ProductivityLife | 3 Min Read
#45 - Maintenance Day
By grouping all our life maintenance tasks like cleaning & admin into a maintenance day; we can boost our productivity on other days, here's how.
Hey Friends 👋
Over the last week, I've been slowly continuing my read of The Productivity Project by Chris Bailey, and one of the chapters was on the concept of a "maintenance day". In essence, it's one day per week where you do all the maintenance tasks you need to do to function in society like cleaning and organizing your home, and project and life administration.
The idea is that by grouping them all onto one day of the week instead of doing them sporadically throughout the week we don't need to worry about them during the week and can keep our focus on our highest value tasks that drive us towards our goals.
So, I thought I'd give this a shot. Instead of doing odd house chores, grocery shopping, and organizing my projects throughout the week, I'd them do all today (Sunday) instead.
And, while today has been an incredibly tiring day getting everything sorted and up to date, it does provide some peace of mind that I don't need to worry about touching them again until this time next weekend.
Now, because of today, I can spend the rest of the week focusing on my active projects and tasks instead of worrying about odd chores that need doing. Meaning I can (hopefully) stay in a state of flow for longer and make more progress.
Another benefit of this approach is anything that is remotely related to being a maintenance task I don't need to spend time thinking about because future me has got it covered. I just note it down as something to do on Sunday and then carry on with whatever I was doing. So, by bunching all my tasks together on Sunday, I'm giving myself permission to kick the can down the road. That is unless it's Sunday. 😂
In a weird sort of sense, this new "maintenance day" approach is liberating, it's removed a lot of mental overhead in a couple of ways.
- I no longer need to worry about the headache of scheduling chores and tasks that need doing. I know when they will be done and I don't need to think about it a second longer.
- This one day each week helps set up and plan the coming week by deciding important things like what tasks I'll be working on and what my key objectives for that week are. But, it also helps organize more mundane things like what meals I'll be eating.
Now, I have to admit when I first read about this maintenance day idea I was a bit skeptical but after trying it for the better part of a week, I've fallen in love with it and can see myself doubling down on it in the future.
So, as a closing question, will you or do you have a maintenance day? If so, what tasks does it include?
As always, thank you for reading.
Coner x
Actionable Takeaway 🏃♀️
If we batch together all of our administration and maintenance tasks together to be on one day of the week we can save time and be more organized. Meaning we can also be more intentional with our time on the other days of the week to make sure we're making progress towards our goals.
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