How to organise life admin
We all have too much life admin, you might be wondering how to organise life admin? Once you have “cracked” the code on this life becomes amazingly organised. Even if sometimes you fall behind.
If you have a good system you:
1. Know how to organise paperwork
2. How to organise notes
3. Have a calendar system (maybe via outlook) and a system to do your life admin
4. You will be on top of it in no time.
The system (some regular habits and routines) off how to organise life admin is what I will focus on in this page.
On another page, I have spoken about how to organise your desk and how to organise physical and electronic paperwork. It is important that you understand the parent child categories before you learn how to organise life admin. You simply cannot maintain a system if it doesn’t exist yet. If you haven’t sorted your papers yet go back to this page or read through how to organise life admin so you know what the ultimate aim is: having a simple easy to maintain system for the papers in your life.
Before we dive in I just want to recap a few things. For small actions, you can place items in a note-taking system or in your calendar. For long-term paper-based information, you place the items in Mother and child categories that are easy for you to maintain.
When you need to “generally organise life admin” a lot of information will fit in your note-taking, calendar or paperwork system.
Action items after organising your desk and your paperwork
Life admin has the ability to clutter your desk. Everything is nicely set up and then you get the note about the doctor and your child’s assembly 6 weeks from now. You want to prevent this from becoming a pile of unactioned items. I, therefore, suggest you make a mini system on how you would deal with these things. When you organised your desk and set you your system start to anticipate what can come in this week, next month etc.
Let’s ask a bunch of questions about your life admin
When and where will I deal with life admin?
What is it? How should it be actioned?
Does it need to be kept?
Is there a date when this becomes important?
Below I’ll discuss all these points in more detail.
When and where will I deal with life admin?
Will you look at life admin every day or maybe only once or twice a week? Doing things every day might set you up for failure and most households will run well if you do admin tasks once or twice a week. Ideally, you want to pick the day, time, and place to make it a habit, if life throws a spanner in the works you can simply move it a day later overall you should be able to stick to this.
Whilst you get notes, appointments, have ideas scribbled on a post-it you need to place them somewhere. An in-tray / small box is ideal for this. However, note that an “In Tray” only works if it gets emptied (otherwise it becomes a “file tray” or a place where clutter ends up living).
What is it - How should it be actioned?
When you sit down to organise your life admin. Find out what the item is and what you need to do with it.
Here are a few life admin examples:
Doctors appointment - in the calendar and toss
Script - file it with your health paperwork and put a reminder in your calendar when your next script needs to be obtained.
School note - sign, pay and make it return to school ASAP.
Homework - decide when you will do this homework (hopefully you have a daily habit in which you do homework) and file the stuff in their “home” for the specific subject it relates to
Work project - if it is an active project, keep it in a specific folder on your desk or in your bag. Use it several times a week until the project is finished, then declutter, file and start a new project.
Does this life admin item need to be kept?
Lots of paper and life admin actually has a very short life span. It could be a few hours or days.
Life admin examples, a:
Note about upcoming appointments: when this appointment is in the calendar, the note has completed its life purpose.
Post-it note for a task: as soon as you have scheduled when and where you will complete this action, the post-it note can go.
The calendar of the year, month, or week that has passed, and this information is not relevant anymore. If there is still relevant information on this calendar, place it on a digital note-taking system that makes it easy to retrieve, e.g. Evernote, as discussed on this page. Or place it as an action in your calendar system as discussed here.
Life admin question: Is there a date when this becomes important?
If you have information that will be important for you in the future. For example a specific document, email, or meeting outline. Make this information easily available. I often have an “appointment” next to my actual meeting in my calendar that contains the links to all my documents and emails that are relevant in that time block.
Life admin paperwork has a fine balance between action, location, and retrieval. Make it as easy as possible for yourself. Before you move onto doing something else, you can then have what I call a “closing the loop sequence”
A closing the loop sequence if you want to learn how to organise life admin.
The Life admin sequence could look like this:
Paper comes in, you place it in your In Tray
It goes into notes, your calendar, a paper-based file or the paper gets binned
No more clutter on your desk and in your head.
You can do this sequence daily (maybe at a set time) or weekly so it never builds up too much. I do this weekly when I plan the week ahead.
If you want to learn how to organise life admin.
Get my comprenhensive book covering both Home and Paperwork Organising.
Long term paper work and projects
Some life admin papers you need to store for a longer period.
A long term life Admin example:
Let’s pick a tricky one a doctor’s letter and referral to a specialist. This would go in your calendar because you need to know when the next appointment is (maybe you even need to make the appointment so it has another mini action).
Actions:
Make the appointment
Place appointment in your calendar – with relevant information
The next question is whether you have an electronic copy or paper-based for this life admin.
For electronic files, it should be saved in your electronic filing system and attached to your calendar appointment.
If it is paper-based, place it in your paper-based filing system. Make a note in your calendar earlier that morning or the night before to grab the file before you go to the appointment.
To learn more about how and where to file papers read my book “How to orgnaise your Home and Paperwork”.
Where from here?
This article is technical as it aims to help you discover how to organise life admin.
When you start don’t worry about setting up the perfect system. The first few weeks you do this after you have a filing system will be the hardest. You are creating new habits and working in a new system. After a while, it becomes easier as you simply tweak things that don’t work and continue your strong practices.
If you:
feel a little overwhelmed, I encourage you to read some “easier articles” on how to organise your desk or living room, then move on to paperwork.
set up a good system for your paperwork you could have a really chaotic year and the bare bones of this system will still stand.
How to organise life admin is a regular practice and this can be influenced by many of lives up and down. Don’t fret, clean your desk, file your papers and continue where you left off.
Organised living is a journey, organising life admin is a practice. You will only get better if you do the practice, make mistakes and improve.
If you are serious about doing your paperwork
And want to learn skills that will last you a lifetime, sign up for the Paperwork Course.
