
I share this in the hope that my musing on this helps you manage your expectations of yourself more compassionately. And when it comes to life admin, can I offer three tips?
- Pick a task that’s manageable. Some days it might be opening some post; others it might be repainting a room; others it will be tackling your email inbox. Assess how you’re feeling and what you have capacity for.
- Break it down. Chopping up a task into small chunks makes it less overwhelming. You don’t have to necessarily have a solid plan for all the steps, just ask yourself: what’s the next thing?
- Have regular breaks. If it’s a couple of hours or five minutes, be kind to yourself and you’ll be way more productive.
Now let’s go kick some life admin butt.
