Now that I’ve been pivoting back into freelancing full time, I am dusting off a lot of my old systems. One of my favorites – Admin Day!

What is admin day?

Admin Day is a full day where you don’t do anything else but take care of your freelance business. You prioritize all the things that you need to do on this day, especially things you have been putting off because you have more pressing client work to do.

We try to make time to do our own thing most days. But it’s hard! What’s the old phrase? “The cobblers kid’s never have shoes!”

Why does it help freelancers?

As a freelancer, you want to take one day out of the month to treat yourself like a client. Don’t schedule meetings or deadlines for this day. Instead, throughout the month, compile a list of things to do that help keep your business running.

I like having Admin Day at the beginning of every month. It is a really helpful habit to build when you first start freelancing. However should be something you do every month no matter how long you’ve been in business or how much stuff is automated. 

Scheduling out Admin Day helps you prioritize your own growth and organization. It helps you set boundaries and build good, repeatable systems.

Some ideas to fill your Admin Day

Your Admin Day tasks will definitely vary. There is no one type of freelancer – we are all different! I develop my Admin Day schedule based on my own business needs. But the great thing about Admin Day is that it can be built completely depending on your needs! And you can change it up month by month depending on what is on your plate.

Here are some ideas for things you can do on Admin Day:

Bookkeeping

These days most of us have automated bookkeeping tools to help us keep strong records. If you don’t, or if there are pieces you want to do manually, Admin Day is a great day for that.

Review any payments from the last month and make sure your records are up to date. Build a budget for yourself for the next month. This will really really help come tax time. Speaking of, Admin Day is a good day to do quarterly taxes!

Website Review

Take this time to do a good, strong audit of your website. Test all the forms and links on your site to make sure they are working how you want. Add and remove content that needs to be added or removed. Take a backup of your site if you don’t already have one from the last few weeks.

Social Media Planning

A big problem that many freelancers share is marketing yourself. Most of us are not that comfortable selling our services or products on social media.

On Admin Day, develop some simple content that you can schedule out over the next month. Do you have a sale or event coming up? Maybe you’re speaking at a conference or will be selling items at a farmers market. Take this time to schedule out some social media content to promote those things. Or just schedule out some links to your best content.

No matter what you post, scheduling a batch of content at the beginning of the month will help your social media presence remain consistent.

Content Creation

Blogging is a great way to build out content on your site and develop sharable info for social. I can’t tell you how many freelancers I’ve spoken to who lament not having time to blog more consistently.

Writing a quick blog post on Admin Day can help you with a more consistent content calendar. It doesn’t have to be that huge guide or lengthy ebook you’ve been thinking about. Something short, sweet, and simple will do.

(I’ll let you in on a secret – I wrote this entire post on an Admin Day!)

And it doesn’t just have to be blog content. Maybe you want to email your newsletter subscribers or record a video for your YouTube channel. Whatever content you want to provide consistently, use Admin Day time to develop it.

Cleaning

Yes, cleaning! Clean and disinfect your workspace. Wipe down your computer screen. Clean out the keys on your keyboard. It will feel so good afterwards!

Also, clean up your virtual workspace. On Admin Day I like to clean out my computer files and delete anything I no longer need. I’ll neaten up my Google Drive and email inbox as well. This helps make day to day work throughout the next month much smoother.

Research

Freelancers are life-long learners. On Admin Day, spend an hour learning something new. Read those articles you’ve saved and never read. Watch a video course and learn a new skill. Read that ebook you downloaded a few weeks ago. Whatever you do, take some time to brush up on your skills! Your clients will thank you for it in the long run.

Accountability

Admin Day is a great day to schedule accountability calls. Chatting with another freelancer can reinvigorate you, excite you, give you new things to think about, and transform your perspective.

The benefits of an accountability call deserves its own post, but reserving the time on Admin Day for those calls is a good idea. That way you have time to do some deep thinking about that call, rather than hopping directly into client work afterwards and forgetting half of what was said.

Internal Building

How many times have you thought to yourself, “I should really build out that new service” or “I really need to review and update my contracts?” Probably a lot. But freelancers rarely have time to do that kind of stuff!

Enter Admin Day! Spend the time to do some deep work on your professional growth and fine-tuning.

Reporting/Analytics

I love using Admin Day as a checkpoint for a lot of my work. Use this day to build out a small internal report for yourself. It can include things like website traffic, social media engagement, sales growth, etc.

I’m a huge fan of visual information, so I love building out some simple graphs and charts to view my growth. After a year of freelancing, I guarantee you will love seeing how much you’ve accomplished over that time.

It’s up to you what you want to do with that information. It might inform strategy moving forward. It might be how you track specific goals. Or maybe it’s just nice to have.

Gimme your thoughts!

The list does not end here! I’m sure there are tons of other small things you’ve been putting off. Have one list that you can update throughout the month, pick your day, block it off, and get to work!

Do you do some form of Admin Day? What activities did I miss? Let me know in a comment!