If you don't consider life admin to be a thing...

I've worked all my life and brought up 3 kids while working ft. With a DH also working ft. However when the youngest had a health crisis and mum got dementia in the same year, my ability to do all the admin around those things, and do a full on full-time job vanished. So I'm a good use case.

Im now what you might call a SAHM, helping DD get through her GCSEs when she is only able to attend achool half the time. And sorting the carers round at mum's place.

It doesn't feel like I'm working productively at all. It feels like my whole life has gone, and has been replaced with only the life admin. Like a hollow pretend life, pleasant but as meaningless as toddlers playing shops.

I'm not making a meal of any of the tasks and I am efficient - because, you know, it's actually not as hard work as prepping for and chairing an investors' meeting while taking calls and managing a business or whatever.

But it does take a decent 35 hour week, sometimes more.

Some of that is by choice - I just said to older DD, call me when you're at the station i will come and get you. If I was at work this afternoon I would not have been able to make that offer, and she would have got the bus with no drama. So care work and life admin does expand to fill the space - but then, every bit of it is actually making life easier for someone, so there is always a rationale for fitting it in rather than sitting around on mumsnet (haha).

OK, and if they took up far, far more of your time would you think them worth labelling then?

These things take up such a tiny proportion of my time, they are not worth labelling.

What's 'life admin' though?

Isn't it all part of life? I sort my bills out when they come up for renewal and everything is on direct debit, so when the renewal letter comes I spend 10/15 minutes on a call haggling for a cheaper deal.

Shopping is just a part of life. So I do a list when I need to go.

I'll occasionally block out time in my work calendar to make a couple of calls otherwise my phone is on speaker next to me whilst I'm working.

Life admin to me is shredding all the bloody letters that I've stuffed in the drawers because they have my details on.

I’ll happily admit our busy bits of admin are mainly self inflicted, I do however envy the parents who have one app they go to for school interactions. I have 2 kids at 2 different schools that don’t use one app for everything so we need to check parent pay, school grid, gateway, class dojo and google classrooms plus youngest gets stuff set in separate maths/English apps and gets things sent home as physical letters. Unsurprisingly that’s more effort than all being in one place even if the amount of things you need to ultimately respond to is identical.

I didn't have someone there with me from the start ( army partner who didnt even meet with his child till she ws over 4 months) so it was just a normal to me. I was 20 at tgphe time

Then we split up with 2 kids only having lived in same house for under a year, so I just carried on as I had previous 4 years. Easier with him not there tbh.

People have different standards about things. So for example, if you are aiming to save every penny and you therefore shop around at Aldi and Asda and you try to go at particular times of day to get the bargains, that will take you longer than if you just do a weekly online Tesco shop. Or you might only buy stuff that is in season and local and free of packaging because you are concerned about the environment. Again that will be a lot more work than just a weekly Tesco shop.

As you say, these are lifestyle choices. Like the pp who says she doesn't bother doing any of the school admin. That's a legitimate choice and will probably make your life easier.

I thought it was well understood that being a single parent is hard. If you don't find it hard, good for you, but I think a lot of people find being responsible for absolutely everything quite full on.

Yeah I agree that that would also be ridiculous, and different lifestyles do play into it somewhat. There have been several past threads where it’s all got a bit out of hand - my favourite was the person who could only work part time because they needed a whole day to go food shopping and put it away. I think there’s a lot to be said for “if you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.” In my experience people with less to do will drag out small tasks or perform tasks in a more inefficient way.

Is anyone saying that? Really?

Is it not more accurate to say that people are pointing out that different lifestyles and circumstances carry different requirements in terms of how much time and effort has to be used to get this stuff done?

I find those saying life admin is not a thing because it only takes them two minutes per week as ridiculous as those who deny period poverty exists because they only have to buy one packet of super light tampons per year 🙄.

Life admin is definitely a thing, I just don’t understand how much time some people are allegedly spending on it. This is primarily something I see from people who don’t want to work or want to work less. The concept of needing a day or more for life admin makes me laugh - just say you don’t want to work full time, that’s a personal choice and no one’s business. Don’t make out that banking and changing your home insurance over once a year, etc, requires part time hours.

It does absolutely show the differences in our lives, it's what I love about MN.

I can imagine for some people, like you, it is longer than 10 minutes and is very stressful. I don't have any ongoing health issues etc that requires my attention so I imagine, compared to others, that I have minimal jobs to do.

I've put plans and steps to make things as easy as possible for me, I do things at the same time. I use my morning break to add groceries to my click and collect from my list so that I don't have to spend 30 minutes in one go. I don't have lots of down time so when I do have it, I want to do something I enjoy.

You see my admin takes a lot longer than 10 minutes a week. It takes longer than 10 minutes a day. The mental load takes up longer. And it does stress me out.

I think perhaps this thread shows just how unempathetic people are on MN - different things make different people stressed. I do feel anxious about my to do list. It definitely makes me feel stressed and overwhelmed sometimes. But I can stand up in a room with 100 people in and give a speech, I can give an interview on live television and enjoy it, I can walk into a room where I know no-one and talk to people. I can answer my door after 9 pm and not be stressed, I have no problem cooking a Sunday lunch for 20 people, running down the street in my leggings or flying in a plane to places where I'd have to drink bottled water. all things which people on here seem to spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about.

But why would anyone sort another adults stuff? If someone agrees to it then no cause to moan. Otherwise adults can deal with their own stuff. When I was married I never sorted stuff like his car or his parents. Why would I? He's a grown man. If he hadn't sorted his stuff out then that's his issue.

Well OK some of the jobs are shared - one lot of home insurance, one lot of household bills. But if you're breaking it down you're often talking about doubling the workload in other areas. Two cars equals two lots of insurance, servicing, MOT etc. Two sets of life insurance too, two sets of medical appointments. Without making this a sexism issue, depending upon how you divide your household labour, two sets of present/card buying, invitations, travel plans etc. Yes, in some households each person sorts themselves out but in some others that's one person's job (either because the other won't do it or because they've agreed upon that being that one person's job).

According to others on this thread making a medical appointment in the UK is a two minute job. I think that's where you get the divergence - if your experience really is that something like that is very quick and easy, two minutes, then I can see you wouldn't understand why others struggle. For those of us for whom it's not so streamlined, they think we're making a mountain out of a molehill, but if every time they tried to do one of those two minute jobs it turned into an hour or more then I think they'd also get frustrated.

I'm not sure if you're deliberately not understanding? Fortunately for my husband I love him, but unless I really put my foot down I have a bunch of stuff to do that I wouldn't need to if I were single. My financial affairs, family stuff, even Christmas arrangements and so on would be much simpler if I didn't have to take another adult into account. I am fond of my inlaws too and would feel bad if they never saw us or heard from us.

Someone wrote a book about it: "Wife work."

That sounds v stressful.

Mind you, this morning I had to set an alarm to make sure I filled in an e-consult for my GP on the dot of 8am (5 minutes late and you can't do it as it's full) and then wait 3.5 hours, phone in hand, for a call back, then drive to the practice to pick up a paper form, and now we wait to be sent an appointment (in what format I know not but I can guarantee it will NOT be in the remaining week of school holiday - DH and I are teachers so time off in term time is a PITA). Or I can ring a number (that probably won't be answered) to try to change it.

That's for a blood test needed by a 12 year old. In 2 months apparently she can access the adult service which is at least bookable online.

The NHS creates plenty of life admin and the services are generally "like it or lump it", although without the payment element (except when you give up and pay for whatever it is privately - can't really do that with kids though).

Ok so what sort of " admin" is caused by another adult? I mean bills, car insurance etc is tge same whether there's one or 2 adults. As gor the " ignored" well again that's no more stressful than another adult not being around

Of course not - but people in that position aren't dealing with "admin" caused by, or ignored by another adult - another adult who could be lightening the load.

People (mostly women) think they're signing up for a partnership and find it's not.

My "life admin" jobs are boring but they have to be done. Like ordering my weekly online shopping. As a single childfree person I try to keep them to a minimum. I dont buy christmas or birthday presents nor do I send cards so that does away with a load. I avoid neighbours and anyone who might ask me to do something for them. All my regular bills are on direct debits. As for correspondance most letters get thrown in a pile unless I recognise the sender. I dont open anything hand written or addressed to "the occupier" and when the pile gets big enough I dump it in the bin.

She said about overwhelmed by doing everything. Well I ( and many others ) had to do everything. Bills and kids stuff is not less to do if you don't have a partner there