The Power of Dreams and Motivation in Business and Life
When business gets hard, motivation isn’t enough. This is about using your dream as a North Star—and why it still matters even when you already have enough.
Why Administrative Work Is So Exhausting
A reflection on why administrative work feels so exhausting, from endless forms and follow-ups to account setup and paperwork—and how to keep it from consuming your life.
Why Administrative Work Is So Exhausting
Yesterday I spent an hour getting a voided check.
Not because I needed a voided check.
Because a software company needed a voided check.
First I needed a bank letter.
The bank letter wasn't acceptable.
So I went to the bank.
The line was too long.
I drove to another branch.
Got a check.
Voided the check.
Scanned the check.
Emailed the check.
An hour later I had successfully transformed a check into a PDF.
And somehow this counted as work.
The older I get, the more I realize how much of adulthood is maintenance.
Not creation.
Maintenance.
The Hidden Administrative Burden of Adulthood
When we're young, we imagine adult life differently.
We imagine building things.
Starting businesses.
Raising families.
Taking trips.
Learning skills.
Making memories.
What nobody tells you is how much of life gets consumed by maintaining the infrastructure behind those things.
The internet account.
The insurance policy.
The tax document.
The software subscription.
The permit.
The bank verification.
The password reset.
The follow-up email.
The follow-up to the follow-up email.
The work is necessary.
But it rarely feels meaningful.
Why Administrative Work Feels So Draining
I can spend an hour cooking and feel energized.
I can spend an hour walking in the woods and feel refreshed.
I can spend an hour helping a customer and feel productive.
I can spend an hour coaching baseball and come home smiling.
But an hour spent navigating bureaucracy feels different.
Because nothing was created.
Nothing was improved.
Nothing was experienced.
The machine simply continued operating.
Administrative work keeps life from falling apart.
But it rarely feels like living.
The Difference Between Maintenance and Meaningful Work
The trap is that maintenance never ends.
There is always another form.
Another renewal.
Another account.
Another document.
Another problem to solve.
Maintenance expands forever if you let it.
One day you look up and realize you've become the caretaker of your own life instead of the creator of it.
You're spending all your time preserving the machine and none of your time enjoying what the machine was built to produce.
Meaningful work feels different.
You cook a meal and people gather around the table.
You coach a team and watch kids improve.
You help a customer solve a problem.
You write something that connects with another person.
The result isn't just that the machine kept running.
Something was created that didn't exist before.
A Simple Way to Keep Administrative Work From Taking Over
Lately I've started putting things like this on my to-do list:
- Play guitar
- Go for a walk with my daughter
- Cook dinner
At first that sounds ridiculous.
Why would I need a reminder to do things I enjoy?
Because administrative work already has a system.
Meaning doesn't.
The emails will always find me.
The paperwork will always find me.
The bureaucracy will always find me.
The things that matter need to be protected.
A few months ago I wrote about a "death clock" and the idea that our days are finite. Not in a morbid way, but as a reminder that time is the one resource we never get back. If you'd like to read it, you can find it here: Death Clock: Carpe Diem.
Administrative work has a way of making us forget that. It convinces us that maintaining the machine is the same thing as living.
It isn't.
Part of adulthood is maintenance, and there's no escaping it.
The bank forms need to be completed.
The internet account needs to be established.
The bills need to be paid.
But I've started to think that our real job is making sure maintenance doesn't consume the entire day.
Because at the end of your life, nobody is going to ask how efficiently you uploaded a voided check or how quickly you got the internet account approved.
They'll ask what you built.
Who you loved.
What you created.
Where you wandered.
And whether you remembered to enjoy the life you spent so much time maintaining.
That's a theme I've come back to before in Enjoy the Life You Have. The challenge isn't keeping the machine running. Most of us get pretty good at that.
The challenge is remembering why we built the machine in the first place.
The machine needs maintenance.
But the point of the machine is to produce a life.
Know what's enough. Build what matters.
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