“This is the book I thought I didn’t have time to write,” says Ms Elizabeth Emens in the introduction to her book The Art Of Life Admin. “It is also the book you think you don’t have time to read.” If you’re the kind of person who starts a to-do list only to stop after two entries because you’ve been distracted by your smartphone, this book will become your admin manual. Really though, it’s a book for anyone struggling to make headway with the daily time-clutter of emails, requests, appointments and jobs. All of us, then.

The admin Ms Emens speaks of encompasses everything from paying bills and making doctors’ appointments, to sending a report to a colleague and booking a hotel for a business trip. How you manage life’s little chores, depends on your “life-admin type”: “super doers” (those who get it done), “reluctant doers” (who get it done, but would rather not), “admin deniers” (who bury their head in the sand) and “admin avoiders” (pretty much anyone who has ever rearranged their desk drawer instead of doing their tax return).

The Art Of Life Admin isn’t about how to shirk your tasks or cut corners, it’s about getting on top of it so you have more time for the fun stuff, and executing it efficiently so you don’t need to redo it a week later. Too busy dithering to read the book? Here are five ways to master your life admin right now…

If you ask a colleague to arrange a business trip, but they return to you for approval at every stage, you’ve experienced what Ms Emens calls “stickiness”. Admin often stays with the rule maker (it was your idea for the trip, so you should sign it off), but “admin can also be redirected to places you choose,” says Ms Emens. This means delegating and pushing back quickly when a task “boomerangs” back to you. So, the next time you get lumbered with managing the minutiae of a stag do because you made the classic error of offering to book the flights, fight back by divvying up each task to different people within the group. Don’t be tempted to check in on progress and if you start to become the go-to guy, politely explain you’re too busy and you trust their judgement (or just ignore the emails and WhatsApp messages). It might take longer at first, but eventually the new roles will “stick” and you’ll be able to spend the entire stag do drinking cocktails rather than acting like a harried parent.

Every time Ms Emens pursues a goal, she asks this: “What role does admin play, or could admin play, in a problem or its solution?” Think of it as a pre-mortem to identify problems before they arise. The answer might be a spot of “upfront admin”: a small amount of effort at the outset in order to prevent extra responsibility further down the line (such as scheduling a team meeting for the same time every week so there’s no need to chase up colleagues). If you’re planning a party, make sure you have a “super doer” as your wingman rather than a taxing “admin avoider”, who will likely boomerang everything back to you. Trivial admin, known here as “sludge”, can be a force for good. If you’re trying to lose weight, but your monthly meet up with friends often ends up in a burger joint, make default reservations at a healthy restaurant instead. You’ll need to create sludge if you want to change it – by phoning to cancel one reservation and booking another – but hopefully it will be enough to make you stick to your resolutions.

Admin Study Halls (ASH) turn “an experience that is usually isolating and even lonely into something collaborative, supportive, social,” says Ms Emens. Any sort of life admin can take place in an ASH, from tax returns to bill paying. It may seem extreme, but if you tackle dull tasks alongside others, you are more likely to complete them, plus there’s a group of like-minded people around you should you need to bounce ideas around. An ASH should take place within a group – either in real life or online – with an agreed structure of how the time will be managed. Your ASH could be in a work meeting room every Friday afternoon, with 10 minutes of chat at the beginning, 50 minutes of your personal admin tasks and the end marked with tea and cake or a trip to the pub. Need to do personal admin? Friends with several admin-haters? Organise a monthly ASH at a decent brunch spot, thus allowing you to sort out your life admin while simultaneously drinking Bloody Marys. An Intentional Study Hall (ISH), on the other hand, is more solitary. You should set a specific time and place, as with an ASH, but, you will be focusing on something like practicing a speech, booking car hire for your next holiday or setting up your complex new smartwatch.

Find something you love and make it a habit is an idea you might see on gym walls, but it applies to admin, too. From getting the satisfaction of striking tasks off a list to clever organisational systems, Ms Emens says we can all find at least a small bit of satisfaction in life admin. Rolling your eyes? Make your to-do lists in a crisp new William & Son leather notebook if you don’t believe us. Ms Emens suggests experimenting with admin apps (see Todoist, any.do, Evernote and Expensify), paper notebooks, collaborative admin (like an ASH) or solo (like an ISH), until you settle on an approach that you enjoy, or at least don’t dread. Once you’ve found what works, the task of admin should feel less like punishment and more like satisfaction.

The admin type we all want to be, but rarely are, “super doers” are highly efficient people who get life’s little tasks done without drama or delay. Here’s how. Firstly, says Ms Emens, they optimise: a way of utilising tech and services to help them get on top of admin. Try using shared calendars with your partner so you both have to take responsibly for taking the cat to the vet and getting the car serviced. Utilise online bill-paying apps to speed up the process, try out money-pushing apps such as Venmo or Cash App and always take photos of information rather than writing it on scraps of paper. Super doers pay real and virtual assistants to do the jobs they can’t face, from laundry and cleaning, to holiday planning and shoe polishing. Of course, the key to becoming a true super doer is possibly the hardest task of all: you have to actually enjoy admin. Good luck with that.