There comes a time in every woman’s life where she has to wade through a vast sea of admin—bills, tasks, to-dos, checklists, errands, calls, emails, you get it—and it seems so much easier to simply not do any of it. That’s my usual strategy. It doesn’t work out.
It’s all too much when the house needs to be cleaned, a bill from your doctor—an URGENT THIRD NOTICE no less, is due IMMEDIATELY UPON RECEIPT (Mr. Doctor, please…)—a birthday card needs to be mailed, you were tricked yet again by Kim Kardashian and need to go through the humiliating process of a Skims return (fool me twice Kim!!!!!), a flight to a friend’s wedding needs to be booked, and God forbid you need to print something. Take that, all of that, multiply it by five, and put it off for a couple weeks. Awful situation to be in. Very relatable. I will keep you in my thoughts.
Well, I have discovered a solution that you will probably dislike.
I call it “Don’t Want To Do It Days.” This is exactly what it sounds like.
You create a list of all the bureaucratic, annoying stuff you’ve been avoiding in your life and you do it all in a single day. You spend the entire day doing things you don’t want to do. If that sounds like it’s going to uh, suck, you’re right, it will. You might even have to dedicate a precious Saturday to the cause. And on that note, I want to make clear distinction here between this concept and Errand Saturday. “Errand Saturday” is a 5k walk. “Errand Saturday” is something a child could do. This is a marathon. This is an Ironman. This is running suicides at soccer practice after eating Chipotle. This will not be fun.
But it will only be miserable for the first two hours. After the first two hours, a shift happens, and you start to kind of get high on the fact that you’re being so productive, tackling so many banal parts of human existence. You may even find more stuff you need to do, and you will tear through it all like a rabid animal. You will get a handle on your life. You will win. Also, once you start, it’s easy to romanticize doing errands in New York City. With a coffee in hand, in this town, anything is possible. Half of any show about living in New York is about trying to pick up dry cleaning.
With that said, allow me to offer a few tips.
Don’t Want To Do It Days are about building momentum, and nothing will bring you to a halt like failing at your first task. It will break your spirit. I do not recommend going to the bank when it’s closed and pushing on the doors and whining like “wait noooooooo :( ”
For a successful Don’t Want To Do It Day (hereafter DWTDID)—this is how I would break it down:
The night before
Get good sleep, and maybe paint your nails and/or get a manicure. Why? Obviously, accomplishing tasks hits different with nice nails. This is a little treat, a deal with yourself, that if you do your nails today, tomorrow is the DWTDID.
7:00 am (or, ideally, even earlier)
The first thing you’re going to do on your DWTDID is get up early. You cannot start this process at 11 am. And after you get up early, you’re going to go to the gym, or go for a long walk. There’s something about exercise first thing in the morning, with the early birds, that will have you feeling productive and on top of it already. (You’re also kind of tricking yourself, because most of the time we don’t want to go to the gym first thing in the morning, and now you have, which means you’ve already done something you don’t want to do.)
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8:30 am
Buy yourself a little treat (***DO NOT SKIP***). An overpriced matcha latte will do nicely, accompanied by a fresh croissant or a lemon curd babka from Librae. Shower and get ready like you would on a normal day. Put your phone on DND.
9:00 am
Find a piece of paper and a pen. At the top of the paper, write “DON’T WANT TO DO IT DAY” and the date. As the first item, you’re going to write “make list.” Then set a timer for 20 minutes and write the rest of your list. Do it by hand while admiring your nails. (You’re going to carry this piece of paper and pen around with you all day.)
9:20 am
Review your list. Cross off “make list.” You should be feeling pretty good already. Now you’re going to sort it in four ways:
Using a different color pen, you’re going to mark the tasks that you have complete control over, i.e., things you can accomplish by yourself, today, guaranteed. Things like: clean the oven, change the bed sheets, drop off package at UPS, buy groceries, log work hours, send invoices. Not things like: go to the dentist, call the bank. This should take no more than 2 minutes.
Go through the list again, and write down how long each task will take you (being generous). I guarantee so many of the things you’ve been avoiding will take less than 10 minutes to accomplish. Write how long each task will take you next to the task: 5m, 10m, 15m, 30m, 60m+. Again, this should take no more than 2 minutes.
Identify the thing you want to do the least that will also take you less than 30m. This will be the first thing you’ll do.
Group your tasks in a way that makes sense, using numbers, but reserving #1 for the task above. All house-cleaning or house related tasks should go together, for instance, and all “outside errands” like grocery shopping and returns obviously go together as well. It’ll be obvious to you what order is most efficient. This might take 5 minutes.
You’re ready to start.
9:29 am
Start (and finish) the #1 task by 10:00am. Take that pen and cross it off. Congrats, you just did the thing you least wanted to do before 10am. And you also already worked out.
10:00 am
Pick up with #2, and work your way through the list. Bring the list and the pen with you everywhere you go, and make sure to really enjoy the experience of crossing stuff out.
12:00 pm
Okay so you’re officially addicted to getting stuff done at this point. You’re scaring me…
12:30 pm
You’ve done a lot of stuff, so now it’s obviously time to get lunch somewhere. (If you’re in the East Village, I recommend the Marie-Antoinette sandwich at Le Petit Parisien—cured ham, goat cheese, olive oil, honey). But any large sandwich will do.
1:00 pm
You’re allowed to check your phone now for 10 minutes. I can pretty much guarantee you’ve missed nothing.
1:10 pm
Keep attacking the list. You’re addicted.
3:30 pm
You will feel yourself lagging at this point, so get some coffee and take a short break. This is the final push until 5pm.
5:00 pm
It’s done. It’s over. You didn’t want to do it and instead you did, and that’s like 80% of what being a high-functioning adult is about. Even if you didn’t get to everything on your list, you probably got a ton of stuff done today. Now it’s time to reward yourself with something—maybe dinner with a friend, maybe a cocktail, whatever you want. You already worked out today, you already got ready, and you got a ton of stuff done. A Saturday night out in Manhattan after a day like this is nothing short of euphoric.
Also appreciate the Paulie meme and going to channel it on my don’t want to do it days!!
Needed this framework. 10/10 no notes.