Admin Night, right?

As much as it feels like a clunking old cliché to be fired up by two men talking on a podcast, I got terribly excited when I listened to a recent episode of Roman Mars' always-engaging design and architecture show 99% Invisible.

The programme in question, Your Call Is Important To Us, most definitely ticked my usual boxes in its tales of pernicious, race-to-the-bottom technology & tactics that generally make all our existences slightly worse. In it, journalist Chris Colin explains the myriad ways we end up spending life on hold.

But — hoorah! — he also puts forward a rather lovely way to reclaim a bit of ownership and, I dunno, sanity.

In the same way a book group meets monthly to jointly discuss a novel everyone's read, the idea behind an admin night is to get together and consciously sort through the shit that keeps dropping off our to-do lists, precisely because we're all trudging through treacle all the time. It's about turning "sludge to nudge" as the podcast succinctly puts it.

This felt sooooo appealing to me.

As much as I try to present a facade of someone who's relatively on top of things and at least semi-professional in their daily interactions, behind the scenes is a thinly-veiled shambles.

The unreplied to text messages, the letter to my pension advisor that I have to print, sign and send, the printer ink I first need to order, the subscriptions I mean to cancel or consolidate, the inbox I must clear out, the credit cards I forgot to cut up, the paperwork that sits unfiled, the unsent present for the baby who arrived in May (sorry Michael 😬), the 10,000 emails from the school I really should read, the social events that are never organised, the DIY that doesn't get done, the blog posts that remain in draft. Etc, etc, etc.

So, rather than any lofty new year resolutions that I will no doubt let drift, my plan is to organise an admin night in January and see how it goes.

If you fancy taking part in this collective catharsis, and you're in/around Edinburgh, drop me a line — just hit reply or comment.

Bring a laptop, a bundle of paperwork, some snacks, and a "let's do this!" attitude (even if it's for one night only).

See/hear also:

• Chris's Admin Night article in the Wall Street Journal [paywall]
• Ain't No Party Like an Administrative Burden Party
• Another charming 99PI episode all about Sesame Street

🗄️ Thank you for reading.