Stop Feeling Behind: Get Back on Top of Your Life in 1 Day

I have been dying to talk to you, I'm so excited that you're here today because I have a hilarious story to tell you about what happened at work the other day.

“This can explain why your life, why my life, why it just feels harder than it should and more importantly what we're going to do about it.”

So first the story. So we're all having lunch and Cameron, one of our amazing producers here at 1-4-3 Studios,

turns to us all and is like, so check this out, you guys. My TV remote stopped working and she was kind of laughing as she was telling the story and she said so, you know, I opened up the back and the batteries, they're dead. But she went to look for AA batteries and she couldn't find any. So what did she do? Well, she did what you and I do. Instead of buying new batteries, she took batteries out of her keyboard and put them into her remote control. Problem solved, right, because now the remote works, but her keyboard doesn't.

So now Cameron's laugh in it herself is she's explaining that she basically walks around home with the only two AA working batteries in her pocket. She moves them from the remote to her frameless candles to her bathroom scale back to the keyboard. She's just popping them in and popping them out and we're all laughing because we've all done this. But I bet you have a story like this. We all do. We all have stories about needing to go to the DMV or calling your credit card company and being on hold for two hours or having an overdue appointment that never gets scheduled.

Or you've got this pile of shame where you've got Amazon returns that have taken a permanent residence in a corner of your house. These are these tasks that are called life admin. This is what it feels like when the administrative aspects of your and my life gets out of control because we're not stopping to fix the problems. We're just moving them around like the batteries and cameras pocket. You're moving the stress from one room to another from one day to another from one year to another.

This stuff just follows you everywhere. It's almost like you and I have an invisible backpack of stress because we never run the errand.

We never make the call or worse. You try to make the call on your lunch break only to find that the doctor's office is closed during the lunch break. You're spending more time and energy staying behind than doing the actual thing that gets you ahead. And then what happens the weekend comes and it doesn't even feel fun because half of your brain is still tracking all the things that you didn't get to do during the week. So here's what we're going to do today. First of all, I'm going to tell you this is normal. We are all struggling with life admin.

We are buried alive under our bills and battery boxes and receipts and phone calls we need to make and today we're going to fix it. Today, I'm going to show you how to take one weekday and finally deal with this. You are going to get on top of your life again because today on the Melarovans podcast you and I are doing the perfect life admin day. Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Melarovans podcast.

I have been dying to talk to you. I am so excited that you're here. It's always an honor to be able to spend this time and to be together with you.

And if you're a new listener or you're here because somebody shared this with you.

“And I think this is going to be one of these episodes that a lot of people get texted to them.”

I just want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Melarovans podcast family. You have picked an incredible podcast to listen to or watch because today you and I are going to do the perfect life. Life admin day together. I have thought about this. My team and I have unpacked this. We are going to help you take all the invisible stuff that is quietly driving you crazy. That is making your life harder than it needs to be.

I'm talking about the calls you haven't made. The appointments you keep putting off. The errands that live in the back of your mind and steal your energy even when you're trying to relax. We all have the things that are piling up and driving this crazy that we can't get to. And so here at one for three studios we call those kinds of things life admin.

And so here's what we're going to do. I'm going to show you how to trade one week day. And you're going to finally deal with all this because you're going to have this stuff handled just one focused day. I call it a life admin day.

“And if you're sitting there going, okay, well, what exactly is a life admin day?”

It's exactly as it sounds. It's one day that you schedule that you take for yourself.

Not to just kind of relax on the couch.

Not to run errands for everybody else. Not to clean the house.

“But one day that you are going to dedicate on purpose to getting absolutely everything that is piling up in the corners.”

There's a writing around in the back of your car waiting to be dropped off somewhere. We're sitting on the countertops or nagging you in the back of your mind. One day to attack it all. And here's some examples of what I'm talking about. These are things that people on my team said, Oh, my gosh. This is what I would use the life admin day that's standing desk that's still in the box.

I need to set it up broken boots that you think about every morning, but you haven't gotten them to the cobbler.

You've got one of those that has moved apartments with you twice.

Amazon returns or returns that you can no longer return because they've been sitting in the corner waiting to be returned that they're past the data return. Hit your frames that need pictures. Birthday cards and haven't been sent. For those of us in the US, the real ID that ID that none of us have 90% of people don't even have this thing and you need it to get on a plane. That's what this day is for.

It's for appointments.

“It's for the phone calls you don't have time to make.”

And I promise you, if you can just commit one day of your life on purpose, this entire year. To plowing through all of these administrative tasks that drive you crazy and take up space in your mind and ruin your weekends because no one else is going to do it. Holy cow, you are going to feel on top of the world. You're going to get your weekends back because you're not going to have to spend your weekends trying to fit all this stuff in. And in just a minute, I'm going to teach you a very specific five part framework that you will follow on this one intentional day that you're about to schedule for yourself.

Here are some of the payoffs from just one day. You will schedule between six and 12 overdue appointment or tasks. And I'm going to teach you a simple trick so that you don't have to think about them again for the rest of the year. I'm talking about your hair appointments, your nails, your dentist, your doctor, the veterinarian, all those appointments for the next year. You will check off between 10 to 20 open items.

I'm talking returns, repairs, things that need to get mailed, stuff that needs to get fixed. You will eliminate like, bye bye between two and five things that just annoy you every day.

“You know the missing light bulb, the batteries, the second set of keys that need to be made.”

You know what I'm talking about. You think about it once a day. You're going to handle three to five things that you've avoided for months. Whether that's a DMV appointment, it's paying for a bill, it's calling the doctor's office. It's talking to your health insurance and you're going to free up future weekends and evenings and most importantly. By simply taking this one intentional day and following the five step frameworks that I'm about to teach you, you're going to feel capable.

You're going to feel back on top of your life again. You're going to get so much brain space and peace back, so let's get into the specifics.

Okay, the first step of the life admin day process is just pick a day.

And the day that I recommend that you dedicate to doing life admin, if you can, is Monday. So I do want you to open up the calendar. If you're driving, don't do that right now, but maybe think ahead. You can come back and listen to this when you have your calendar open, open up a calendar. Look at the next couple of weeks, pick a day.

Pick a day on purpose that you're going to designate as your life admin day. I mean, Valentine's has a day, same Patrick's has a day, groundhog has a day. You get to have a life admin day. And so I want you to pick it. And so I know you may be thinking, well hold on, Mel, you're saying I got to take a day.

Yes, you have to take a day. And you may be thinking yourself, I don't have time to take a day. And so let me just address this notion that you don't have time to take a day. To address things that are piling up and making you feel like you're behind in life and stressed out. I mean, you might be struggling financially right now.

And you're working a bunch of different jobs. And you say, well, I can't afford to take a day or you're constantly spending your time caregiving or you're mourning or you're going through a setback or diagnosed. And so you already feel beaten down. And life admin just feels like another mountain that you don't even have the energy to climb.

And so let me speak directly to you if this is you avoiding all of this. Because it feels hard and overwhelming, just makes it worse. It really does. You can handle this because simply saying, I'm going to block off my calendar. I'm going to remove the distractions and I'm going to dig in.

I'm going to open up these bills even though I'm scared to. I'm going to make the phone calls even though I'm confronted by it.

Simply doing that signals to you to your brain to your life.

“Hey, there's a lot going on, but I'm still in charge.”

Before I walk you through how you are going to move through your life admin day to get the most stuff done and to feel the best by the end of it. I got to cover some ground rules because the ground rules also expose the mistakes that I've made in the past when I've tried to take a day to get on top of stuff. These are ground rules that are mandatory. Okay, so ground rule number one, your designated life admin day is not a decluttering day. You are not allowed to organize closets or sore through doors or do a spring cleaning decluttering distracts you because decluttering is this thing that feels really productive is your move and stuff around and you're making the draw really pretty.

But it's a trap because even if the draw is pretty, you still don't have any batteries. You still have bills to pay. You still don't have an appointment for your hair or your kids wellness appointment. You still have cable boxes to return. You still have a bag of clothing that needs to be dropped off that's been in the back of your car for five months.

And so it's stealing your energy and this is energy that you need in order to finish all the life admin stuff you've been put in off. So, rule number one, no decluttering. Don't even think about it. Ground rule number two, try to get your house or apartment as quiet as empty as you can. If it's possible for you to be alone, I mean, what a luxury, I get it. But if you can be alone, no people, no pets, no nobody that needs your time right now, the day works for life admin.

If you can stay focused and uninterrupted, I just want you to make space to be able to do the five steps. Ground rule number three, this is your life admin day.

“And so your life admin day is about you. And the way that I'm going to walk you through these five steps, you need to think about yourself first.”

Then you're going to think about other people.

Because you already tried to handle everybody else's administrative stuff first.

And that's what you run out of energy before you can get to your own. The reason why the life admin day in these five steps that I'm going to walk you through is going to work because we're going to focus on you. And the final ground rule, there's absolutely no shame, no moral judgment. When it comes to when you take the life admin day, how you take the life admin day, what you're going to be digging into during your life admin day, a life admin day is for you. And so by making the time, even though it may feel overwhelming, you are saying to yourself, I feel capable.

I am capable of handling this and you will feel better simply by scheduling the day. All right. Are you ready? You're ready to walk through how exactly we do the life admin day now that you got your day scheduled.

First of all, you're going to do a brain dump.

The day or the night before the perfect life admin day, it's as simple as it sounds. You're going to take everything that is on your mind and you're going to dump it onto a piece of paper. Everything that's unfinished, everything that's bothering you. Everything that is piled up somewhere in your house, every errand that you keep meaning to run, everything you keep meaning to return. In fact, as we were preparing this episode, I was laughing with our senior producer Amy and I'm like, Amy, when you come over to take this thing tomorrow, I want you to look to the right.

When you walk in their front door and you are going to see a clear trash bag that is full of summer clothes that have not fit me in a decade. They are sitting there and by the way, they are on the floor under where the long coats are hung because I'm kind of hiding them. It's been there for four months. And you know what I did yesterday because I was embarrassed once I told her, I actually moved it to the garage.

“Now, that's not life admin that is moving my problems around and not actually fixing anything. Every time I walk past that clear basket bag, you know what I say?”

And then I also see the purple, I've got this like sundress in there that's like a light lavender with a dark purple stripe. And it reminds me of the summer that I was really, really thin 10 years ago before menopause and then I'm like, Oh, and then I think about how much money I spent on that stupid thing and then I feel like I only wore it three times and then I feel conflicted and then I keep walking. And then donate summer clothes goes back up into my mind, but not when you do a brain dump because if it lives in the paper, it actually can die in your head.

And there's some really interesting research that explains why this works. If you're watching on YouTube, I am holding up the research from Baylor University.

So, this is right here from the director of the study. He's talking about this is Michael K. Skullan, who's got a PhDs, the director of Baylor Sleep, neuroscience and cognitive laboratory.

“And he says, "We live in a 24/7 culture in which our to-do list seemed to be constantly growing and causing us to worry about unfinished tasks at bedtime."”

And most people just cycle through their to-do list in their heads so they want to explore in this study, whether the act of writing down all the unfinished things that were on your to-do list before you go to bed, if it had any impact on your ability to go to sleep.

Now, here's what they found. This is super fascinating and it shows you the power of writing down everything in your mind that you're currently holding on to.

They found that writing a to-do list offloads all of those thoughts that are up in your mind, and it reduces worry. And they found in this study that when people would write down their to-do list, they would fall asleep faster. And they tested this against a control group that was writing down all the things they did. So you write down all the things you did do, right? Bob, Bob, Bob, all the things that you got done, and then the other group wrote down they did a brain-down. So it was the group that wrote down there to-do list that wasn't finished, the fell asleep faster. Why? Because putting it on paper allows it to live on the paper, and it erases the worry in your mind, because you have it on the paper. And so that's what we're going to do in phase one.

You're just going to write down all of the things that are bothering you, and feel free to walk around your house, walk around your house, look in the garage if you have one, look in your car, what are all the things that you need to do that are bothering you, the bills that are stacked up, the returns that you don't have time for, just keep writing them down. You can do this throughout the day before, because things are going to keep coming up.

“Let me give you some examples of things that our team currently have on their brain dump to attack on their life admin day. You ready for these?”

Okay, Ben has an air fryer that he's ordered, but he's too tired to put it together, so for a couple of months he just keeps looking at it and ordering take out. Jesse has a car registration that's two years late. I guess this is her version of gambling, every time she drives, because you could, Jesse, you could get a ticket, an expensive one for crying out loud.

Here's another one. Tracy has a lab core bill from two years ago that she needs to do something with, but she can't figure out the lab core log in.

When you really stop and think about it, what is this going to take? Ten minutes, and we've been carrying this stuff around for months and years, a doctor who needs a copy of a scan that you got and you've been putting it off for a year, there's a picture that you need to hang in your bathroom that's framed, good job you got it framed, but it's still sitting, actually I just thought of another thing. I bought the cutest little hook thing for keys, it's brass, it goes with everything, it's in the entry, Juno where it is, it has been sitting on top of my grandmother's cabinet.

“From where it needs to go with the screws, with my keys on top of it, for probably what three months you guys have seen it laying there, is this some magical fairies going to come and put it up for me?”

Oh my god, a walking pad, another person our team ordered walking pad four months ago, guess where it is in the box in the closet, another person is takes holiday cards and then puts a three whole punch in them and then puts a guess a ring on them and then stores them that that's a cute idea, but now it's haunting her because that was three months ago. The dogs, our dog home is gotten quite large and I realize I'm probably overfeeding him and I'm the one that's making him quite tubby and I need to do a little bit of research, probably take him to the vet, find out what he weighs and what I should actually be feeding him, I've been thinking about this for six months.

What was one of the ground rules everybody? Life admin, no judgment and now here's what I want you to do. Now you're going to choose your top five to ten priorities, okay, and I want you to take a highlighter. These are the priorities that are going to be top of the list for life admin when you wake up tomorrow morning. Now how do you choose these? You're going to highlight the things that bother you the most. They're the things that you've avoided for months. They're things that cost you money or time by not doing it. They're things that create daily friction.

For example, TSA pre-check or getting that real ID, there's something called a real ID that's been here in the United States for I guess for like 10 years and been warning us it's coming 90% of us in my company either don't know what it is or we don't have it, which means we don't have it because we don't know what it is.

Doctors appointments car service the broken door knob underwear. I'm going to say it how long have you pulled on underwear that is stretched out stained disgusting and you're like I need to buy underwear and they're like, okay, well I'll get to I'll get to the underwear instead I got to I got to read this headline.

Okay, that's the kind of thing that can be on your brain. Guys the limit you're going to find that there's lots of things that make the list. You can keep adding to it.

“I want you to highlight the top five to ten things that you're going to commit to tomorrow and here's the thing.”

Just making the brain dump is going to shift something inside of you because you're shifting the mental load for managing it upstairs to putting it on a piece of paper. And so don't be surprised if after doing the brain dump and highlighting what you're going to do you feel a little excited you feel a little motivated and if you feel that way you can grab a few wins tonight.

There's no problem doing some laundry or starting to kind of get yourself organized like if you start to feel like wow feels really good to get this down on paper.

Wow, I'm really proud of myself that I'm taken tomorrow to just plow through all of these things that drive me absolutely bananas. I'm getting excited that I'm getting on top of my life instead of life constantly knocking me down. And now you have set yourself up to hit the ground running to have the perfect life admin day. I'm so excited to explain this to you. You don't also excited about our sponsors. So take a minute and listen to a few words from our sponsors and I also want you to take a minute and either text this episode or email this episode to the people in your life who you feel like you're always doing their life admin.

“You know, your adult kids, your sister, your parents I know you love them, but you're doing an awful lot that they could be doing for themselves.”

Take a minute and send this episode to them because they need the formula for the perfect life admin day because if I can get them to in their life admin, I'm freeing up time for you to do yours. All right, and don't go anywhere because we're jumping right into the five time blocks of the perfect life admin day when we return to stay with me. Welcome back at your friend Mel Robbins today. You and I are talking about the life changing power of scheduling and doing the perfect life admin day. We've already talked about why this matters. We've talked about setting yourself up the night before you've done your brain dump. You've highlighted the things that are really bothering you that you kind of want to prioritize.

“Now you are ready to jump into your perfect life admin day. Now we have thought and researched extensively about how to structure this.”

We've looked at research related to productivity to what's called cognitive load, which is the kind of mental heaviness that you get. We've looked at decision making fatigue. We've looked at research on the best time of day to do things and what I'm about to walk you through is the structure of the perfect life admin day.

And we're going to do our life admin day in five specific time blocks and the first time block of your life admin day is what we call the call block.

And it goes from nine o'clock in the morning to 11 o'clock in the morning. You're going to spend two hours making phone calls and scheduling appointments to set the future you up for success. I want you to sit yourself where you're going to be the most productive. And for me, for me, I cannot do this at my desk. The reason why I can't do this at my desk is because I'm more productive at the kitchen table. I'm less distracted. My computer isn't there. And I, for whatever reason, just tend to move move move move move move through things.

And so wherever you're going to be the most productive to be able to just put your head down and move through the call block. That's where I want you to be. We're going to give you two hours to make phone calls. And here's how I want you to think about this. Now for me personally, I don't like working with a computer calendar. And the reason why I don't like working with a computer calendar when I'm going through a life admin day is it's way too easy for me. I'm highly distractable to jump into Slack to jump into text to all of a sudden be looking at emails. That's not what you're doing.

The way that you're going to be the most effective is if you've got everything that you need when nine o'clock strikes in the morning, you can print out your calendar for the next couple months. That way you don't have to open up your laptop and look because you open up your laptop. You're going to get a text. You're going to look at social media. You're going to start responding to emails that is a death trap.

And by personally, I mean, your physical, mental, emotional maintenance of you.

And here's the pro tip. We're going to start at your head and then we're going to move down. So what's on top of your head? Well, if you have hair haircuts. We're going to move to your eyes. I know some some dumb, but we got to get everything for you, right? Do you need to get an exam? Do you need to get your glasses fixed? You're nose. You're heart. You're gut. You're legs. You're knees. Why forgot your teeth? You're dentist. I want you to really think about yourself. Top to bottom. And here's another incredible tip. You ready? When you call to make your hair appointment or you call to make your eye exam or you call the dentist.

“Call for your manicure. Nails at the end of your hands. Make the appointments for all year. Don't just make it for the next time you're going. Make sure you make the next one to put it on repeat if it's a monthly maintenance.”

Go ahead and schedule it all year if it's an annual appointment. Do this year and next year. This is why I'm always frustrated because if I haven't done a life admin day and I'm calling it the last minute all the freaking appointments are taken by people like you were organized. And so I want you to use that tip. You're not just making one appointment. Hey, well, I got you on the phone. Let's just schedule it out for the rest of the year. So I get my haircut every six weeks. Let's go out six weeks. What week is that? Okay, don't we flip to my calendar and we're going to start with you physically then we're going to move to your stuff.

We're going to talk about insurance. Do you need a book your car to be serviced? Do you need to call the pharmacy or your doctor's office to refill prescriptions? Can you order every day essentials in bulk like toilet paper detergent? Can you set up a subscription that you actually use once you figure out the kind of maintenance and upkeep of you now you're allowed to move on to other things and other people like the vet. Like appointments for your kids that are driving you crazy appointments for your mother. Then we're going to move on to any place that you've been avoiding calling any appointment you need to reschedule anything that you've been saying I'll do it later.

“No, from 9 to 11, you're going to do it now. And if you're somebody who has trouble sitting and just focusing here's what I want you to do is going to sound ridiculous, but I saw it in Instagram, which means it works. You ready?”

You're going to get a leash or a rope or a belt and you are going to tie yourself to your chair. I know it sounds ridiculous, but if you leash yourself to the chair, you will catch yourself every time you go to get up because you're going to want to get up because this is very boring. But the payoff is so incredible to know that this is done that you have bolt these bookings. So you've taken care of it for a year. You got your dog grooming for a year. You got your dentist appointment this year and next year.

You got your well visits for your kids way before sports season. So you get your physicals. You are on top of this. You know, fantastic. You're going to feel by 11 o'clock.

“Holy cow. Now, why does this work? And why are we doing calls first thing in the morning? Because decision fatigue, which is you're just exhausted by the decisions that you need to make, it's the lowest in the morning.”

And these calls create the biggest mental relief because you can bang them out. And if we push them later to the day, a lot of these places are closed during lunch.

A lot of people start having hold times later in the day. And so you doing it first thing in the morning creates momentum. You are leveraging your brains like firepower first thing in the morning.

And avoiding this. A lot of these calls, you've probably been avoiding or forgetting to do for six months. And that's created weight. The second, you just pick up the phone and dial and you schedule it. It's like boom. That's done. Cross it off the list. Boom. Something that you've been avoiding for six months takes under six minutes. You're not going to fix anything. You're not running errands. You're only scheduling. You're only calling. You're only putting things in the calendar for the future one task at a time. When it's done, big checkmark. That's a great win and you move on.

If it requires tools, a car, any emotion, it does not belong in the nine to eleven block. And now I know you're probably thinking, okay, Mel, if I'm doing calls oftentimes you end up on hold. Like if you have to call your cell phone carrier.

Well, you can have some things that are here with you that you can be doing while you're still in the church because I don't want you leave the church because if I tell you to go do laundry, you're now going to get distracted. If I tell you to unload the dishwasher while you're on hold, you're now going to be unloading the dishwasher and then you're going to be making lunch and then you're going to be doing something else. I need you in the chair to get these calls done. But here are some suggestions for what you can do while you're sitting on hold. Number one, you can keep putting other things on the brain.

Number two, you can continue to look forward through your calendar and highlight days that are open for appointments. The other thing that you can do, you can take your kid's school calendar and make sure that it is laid out into your calendar while you're on hold.

“So you have key dates for what your kids have coming up in the next year in the calendar so that as you're making appointments, you have the key dates there.”

If you have a purse or a backpack from work, have it right next to you. If you've got a 30 minute hold, pull that sucker out because you've been trying, you've been dying to like clean it out and get it organized and throw things out. Another pro tip, you can have your laundry basket next to you. You can be folding laundry while you're doing it. Matching socks, anything that you can do in the chair while you're waiting on hold, awesome.

You know, incredible. It's going to feel to look up and it's 11 am and you've made 20 fun calls and you've booked all these appointments and you've taken care of yourself and you're on top of it.

I mean, that alone would be worth the day. Now once you've done all that, once you've got it in the calendar, once you've got the year mapped out, oh my god, give yourself a round of applause.

“Doesn't it feel good? Of course it feels good. Of course, I'm so excited for you. It feels so good and we're just getting started.”

We've got four more blocks to do and the one that we're going to do next is awesome because I'm going to get you out of the house. But don't go anywhere. I want to take a moment so we can hear word for our amazing sponsors. I also want you to take a moment and share this link. Get this out of your feed and send it to everybody that you know that is feeling run over by life. And that's everybody. This conversation, this formula for the perfect life admin day. It truly is a gift that you can give to somebody else.

And I really appreciate you taking the time to do that. And don't go anywhere. I can't wait to explain what the second time block is on your perfect life admin day when we return to stay with you.

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Plus, there's a 30-day money-back guarantee. Here's to your health. Welcome back at your friend Mel Robbins today. You and I are talking about how to create the perfect life admin day. We've already talked about the first time block of the five time blocks. It is the call block. You did that from nine to 11. Good job. Now you can get up out of your chair because we're going to move on to time block number two, which is all about errands. And I love this block, but I want to talk about what type of errands I want you to be running on life admin day.

Because errand block is not doing the errands that you do every week. If you can get to the grocery store every week, we're not going to grocery shop from 11am to 1pm today. Today, I want you to take the two hours and I want you to do all those things that you can't seem to get off your list. And I'm going to give you a bunch of examples of this, okay? We're going to be doing things like dropping off the clothes that have been in the back of your car for the last five months. This is showing up and getting that interview done for the TSA pre-check here in the United States.

And then finally, she just made the five minute appointment work.

That's all it took when she was done. She was you forks. She's like, why did I reschedule this eight times? Do you know how much time it took to think about it to reschedule? No, this is the kind of errand running today. You're going to get the oil change. Because it's been overdue for six months. You're going to go to the DMV and you're going to get your driver's license renewed or your car registration done. You're going to show up at the bank and close that account that you've been meaning to close because it only has $13 in it. And it's just time to do it. You're going to get your voter registration done your flu shot.

You're going to stop by the hardware store and pick up that part that you need or that battery that fits in your dog fence collar and you can't seem to find the right one online.

“You're going to find that one screw size that you need in order to fix something and you can't get it online because you're not quite sure what it is. You need to bring the screw.”

It's been in your car for four months in the cup holder. You remembered every time you put your thermostat on and it wobbles. There's that thing I need to do it. We're doing that today. You're going to drop off the two laptops that have been collecting dust since your kids were in middle school at that local nonprofit. You're going to stop at either hospice regional center and you're going to sign up for the training and get more information. You're going to drop off all the books that you checked out from the local library.

You're going to sign up and take a tour at the gym that you've been meaning to join for six months. While you're there, you're going to set up a free training with someone who works there so you can get a tour and be walked through and understand all the equipment this weekend. You're going to actually mail the Wi-Fi router from your move to months ago.

“And here's a pro tip for your errand block. I highly recommend that whatever errands you are choosing to run today in this two hour block you write it on a post it note. Why?”

Because I know you and the second you get in your car, you're not going to feel like getting your oil changed. You're going to feel like going to your favorite store that's on the same road and wandering the aisles. I want you to keep yourself honest and if you put a post it note on your dashboard in your car or you keep it on your phone as you're riding the subway or walking around the city. You now have your marching orders and you are not allowed to take a detour while I'm in the neighborhood. And this will keep you focused because you only got two hours and you got a lot of stuff to get done.

Soon as this block is done, the errand block it's going to be one o'clock. It's time for lunch and you are going to feel so amazing. Oh my god.

Because at least three to five things that have been haunting you are now done. And if you stopped right here at block number two, this day would have already been worth it. Holy cow because block one was called foam. We got that done. We got your life scheduled out. Now block two foam. We got all those errands done that you don't normally fit into your week. Now we are cooking and that brings me to the time block number three. And we call this the money block. Now don't get all freaked out because I know facing money can be a little confronting.

I remember when my husband and I were struggling the last thing I wanted to do was do a money block.

But here's what you're going to love about the money block because remember our ground rules. There's no judgment.

There's no moral implications. We are just going to use this time block in a way that reduces stress for you. And that helps you get on top of something that's probably really bothering you subconsciously. Okay. And all we're going to do. I love this because the money block isn't about anything other than creating boundaries and power around money in just two hours. And here's what we're going to do. We're going to follow the advice of the world around financial experts that have been on the Mel Robbins podcast.

“We're going to link to all of their incredible episodes so that you can watch them if you want to and really focus in on the specific tactics and advice.”

I'm talking about world around experts like David Bach, Morgan Housel and Tiffany Elege. And Tiffany Elege in particular is very specific about what she wants you to do. But all of them say the same thing. Are you ready? And this is what the money block is for. You can't get control of your money unless you first know where it's going. And that's all we're doing with the money block. That's it from one to three. We're going to figure out where is your money going.

So how about we use the money block to just put up some boundaries to just see where our money is going. So you can be like, I don't think so.

“I think I can do better than this. And so here's the first thing you're going to do in the money block from one to three.”

You're going to print out your monthly bank statement. You get bonus points if you print out two monthly bank statements. And you are also going to print out all of your credit card statements. I'm talking the charge cards. I'm talking store charge cards. Whatever they are, I want you to print all that out and take a deep breath. Nobody's going to make you wrong. I'm telling you to do this because this is what every single financial expert recommends that you and I do. If you do nothing else, but print out your monthly bank statement and your credit card statements and by the way, it might take you two hours because you may not know all your logins.

You may not know which credit card you have just taking two hours to get on top of that you win your amazing. And the reason why this is so important and why I want you to print it out, okay, is because then you're going to take a look at what is going in my bank account and what is coming out.

What are the charges on my credit card? And here's what I want you to do. We're going to take that highlight right and we're going to highlight where your money's coming out.

“Because I think you're going to be really surprised by how many little amounts of money and big amounts of money are seeping out of your bank account every single month.”

Charges and fees you didn't realize somebody's sucking from you. If you see charges, but you don't want to pay anymore, or you're like, what the hell is this or why am I paying for that or what is this for highlight that sucker, okay, because if you have left over time at the end of this money block, which is from one to three, you get extra points for canceling those things that are coming out on a reoccurring basis. I guarantee you, there are things coming out of your bank account and being charged to your credit card that you don't even realize you're paying for.

You may even have a credit card that you have not used in two years. In fact, I overheard my father on the phone when I was visiting him last weekend and he was on the phone with a credit card company, a really big one who's like, hi there, yes, I'm calling because I received two new credit cards in the mail with different account numbers. Both of which charged me a credit card fee for opening up the credit card and I believe that that happened because I spoke to two different representatives who I would imagine each opened up a different account, so they got credit for it.

I want to cancel the one with the higher interest rate and I want to make sure the record show that it was canceled at the card holders request, so this doesn't ding my credit.

I was standing in the hallway like damn, go dad, and then I thought to myself, how many do I have credit cards that I don't know if, like is this, I once had a credit card that I didn't realize had renewed. I had canceled it and somehow in the cancellation of the credit card the renewal came like within 48 hours because this is the other thing you're going to find. When you print all this stuff out, especially credit card, you're going to be like, oh wait a minute, this is about to renew, which means you're about to hit me with the annual fee, I don't even use this thing.

I need to cancel it at my request now or I need to just like do so I need to figure out what to do instead of just letting this stuff run me over. Every single person on our team at one for three studios, every single one of them said there is a streaming service on my bank account or my credit card that I meant to cancel. You have that too, you know, you sign up for something to watch the Olympics or to stream that big event or to watch that movie that just came out. You're like, okay, well, I'm just going to sign up for this streaming service once and I'm going to do the trial offer and then I'm going to cancel and then you forget to cancel.

And then next thing, you know, you're getting build $49 a month every month, this is how you're going to use this time block because this issue is going to come up over and over and over again. That free trial you signed up for that thing that you returned that you didn't get credit for the stuff that's coming out.

“And here's the thing, if three o'clock rolls around and this third block, the money block is now over.”

Just get a folder and put these highlighted things, make sure you sharpie out any account numbers, you don't want that roll in around on a print out. But put all these in a folder and now you can stick that in your purse or your backpack and when you have a lunch break. When you're sitting in traffic, now these are the calls you can make.

And that is our third book. Don't you love that?

I didn't make you do any budgeting. I didn't make you do anything complicated. All I asked you to do in your life admin day is print out your bank statements for a month or two, print out every credit card statement that you can find. So you can see the interest that you're paying, you can see when this thing renews, you can compare it all.

“And then I just want you to look and ask yourself, where's my money going?”

And where are the holes in the leaks? I'm going to plug right now. And simply highlighting it.

Now, empowers you to be able to do that at any moment. You got five to ten minutes to make the call and cancel whatever it is that you're paying for that you don't want.

And there's also so many services that it can help you do this that are free. So you don't have to do this long. I just love this block. And now that we're on roll because you're like, oh yeah, oh yeah, get out of my bank account. I'm taking my money back, man. I know where my money is going. Now we're going to move on to block number four.

Block number four is just like the money block. Only we're going to do it with email. I love this. We are going to unsubscribe from all the emails and all the apps you don't use. I mean, just just think about that for a minute. You're going to take an hour from three to four PM, the email block, delete, delete, delete, delete. I want you to unsubscribe from emails and apps that you don't use.

I want you to unsubscribe and I want you to cancel apps that you don't want to pay for. And I want you to clear out the clutter, the junk, the reoccurring garbage that's in your inbox.

“Because every time something hits your inbox that is meaningless, it takes your attention away from something important.”

And there's even if you're the kind of person that can decide to ignore it in a whatever. It's still drains you. And there's something lazy, just empowering when you're like unsubscribe. You don't get access to me unsubscribe. You don't get access to me. I'm tired of receiving this email. And I felt bad about unsubscribing because it was the mom of my daughter's middle school friend that has started a sub stack. And somehow I've ended up on this email list that I don't want to be on.

And don't want her to see that I've unsubscribe unsubscribe. Let her be disappointed. You do not want to read her thesis on sourdough that she's sending you every week. Let her be disappointed. You are taking your life, your inbox, and your power back. And as we were talking about this as a team, our executive producer Tracy, who's like the poster child.

“It's turning out for needing a life admin day. Sorry to throw you under the bus Tracy, but all the stuff that you're not taking care of is making me feel like I'm a little bit more on top of my life.”

Not a competition. Wait, I just broke a ground rule. I said there was no shame and no moral judgment. And I know you can take it trace and you've been laughing along. But I just want to share something because it's been so awesome to talk about and to create this this episode with our team because everybody has so many stories. About the clutter that is blocking your life and your brain. And as we were talking about the email block, as we were just talking about it, Tracy started unsubscribing.

Check out the list of things. A flourish shop in New Orleans that she ordered flowers for a friend from five years ago. She was on their newsletter list. The gym that she belonged to in high school. That was like 13 years ago. Still on the newsletter list. Don't even get me started when you do a really good thing and you donate to a nonprofit or a political cause. And then you somehow have your email distributed to some super PAC or the national version of the nonprofit.

I realize you're doing good in the world, but dear God, do not give my name to everybody because now you're going to have 500 emails from a cause that you're once excited about. Now you're like, I want to die if you send me another email. What was the other one that you had, Tracy, that was crazy.

Oh, oh, oh, she's basically like, here's another one from a restaurant I ate at once two years ago.

I don't even live in that town or that state, and I'm getting daily updates about the specials that they're offering tonight at this local grill. Unsubscribed, unsubscribed, you don't get access to me anymore. And taking this hour, I kid you not, you feel like you're taking a part of yourself back because you are not everyone and everything and every business and every cause deserves your attention.

My inbox is already overwhelming based on work and my family and the things I'm actually interested in. I'm going to take the hour and I'm going to unsubscribe and in doing so, I'm doubling down on the importance of my focus. I get to say in a world that's trying to steal my attention, what is allowed in my inbox and what's not because you've heard me say before if everything's important nothing is.

“And if you have to scroll through 35 emails that you don't even remember signing up for, you can't find the unsubscribe because it's buried somewhere in the fine print.”

If you have to scroll through those things, they're still draining your focus. So let's just take an hour delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete delete. Oh, don't you feel better already? Of course you do.

And one of the reasons why we left the email block to be from three to four is because first of all, you're probably going to be tired because you've made two hours of calls with the call block.

You've done two hours of errands that you never do in the errand block. You've also taken control of your money and seen where your money is going and you've started to put up very important boundaries and set yourself up to be empowered there in the money block. The email block is the fourth block because, you know, we can kind of do this without any emotion and energy. You're going to start to feel, oh my god, so empowered, you're going to freaking love this, that it's going to start to become a habit. And I also didn't want you to do this earlier because once you're on your phone or your laptop, it is so easy to get distracted.

But I don't want you to get distracted. Don't be responding to texts, don't be responding to emails. This is just about cleaning up your email inbox. Those thousands of unread emails that you probably have, the lists that you got onto from the things that you bought years ago, or that your kids, you bought for somebody for a present and now you're getting all kinds of updates about snowboarding gear and you don't even snowboard.

Just go through, hit and subscribe, and you'll never be emailed again from that address. And now your inbox will be clean for the near future.

Isn't that awesome? Oh my god, you've done so much. Holy cow, are you ready for the final block? The final block of the perfect life admin day. Schedule your next one. That's it. That's it. It takes five minutes. Schedule your next one. And here's from one friend to another. Now that you've done life admin in the way that I've recommended it. And you've gone in the order of the blocks from calls to errands to money to email to now scheduling the next one. You see the power of it. You know the pitfalls. You know how much you can get done. You can schedule it for any day you want. I don't really care because you now know how to do one.

You can schedule it on a Wednesday. You could schedule it on a Friday. You could schedule it on a Saturday if you want. If you have a half day where you're not going into your hourly job or your shift work until the afternoon.

You could take a morning and do a call in an errand block. Boom, that's the power of the perfect life admin day. Now that you understand the framework and the five time blocks, it never changes.

“And you can insert one of these whenever you want. And the more often you do these, the faster you can move through them because every life admin day is helping you stay on top of the things that are important to you.”

And it's helping you clear out the clutter and the distraction and the money wasting things that start to get attached to you. It's the same five blocks done in the same order every single time you do it. So end the life admin by scheduling your next one. And boom, you did it. What can you expect to change after you've done the perfect life admin day? You've done all five time blocks. Well, I'll tell you what. You're going to have a great night because you don't have to do anything. You're going to wake up tomorrow and feel lighter.

“Your weekends for the next couple months are going to feel free because you don't have weird errands that you need to run their haunting you.”

The small tasks that feel impossible stop feeling so scary. You're going to feel capable again. You're going to realize you're no longer behind. And more importantly, you're going to have proven to yourself that no matter how busy and overwhelming life can get, all it takes is one day.

Here's what I would love to hear from you. What's the thing that's haunting you? What is in the corner of your room? What's where you hauling around in the back of your car?

“What is that thing that you cannot seem to get to and you know intellectually it would take you 10 minutes to get it done.”

But for whatever reason you just keep putting it off and putting it off and putting it off because I want to normalize all of these things that drive us crazy and drop in the comments drop in the reviews.

Let us know what is the thing you're most excited to tackle or the dumbest thing you've been putting off that is causing you stress.

I know if you share what you're going to tackle in your life admin day, you're going to make somebody else feel a little less alone and empowered to do the same thing.

“I also want to thank you for sharing this episode in your family group chat. If you're tired of yelling at your adult kids about doing this stuff.”

You learn Mel Robbins, yell at them and explain to them how to do the perfect life admin day and then that way. You can focus on your stuff for your life admin and they as young adults will know how to do their own life admin. And one more thing in case nobody else tells you I wanted to be sure to tell you that as your friend, I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life and taking one day and following this five part framework to give yourself the perfect life admin day.

Holy cow, that is going to lead to feeling so much better. You're going to have a better week, you're going to have a better weekend, you're going to have a better quarter and by God just that one change does create a better life.

Alrighty, I'll see you in the very next episode. I will be there to welcome you in the moment hit by.

I'm kind of at the same thing with towels like when is it like it's just time to spend the eleven dollars and get a new towel. I have one right now that's a white washcloth it's like so full of makeup I'm like why am I keeping this thing. Okay, you're ready. Okay, you're ready. Here we go. Okay, here we go. So now we're remote works but our mouse doesn't work so Cameron. Oh, that let me start by over one more time. Okay, let's do one we're going to go back to the top then Tracy goes okay, let me start one more time because now I'm getting the story. Was it good.

“Okay, okay, great. Are we good? Okay, good. I did not. Okay, okay, that's amazing. Okay, what else should I say?”

Oh my god, that's great. That's great. That's great. That's great. Okay, great. Is that helpful? Did it get what you needed done? Great. Wonderful. Oh, perfect. Great job, guys. Good eight job. Oh, and one more thing and no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician professional coach psychotherapist or other qualified professional got it good. I'll see in the next episode.

This segment is sponsored by Microsoft Copilot. Okay, I need to confess something for years and I mean years. I've been talking about creating a photo wall in my home on this blank wall upstairs. It feels like it's missing something. I've even described it here on the podcast several times and yet every single time I walked by this empty wall upstairs in the hallway I feel this surge of guilt. It's because the idea of doing it totally overwhelms me. Does any of the sound familiar? Maybe for you. It's not a photo wall. But there's something you've been wanting to start or to do, but it just seems like it's too overwhelming to get going or to organize it.

Maybe it's updating your resume or figuring out the right workout routine based on your age based on where you are right now based on how much time you have maybe you want to learn a new language, but you're not quite sure how do you get started and fit it in every day for a couple minutes. Isn't it funny how something that could make your life better is easy to over-complicate? Sometimes the fastest way forward is to ask her a little bit of help, a nudge, a plan someone to say, oh, here's where you can start and when I realized that about this photo wall project something shifted for me.

It's not going to do the work for you. You still got to get the stuff done, but here's what it does. It gets you out of your own way. It helps you get organized and that makes it easier to get into motion. I opened up Copilot and I just spoke to it Copilot.

“I've been dreaming about creating a photo wall in my home. I feel completely overwhelmed. I don't know where to start. Can you help me break this into simple steps.”

Now, the first thing that Copilot did is it came back with a shocking, simple plan. First, it told me stop trying to make 100 decisions at once and it said check this out.

Well, let's pick a theme. A theme. I hadn't even thought about a theme for my photo wall. Copilot gave me four options based on the photos that I had described. Well, you could do family milestones, travel memories, all portraits, just candidates. Suddenly, I wasn't drowning in ziplocks of photos. I had a direction and I had my first step. I can sort these into the theme that I want. Then I uploaded a few and Copilot makes it super easy. You can literally just use the camera part of it to scan the photos.

And I asked it, can you show me options of what's going to look best together on the wall? Then Copilot helped me figure out the layout. I used the vision feature to show it the size of the wall. Copilot mocked up three different arrangements. And then, and this was the best part. It turned the entire project into a step-by-step checklist. Print these photos, hang them in this order, leave this much space in between them. I was so floored. Now, in psychology, there is this concept called scaffolding. scaffolding means you perform better. I know I do. When someone gives you temporary structure, just enough to support you in moving forward.

“I realized that's what happened with Copilot. I didn't need someone to hang the frames for me. I needed structure. Copilot helped me find the structure and the confidence to get organized and begin. And let me tell you what surprised me.”

I printed out the clean grid layout that Copilot made me. And as my husband Chris walked by, he pointed at one of the photos and said, oh my gosh, remember that fishing trip. And suddenly we're telling stories about the memory. We are remembering how little the kids were when we went on that trip. And what was happening in that period of our lives. Copilot is helping me create something that's going to bring me and my family joy every day. Because the things that matter in your life deserve your attention, your energy and your follow through to. So whatever your photo wall is, the project, the dream, the thing you've been avoiding, take it for me. You don't have to figure it out all at once. You just have to take the first step.

“And if you need a little structure, a little clarity, a little much, Copilot will provide the scaffolding and is ready to help you. If you want to try it for yourself visit microsoft.com/mellRobbins to download the Copilot app.”

Get started with Copilot today for free and see how it can help you accomplish something that makes you feel so good. That's microsoft.com/mellRobbins.