This isn’t the first time I’ll be confessing my love for productivity and planning video’s on YouTube. It’s a rabbit hole I greatly enjoy falling down every now and again, and my most recent find in this category is the Muchelle B. YouTube channel. This young lady has a rapidly growing channel full of concise, actionable and to-the-point videos packed with valuable productivity and life improvement advice. One of the concepts she talks about that spoke to me most, is that of taking a reset day regularly.
A reset day is completely dedicated to taking some weight off your shoulders, and getting some clarity of mind. At the end of it, you should feel like you’re back to a clean slate and relieved of all the pesky little thoughts that have been floating around your brain, the tasks you’ve been putting off for too long, and the things you’re desperately trying not to forget. I’ve implemented this concept and it has been a great help for both my personal and professional life. This is how I like to go about my reset days.
Spot Clean the House
A cluttered space equals a cluttered mind. Whenever my home is messy, I simply can’t work distraction free or truly relax, being visually reminded of everything I still need to do. The first step towards resetting is getting your physical space in order. However: don’t try to tackle everything now. You could probably easily spend a few days cleaning your house top to bottom and doing all the maintenance tasks, but that’s not the point of a reset day. Make a list of everything that needs to be done around the house, and take on a few of those tasks which will make the biggest impact. Make the bed, do the dishes, tidy & wipe down surfaces, clean the toilet and dust/vacuum the most frequented areas. Schedule in all the other tasks that need to be done in your calendar, either into one full day that you’ll dedicate to this, or into a few segments spread across several days.
Empty Your Inboxes
An inbox containing a couple hundred unopened emails is a horrible thing to look at. Trust me when I say there’s nothing better than having an empty inbox, next to a list of neatly categorized archives. To get there as quickly as possible, delete any emails that are more than two months old and still unread. Also delete all emails you’ve read and won’t need to refer back to. Create a folder for every category of emails you want to keep (such as work, family, shopping, sports club) and archive anything that contains useful or important info into its own folder.
Next, go through your physical mail and paperwork. Recycle anything you don’t need or want, and deal with any mail or paperwork that needs dealing with straight away. Think bills, important receipts, insurance letters… Scan as much of the paperwork you need to hold on to as possible. If there’s no need to keep the physical copy, digitizing it can be much more efficient.
Do A Brain Dump
Sit down with a notebook, piece of paper or word document on your laptop, and write down everything that pops up in your mind. All the things you’re trying not to forget and that keep creeping up on you at unsuitable times. All the little tasks and errands you need to do at one point, but that aren’t super urgent (or are, but you’ve just put off doing). Make a note of the person you promised to give a call but haven’t yet. The birthday or anniversary that’s coming up. The bike that needs a tire replaced. The movie your friend recommended you watch. Everything. If you need a bit of assistance, you can use a trigger list which will help you remember things you may have forgotten about. This one is taken from the book Getting Things Done by David Allen. Be careful when using a trigger list though: make sure you don’t overflow your brain dump with things that weren’t actually on your mind and/or bothering you in the first place. The goal here is to tackle things you were already planning to do, not to create more work.
Make Lists
Go through your brain dump, and see if there’s anything actionable in there. Make lists of all the things you need to do or remember, sorted into categories that make sense to you. Categorizing like that will make sure you don’t end up with an endless to-do list that’s daunting, chaotic, and illogical. I like having lists such as “cleaning”, “books to read” and “gift ideas” for example, as well as a generic list of to-do’s that don’t need their own category. Keep these lists in a place where you’ll be able to easily refer back to them, whether that’s a physical notebook or a digital to-do app. I’ve recently started using Google Keep and I have to say it’s quite wonderful for this purpose. If anything in your brain dump is an appointment you need to remember or to-do that has a strict deadline, write it down in your calendar.
Tackle Quick To-Do’s
If there are any to-do’s on your lists you can complete in 10 minutes or less, do them now. Book the dentist’s appointment. Write the birthday card. Order the new toaster. Sew the button back onto the winter coat. Cancel the subscription/membership you don’t use. Clear out your handbag. Tackle as many of these small tasks as you can. These are probably things you’ve been putting off or meaning to do for a while, and clearing them all in one fell swoop feels amazing.
Review Your Goals
Once you’ve cleared all of these annoying little things that were floating around in your mind and have gotten them to a safe place where they can’t be forgotten (or have taken care of them straight away), there’s space to take a look at your bigger, long-term goals. Go over the goals you have for your life short-term and long-term, decide whether they’re still what you want, and see how you’re doing within the timeline you had in mind for them. Start a list of all the actions you need to take to reach or get closer to your long term, bigger goal. If you can, schedule doing those things into your calendar for set times in the future right away. Remember that any big thing you want to do actually consist of lots of little things, and now’s as good a time as ever to start taking the first steps.
Muchelle takes a reset day weekly, but I personally feel like that would be a bit much for me and don’t see that I could fit them into my schedule so regularly. For me, once a month will do just fine and is a much more attainable frequency. However, having a set, recurring moment when you go through all these steps can provide a lot of mental calmness and security. It makes me feel really good to know I’m staying on top of things and nothing I should be doing can be put off for too long or slip away unnoticed.
Is a reset day something you’d consider adding to your life?
Today women work less in our homes than in the 70s and 60s. Men work more in their homes today. I will say that a reset day once a week is healthy for both women and men. To work around 4 hours a day is enough for house work like cleaning, dish, fix clothes and tidy. If we work 40 h a week, it is better to do house work in the weekend. I cannot fix house work and go to work same day except for dish sometimes. A reset day is good for preparing for a goal you have whatever it is. Emails are often unread, but every Monday I use one hour in the morning. Enough to find bills and important messages. School mails depends if you study a program or only a modul. But I recommend to read them at school, or twice a week at home. If you have a deadline you need 14 days for small tasks before it ends. Students always struggle with time to tidy etc., but to set a goal you need for fix it. I read Marie Kondo book about school documents yesterday. She writes that throw all documents you do not need this semester. This is exactly what I prefer to do. And other papers as well this spring. I will do this every Monday 3 h after 1 h email. Tuesday I have lecture podcast or to join the lecture. A reset day is fine Wednesdays for me to clear my mind conc. bad habits or do the dish etc.
I’d absolutely consider adding a reset day into my schedule. I instinctively do a chaotic version of a reset day every week or so. I love this more streamlined and intentional version you’ve described. I think it will be much more productive and calming this way. Thank you!
I realised it’s something I have been doing for a long time too, but before I started following this list it always felt rather panicky and I needed a certain level of anger to start doing it, haha! Definitely more calming this way 😅
Yes, anger is exactly what triggered my “resets” previously too! Haha. This is so much more intentional and systemic. The biggest take-away for me was your idea of organized lists. Ever since university, I have a habit of “unloading” my brain onto paper when I get overwhelmed. It’s rather unproductive, though, because then I have exactly what you described: an endless to-do list that just nags at me and has no hope of being finished. It’s only temporarily relieving that way. I’m looking forward to this new method of categorized lists! :-) Oh and one thing I also do when clearing our digital and paper mail: unsubscribing from junk. It helps me a lot, by cutting down on the volume of incoming junk emails and paper mail.
Love your posts so much!