💯 Adulting is Easy!
Just follow this simple 100-step daily checklist*
*In this precise order, give or take ten items at a time, or side effects may include: anxiety, irritability, dread, overwhelm, fatigue, guilt, micro-guilt, feelings of defeat and/or numbness. If you have young kids, add ten more items of your choosing—or 20, or 30, or 40—up to you.1
Wake up at 4 a.m., even if you are not a morning person. It’s what adults do. But make sure you’ve gotten at least eight hours of sleep.
Note your sleep score, not how you actually feel. Does it say you are rested? THEN YOU ARE.
WAIT NO! STOP DOOM SCROLLING! Put your phone down until you’ve completed your Miracle Morning Stack.™
Make the bed. Partner still asleep? Quietly make your half.
Meditate for twenty minutes.
Morning Page for another twenty minutes. Hey, stop typing/voice narrating! Handwritten only, JC says.
HEY! I saw you pick up your phone to check your email. Put it back down.
Say the Serenity Prayer and/or any other go-to prayers from your faith.
Repeat a few positive affirmations, such as: I am a successful, responsible adult. I am powerful. I am enough, I have enough. I am destined for greatness. Ignore the critic in your head, smirking as you do this.
Step outside and Wim Hof for at least fifteen minutes.
Make sure you also see the sun for twenty minutes.
Did you put on sunscreen first? If not, dock ten points.
Note the new sunspot on your forearm. Set a reminder for later to make a dermatologist appointment. Google what time their office opens.
Hit that sweet, sweet, glorious “start” button on the coffee maker (or hot water kettle if tea is more your cup of—)
While waiting, finish washing the dirty dishes from last night and/or run the dishwasher. If nothing else, make sure your favorite mug is clean.
Wipe the counter.
Take your morning meds and/or any supplements. Question if the vitamins are all money-leeching placebos. Even if they are, recall the data showing placebos work too. Cease questioning—for now.
Pour that first, perfect, piping hot cup of Survival Serum.™
Stare into space. Worry about what’s due today. Oh wait, you meditated so you wouldn’t have such overwhelming anxiety. Write down what’s due today.
While you’re there, make your first gratitude list. Five things. Bonus if you text it to a gratitude group. Don’t have one? Start one.
Read a book while charging your devices.
Brush your teeth. Make sure you have an electric toothbrush, but not one that’s too aggressive on your gums.
Wash your face. Examine your wrinkles and/or any new blemishes and/or the dramatically increased quantity of grey hairs. Vow to make an appointment with the hair stylist. Eventually.
Do not pop anything. I said DON’T POP ANYTHING!!! Now look what you did.
Take your self/dog for a walk. And/or kids if they still live at home. WEAR YOUR WEIGHTED VEST, it’s not doing any good collecting dust!!
While out, make small talk with the neighbors about the weather. If it’s rainy, complain. If it’s snowing, rejoice. If it’s warmer than expected, be cheerful. If it’s too warm/humid, complain.
Listen to a walking meditation if/as the new day’s anxiety returns.
Listen to a podcast to better yourself in some way. Or at least imagine yourself improving by osmosis.
Call a friend; recalling that connection is essential for happiness and longevity.
Return home; wipe the dog’s paws and/or wash your and/or the kids’ hands.
If needed, replace the dwindling roll of poop bags in your jacket pocket. Order more and/or pause the subscription if your entryway shelf is already overflowing with said rolls.
Work on a creative project for at least thirty minutes before miscellaneous client obligations. Don’t have one? FIND ONE! The world needs your art!!!
When the three staccato audio dots sound, unload the dishwasher; but first stick your head into it, pretending the steam has transported you to a spa where you are now having a free facial.
Clear the dregs of the now-lukewarm coffee. Prepare the coffee maker again for your spouse / partner / roommate. Remind yourself to drink less coffee tomorrow.
Live alone? Place or schedule a second phone call. CONNECT!
Pack your bag to work outside of the house. Don’t forget anything. Bring a tote bag or two for the grocery store, since you’ll need to stop there on your way home.
Prepare breakfast for the cat/dog and/or yourself and/or any children.
Now you may check your email.
F**k. The dread and guilt have boiled over; you see several things you’ve dropped the ball on. Exercise—ideally vigorous cardio—will be mandatory medicine today.
Juggle a to-go coffee while taking out the trash/recycling/compost as you leave the house (bonus points if you grab all three) .
Practice “box breathing” during your commute/work transition. Lose count. Start over. Lose count again. If you have them, drop the kids off at school.
Skim the news. BIG MISTAKE. Shove the generalized world-is-on-fire anxiety back down from whence it came.
Answer the five most pressing emails.
If you’re not already working at a standing desk (SHAME! Resolve to buy one!) stand up every thirty minutes. Bonus points if you’re on a walking treadmill while at your standing desk. Extra bonus if it’s actually on and moving.
Check your posture. Roll your shoulders back. Engage your core. Neutral spine. Relaxed jaw. STOP CLENCHING!
Tackle the next big item on your work to-do list. It takes three times as long as you intended. Where does the time go?
Answer the next five most pressing emails. Note how incredibly you’re falling short across all inboxes. Suppress the guilt rising like bile from your stomach.
Respond to that LinkedIn message from a recruiter/former colleague/person you don’t remember. Maintain at least the facade of professional networking.
“Like” a few others’ posts you catch on the home feed while heading back to your main inbox. Smirk at the inverse relationship between performative humility (#humbled to win this #award) to actual humility.
Scramble to your next scheduled client call. Take notes. Send proper follow-up message afterward.
Check Slack. Respond to your team member’s questions (late, again).
Write and send the overdue thank-you note.
Attend your final meeting of the day.
After you hang up, while you have phone momentum, call to make the dermatologist appointment. Realize that you are dealing entirely with an AI bot voice, and there is no way out of its phone tree from hell. “You are confirmed!” she/it says. “But you don’t even have my contact information!” you reply. “Oh, you are correct,” she/it corrects. Rage boils.
Check your bank accounts. Note the ones on fumes.
Snooze phone reminder that screams, “HEALTH INSURANCE DAMNIT!!!” re: open enrollment closing soon.
Scan the outstanding business invoices. Do the math about what arrives when.
Resolve to follow up with the corporate client ghosting you.
Note by how much—and for how long—you’ll fall short and/or your savings will stretch if they don’t reply. Remind yourself they are not your Source. God/Cosmo/The Universe/Your Higher Power is your Source.
Send the bookkeeper your monthly statements. If already in, reconcile the books to correct any items erroneously categorized.
Ensure that every account set to auto-debit monthly household recurring bills has enough not to overdraft (again).
When you notice there isn’t enough to shuffle around today, panic mildly.
Make a note of all your financial neuroses to discuss with your therapist. This is actually a “spiritual” problem. Right? Right.
Call the health insurance company to dispute the $500 charge for the mediocre therapy sessions their app previously told you were free.
Time for a workout to burn off the bureaucracy rage. Run through a mental checklist of Peter Attia’s Centenarian Decathlon. You have one hour, but you are overdue to work on grip strength, VO2 max, Zone 2 cardio, flexibility, mobility, lifting heavy weights, core stability, free hangs, etc etc etc. Pick two.
Spend at least fifteen minutes in the sauna. What sauna? FIND ONE! BUILD ONE! Live in a city? Get a collapsible $109 steam room tent for your living room! They’re essential for cardiovascular and circulatory health, for reducing the stress induced by this very checklist!
Shower like the adult you are. Exfoliate, moisturize, shave.
Was it a cold shower? No? Dock ten adulting-for-longevity points.
Get dressed. Notice the holes in your socks and the growing chasm on the elbow of your cashmere sweater. Shrug. You’ll send the sweater to the dry cleaner for repair next time you accumulate a big enough pile. Who knows how long that will be? If you were a better adult, you’d sew a damn patch on yourself.
Take yourself and/or your dog for an afternoon walk before the sun sets.
Call another friend and/or a family member. Manage guilt pangs if you don’t, or for the ones you missed. Consider dropping this guilt when you realize the phone works both ways, and it hasn’t exactly been ringing off the hook for you, either.
On the way home from wherever you went for work, buy groceries. With or without the kids. Did you get them from school, or was someone else doing that? Assume all following activities involve kids if you have them. If so, give yourself one hundred bonus adulting points.
Buy a bottle of wine and/or flowers for the house party you’re invited to later this week. Debate catching a cold so you don’t have to go.
Berate yourself for the bill at self-checkout, even though intellectually you know that groceries seem absurdly high for a lot of people right now (up 30% in five years, you discover). This is still somehow your fault. You should have traveled farther, to the discount grocery store, but you didn’t.
When you get home, with hands still full of groceries, sort the mail for your neighbors. Carry yours upstairs with the groceries.
You missed a UPS/FedEx package. Fill out the paper and stick it on the front door.
Once inside, process your mail expediently. Recycle the junk. Open the bills. Make a note to call the health insurance company AGAIN to dispute the other outstanding $550 charge for a simple urine test.
Maybe it’s time to meditate again.
On second thought, reality TV beckons.
Change into sweats. If you live with a spouse, ideally these would be sexy sweats. Fail.
Upon noticing the only “clean” clothes are ratty ones that do not pass the sniff test, start the laundry.
Set up dinner in the Instant Pot and/or Air Fryer and/or microwave. Stop standing in front of the microwave while you wait! Slap together a pre-made salad. “Eat the rainbow!” Feel minor guilt over the beige/yellow foods. Enjoy them anyway.
Add whatever household supply running low to your Amazon account. Impulse add a few more things you don’t need. Schedule it for your consolidated Amazon Prime Delivery Day™ to accrue $3 in digital rewards. Feel smug about this until you realize you just overspent what you intended upon opening the app by $300. On an oligarchic monopoly crushing small businesses, no less. SHAME!
Text back the friends you’ve been meaning to respond to for weeks. Feel horrible, yet totally inadequate at the alternative: actually keeping up with inbound pings.
Clip and/or file nails for yourself and/or kids and/or dog/cat. Is that bacteria in their ear again?
Make vet appointment. Check on the pet insurance claim from the last one.
Feed the dog and/or yourself and/or the kids.
Make sure you get enough protein; it’s good for your bones. Speaking of which, did you lift heavy weights today? No? You forgot? Tomorrow, must do. MUST DO.
Change the clothes in the washer to the dryer.
Note the need for an enriching hobby in your day. Does Reality TV count?
Note the need for “quality time” with a real-life person beyond the coterie of podcast hosts you parasocially hang out with interstitially throughout your day.
Binge a show or ten instead.
When ads interrupt your programming, notice and vacuum errant pet hair and/or general dust bunnies accumulating in the corner. Clock the grime embedded in the floorboard for another time and/or the next time your cleaning person comes. Make a note to schedule that appointment. Someday.
Make sure your devices are charged. If you have an Apple Watch, make sure it has at least 30% or you won’t get a sleep score. AND THEN YOUR ENTIRE DAY TOMORROW WILL BE OFF IF YOU CANNOT BIOHACK YOUR DATA™.
Dim all lights at least two hours before bed. Bonus: wear those dorky indoor orange “blue light blocker” glasses.
Skim the news again. BIG MISTAKE. AGAIN. When will you learn?!
Make your third gratitude list of the day.
Clean out the lint trap in the dryer. Run it a second time so you don’t end up with moldy, half-dried clothes and towels in the morning.
Take your evening supplements and/or meds.
Stretch for fifteen minutes. Bonus: foam roll. Double bonus: torture yourself with a fascia ball while you writhe in pain on the ground.
Brush your teeth (this better be at least your second time today).
Floss. Properly, not just haphazardly poking your gums with a plastic toothpick.
Pull out the threader and floss under the permanent wire on the bottom row of your teeth. I AM WATCHING YOU. Don’t you dare skip this.
Put on your retainer / Invisalign if you have one. If it’s fuzzy, make a note-to-self to drop it in a bowl with a cleaner tablet tomorrow morning.
Check the clothes in the dryer one last time. Are they actually dry? Don’t bother folding them, or even removing them from the machine. But if you were a real adult, you would. You’d put them away, too.
Say the Serenity Prayer and/or any other go-to evening prayers. Recall this morning’s meditation, “Peace isn’t something you find at the end of your journey, it’s something you choose, right here, right now, in the midst of it all.” Resolve to do better / be more peaceful tomorrow.2
Put on a podcast to help you fall asleep. If you were a better adult, you would meditate yourself to bed instead. Barring that, make sure the host and/or guest has a soothing voice, not too many ads. DEFINITELY nothing true-crimey. Do you want nightmares?! Any more than the already guaranteed adulting-related ones?
Wake in the middle of the night. Stumble to the bathroom. Pee. Oh no, the sleep state is slipping, don’t lose it! Don’t lose it or you’ll be up for the next two hours!!! STAY GROGGY!!
You lost it. Head to the living room. Read your book for the next two hours until you are tired enough to sleep again. Comfort yourself with an article on segmented sleep.
Wake up at 7:30 a.m., waaaay past the 4 a.m. club. Oh well. Repeat steps 2-111 above. Replace “dermatologist” with any other doctor or dentist, for you or for a family member. Forever. We haven’t even talked about taxes . . .
❤️
P.S. What did I forget? What else is on your list today?3 Continue reading:
🤬 TMI: When The Responsible Route™ Fails
“A [person] whose enemies are faceless bureaucrats almost never wins. It is our equivalent to the anger of the gods in ancient times. But those gods you must understand were far more imaginative than our tiny bureaucrats. They spoke from mountaintops not from tiny airless offices. They rode clouds. They were possessed of passion. They had voices and nam…
⌛️ Note that this daily checklist requires many more hours than there are in a day. Adulting requires holding this paradox.
🧘🏻♀️No, BE PEACE now! Are you even listening?! Have you learned nothing?!
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omg this is SO REAL!
Nailed it. No notes.