🧺 Life Admin 101

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Hey there! Welcome back to The Flow by Flocus. If you’re new around here, welcome! 👋  You can catch up on our previous editions right here.

This week: It’s all about life admin: what it is, why it piles up, and how to wrangle this laundry list of chores, tasks, and responsibilities. Let’s jump in!

🗄️ What’s Life Admin?

How many days do you find yourself swatting away helpful but random thoughts that always pop up at the worst times? Like:

• 📋 “Can’t forget to fill out that insurance form”

• 🥼 “Need to make that doctor’s appointment”

• 📨 “My inbox is so cluttered, I need to clear it out”

• 🗂️ “I have too many apps / browser tabs open, I can’t find what I need”

• 🛍️ “I need to pick up printer ink and finally recycle all those old electronics”

Life admin tasks like these don’t usually involve deep work — but getting them off your plate clears the runway for the big stuff.

Avoiding them, or not having an efficient system for processing them, keeps you low-grade stressed and scattered constantly.

The tricky part? Everything on your life admin list almost certainly needs to get done at some point. It just may not be urgent or top priority for you in the near or immediate future.

Plus, these tiny tasks tend to pile up — and the more of these “open loops” you have, the less mental bandwidth you have for the big projects. Let’s explore why.

🧨 Why Life Admin Piles Up

• The demands are constant and never-ending

• There’s no reward, incentive, or dopamine hit, so we put it off

• Some tasks can feel emotionally loaded (managing finances, setting boundaries, etc.)

• Until it’s blocking everything else, it doesn’t feel urgent

• It can be hard to find “the right time” to handle all these tasks

Here’s the thing: all these reasons are totally valid.

Life admin is genuinely and objectively hard to deal with.

Especially for a go-getter like yourself, who’s focused on your education, career, or craft. All these pursuits naturally come with more admin, paperwork, and red tape to sort through.

So, what are some effective ways to manage this constant stream of to-dos? Scroll on to find out!

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Now, here’s how to let it be good enough!

🧺 How to Tackle It in 4 Steps

🤔 1. Reframe it

Life admin isn’t just self-care, it’s also self-respect.

It’s not “busywork” — it’s energetic hygiene.

These tasks, as small, frequent, and annoying as they can be, make your big goals possible.

You can’t make your graduation, promotion, or business launch happen without filling out an application or two at some point.

So instead of viewing life admin as an extra headache on top of everything else, know it’s an important part of a productive life.

Like everything else in productivity, processing life admin effectively is a skill you can learn and improve.

🌧️ 2. Make a “mental clutter” list

Now that you’re hopefully feeling a little more optimistic about it, you can get started.

You know we love a good list here at Flocus, but this one’s not a to-do list. We know that sounds kinda counterintuitive, since we’re talking about actual life admin tasks here.

Remember how we said life admin can be tricky, with extra emotions, friction, and baggage attached? It’s important to process all that, too.

That’s exactly what this mental clutter list is for — it gives you a judgment-free space to set it all down and clear out any “extra” stuff clouding your mind.

💪 3. Try a life admin power hour

We’ve talked about batching your tasks before. And while not all tasks are ideal for this approach, life admin stuff is perfect for batching.

Here’s how to do it:

• ⏲️ Schedule a block to knock out 2 or 3 things that have been nagging you. It can be 20 minutes, an hour, or even a full day.

• 🍱 Pair up similar tasks, like dropping off your recycling and going to the bank on the same walk. That’s 3 tasks, including your daily walk, in 1 go!

• 👯‍♂️ Grab a buddy (optional). If you’ve got a friend who’s down to hang out and just run errands with you, bring them along for some company.

🍨 4. Add softness to reduce stress

This is genuinely something we do here to make life admin less stressful: pair it with something enjoyable or fun.

A relaxing playlist, cozy drink, ambient mode on your Flocus Dashboard — make your environment as pleasant as possible.

If it’s something especially big, like a scary appointment, plan something fun afterward to reward yourself, like binging your favorite anime or treating yourself to a dessert at your fave cafe. Block it off your calendar and snooze notifications to make sure you stick to it.

And remember: Every single one of these tasks is temporary and finite. Once you make it through any discomfort and get it done, you can relax and shift to something else.

🪅 Flocus Picks

A curated list of things worth sharing.

• Why Open Loops Are Your Enemy (The Flow Archives) — An oldie but a goodie, this newsletter is a Flocus Team fave, with tons of tips for tackling “open loops”

• life admin reset with me (YouTube) — If you don’t have a buddy to team up with IRL, throw on this 20-minute video for a life admin reset with Michelle B

• lofi to clean to (playlist) — An upbeat mix for your next deep-cleaning sesh or life admin power hour

✨ Flocus: Your Personal Productivity Dashboard

Flocus is built for seasons like this: when you want to focus deeply but stay grounded. Plan your day with a simple task list, track your progress with our customizable focus timer, and unwind in ambient mode with layerable soundscapes and themes.

Go to Flocus

Life admin is, well, a part of life. It can be stressful, emotional, and tedious. Luckily, you can get better at it with some simple, intentional mindset shifts — we’re speaking from experience on this one!

What’d you think of our life admin edition? It’s been on our minds lately, so we had to share. And if you’re also in a sharing mood, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Hit reply and sound off!

Until next Sunday,

Flocus Team