Usually when it gets to Friday morning if my weekend is looking low on plans I’ll message everyone I know until I’ve filled as many waking hours as possible from after work on Friday until Sunday evening, often thinking when my alarm wakes me up on Monday morning, “I really should have done X, Y and Z, oh well, maybe next weekend.”

This Friday, however, I tried something different. I had nothing in the diary and I kept it that way. I have to admit that having a whole weekend stretching ahead of me with zero social plans to break it up felt a little uncomfortable but with life admin piling up it was get on with it, or start the slippery slope towards a spot on one of those TV programmes where people haven’t thrown anything away for so long they’re in a danger of being killed by their own clutter.

What was surprising was how much I actually managed to get done.

On Friday evening after finishing up a feature I caught up on Great British Bake Off from earlier in the week (yes, I know this isn’t exactly a chore, but I wanted to ease myself into my weekend of tasks). I hadn’t managed to avoid spoilers and so I knew who was going to be crowned star baker and who was going home but it didn’t spoil my enjoyment one little bit.

Waking up early on Saturday morning I started the day with a hot yoga class. After a sweaty stretch I dropped in at a nearby nail salon and had my four week old gel manicure – which was peeling off unattractively – removed and treated myself to a much-needed pedicure, my first this summer (did someone say, “Actual chore avoidance!”?).

Back home I gave my flat good clean and did various little jobs many of which have been on my to do list for ages such as buying a light bulb to replace the one in the bathroom that blew weeks ago (it’s quite hard to tell how good a job you’ve done of taking off your make-up by candlelight, let me tell you), replacing the batteries in the doorbell (I’ve been instructing people to text me when they get here for months) and putting the kitchen clocks forward (yes, really, I can never remember how to change the one on the cooker and have to dig out the manual, which always seems like an awful lot of effort).

Clothes admin was next on the list. While I’m good at keeping on top of washing, when it comes to ironing and putting away I’m, well, not so good. Most mornings I have to try to locate what I want to wear from a teetering pile (it’s always at the bottom) and then, once found, I give it a glancing iron seconds before leaving the house. If it sounds stressful, try living it. This weekend I ironed enough outfits for the work week ahead, sorted and dropped off a pile of stuff at the dry cleaners, put everything that was left in the appropriate cupboard or drawer and even replaced a long-missing button. I spent the rest of the day working on a feature.

On Sunday morning I woke early and booked myself into a yoga class at my favourite yoga studio, which is happily located on Columbia Road, home of the weekly Sunday flower market. Post class I wandered through the market and on the way home stopped off for brunch at a new café that just opened close to my flat.

Back home again I filed another feature before having a break to sort out the large pile of magazines that had built up over the last couple of months, ripping out interesting features and putting the rest in the recycling bin. I spent the rest of the afternoon doing some research, preparing for a meeting, replying to emails and paying bills. I have to admit I was starting to feel a bit, well, in need of a change of scenery, so when a friend texted to suggest going to the cinema followed by a bite to eat I readily accepted – seeing Southpaw has been on my to do list for weeks and a balance of chores and fun is the ultimate well spent weekend, right?

Despite boredom setting in on Sunday I think I’ll try to do a weekend of admin once a month or so. Or perhaps half a weekend. I have to admit that it was nice waking up on Monday in a tidy, organised flat with a choice of oufits to wear, features written, meetings prepared for, bills paid and so on. Anyone else do a big admin blitz every now and again or are you more a little and often kind of person? And what jobs do you do every weekend to start the week off right? Do share below.

*I believe the actual phrase is a Sunday well spent brings a week of content, but that didn’t work as well.