#30 | infrastructure weeks + life admin days

A guest post from Amy Estes of Reading, Writing, Ranting, Recommending

A note from Jenn: today’s post is from my friend Amy who publishes a Substack called Reading, Writing, Ranting, Recommending. We swapped this week, so catch my 1 Thing over there, along with what I’m reading, writing, & ranting about. I’ll be back next week!

Amy wrote really nice things about me as an intro & nearly made me cry; I am afraid I am not nearly as eloquent in expressing my feelings but please know that Amy is one of my favorite people.

I love Amy so much that I knowingly attended her surprise backyard wedding in Sacramento in July 🥵, I have let her borrow my AirPods in spite of my embarrassment about the ear wax situation, and she is one of 2 people I trust to not judge me at a John Mayer concert when he plays In the Blood and I cry.

One of our shared hobbies, and a foundational element of our friendship, is dissecting our favorite things in great detail. I’m so grateful she agreed to this swap ❤️

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I'm so happy to be here this week, sharing my 1 Thing/Week. I know most of you "know" Jenn either online or in person, and let me say, her recommendations really never miss, so I have been agonizing over what to share here that will meet her level of excellence! I considered many things: a personal laminator, my favorite highlighters, the notebooks I'll never shut up about. After much deliberation, I landed on one of my favorite life things: Infrastructure Weeks and Life Admin Days. 

Personally, I find having a body to be inconvenient at best and hellish at worst. I am squeamish about medical procedures, I think dentists are sadists, and in general, I find waiting for appointments to begin to be annoying, and having to do them too frequently makes me cranky, so I utilize Infrastructure Week. 

I define infrastructure as the things that make my body and life functional. Everyone's list might look different, but the concept is simple. I make a list of annoying appointments I need to take care of, and then I try to knock them all out in a short period of time. Historically, I like to designate Spring Break for infrastructure week. This week, for example, I went to the optometrist for an exam and then immediately went and ordered new glasses. I needed to do some returns and go to the UPS Store to mail back my Nespresso pods and some returns, so I got a coffee, saved the new Waxahatchee album to listen to in the car, and made an afternoon of it. I needed to make some phone calls and I set aside a morning to do all of them, rapid-fire. I went to Costco in the middle of the day (a chore I hate doing on weekends) with my best friend (who is also a teacher) so it was a fun hang instead of an annoying must-do. I had a doctor's appointment that I knew was going to require lab work and a small procedure, so I booked an extra-long timeslot and took care of it all in one fell swoop. I booked a haircut and a mani/pedi as my final appointments of the week as a reward. 

Other infrastructure week tasks I have completed in the past: oil changes, reorganizing closets, dropping off donations, scheduling large junk hauls, taking my dogs to the vet or to get vaccinations, banking/financial chores and calls, getting new tires and/or a tire rotation, dental appointments, mammograms, going to the DMV, going to the OBGYN, etc. If I come across things I need to handle that aren't immediate but that I want on my radar, I add them to a running list I keep on my phone. I try to schedule things far in advance to ensure that I get the appointment dates and times I want. 

I know that my schedule as a teacher and the fact that I don't have children (and that I do have reliable health insurance, dental insurance, and vision care!) allows for this, and that it may not work for everyone. I have a friend who does one appointment per month to (as she says) "spread the suck." It's somehow easier for me to look at a week of my life and know that while those days may not be fun, at the end of the week, there will be an extraordinary sense of accomplishment AND the knowledge that most of those things don't have to be done again for a while. I love my breaks and I am grateful for my time off, but I also struggle a bit without things to do, and so I like having tasks to direct my energy to, and also knowing that I don't have to fit them in during times when I am actively teaching. 

A mini-version of this is what I call Life Admin days, which I always schedule for the first Saturday of the month and use to complete a set group of tasks. I use a washing machine cleaner to clean my washer, deep clean the dishwasher, clean out the garbage disposal, give the refrigerator a deep clean, rinse out our garbage cans, break down boxes, and get my car washed. I also use it to check in on our budget, move money and pay bills that aren't on autopay (I'm begging you, companies, it's 2024, GET AUTOPAY), and deep clean the house. 

Lastly, most Sundays, I do a mini-mini-check in: I fill in our calendar for the week, my wife and I decide who is in charge of dinner on which evenings based on our schedules that week. I like to send birthday cards and gifts to friends, and so I'll prepare cards (another hot tip: buy a bunch of birthday / sympathy / congratulations / new baby /new house / wedding cards and have them ready to go!) and get them ready to mail.

I know people who use Notion to track these things, but I use a good old-fashioned list that I laminate (seriously, if this was two things a week, it would be an Ode To My Personal Laminator) and re-use. If I need to update or add things, I keep a list on my phone and make new lists as needed. 

As my 2024 Spring Infrastructure Week comes to a close, I like feeling like I am caring for myself, even if it's in deeply unsexy ways, and feeling like my life is running smoothly. It makes everything else feel so much better, too. 

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