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

I've never understood why some people think that having a name for a group of tasks/responsibilities denotes 'enormity'.

Does the fact that we collectively call washing up, tidying, cleaning, ironing etc 'housework' convey enormity? Or the fact that we call bathing the children, putting them to bed, feeding them, helping them with their homework etc 'parenting'? It's just a convenient way of referring to a group of things.

There's nothing remotely unreasonable about the phrase 'life admin'. The distinction between life and work is a pretty common one (as in work-life balance). Life admin is admin stuff you do in your non-work life. Sometimes there's lots of it. Sometimes there's less.

I don’t need to write a list or group them together in any way. I just get them done.

But if you were creating a list to show how you divided your day up and you wanted to group things together, all the tasks which are computer, writing and phone based can be grouped together as 'admin' because they are not cooking, cleaning, laundry, driving, etc

I'd perhaps call it admin in my mind because it's a specific type of activity, as opposed to cleaning, or cooking, or laundry.

I suppose you'd call it 'life admin' if you were trying to differentiate it from 'work admin' connected to your paid job.

Anything that involves computer related tasks, writing and posting things, form filling, booking appointments, long term life planning like POA or wills, insurance etc., plus any planning for and arranging of family events which go beyond your immediate core family ( so hosting the big 10+ family Christmases etc)

If you have multiple family members with complex medical conditions, or kids with lots of specific needs, whether that's educational or hobby-related. Or if they are at a school which require a LOT of parental involvement every week, then the admin side of your todo list suddenly starts to dominate the available hours.

I'm feeling like a rubbish adult reading this thread; I often dread these types of tasks and get stressed plus I am incapable of doing two tasks at once. I don't go around talking about my "life admin" to people either though but I do find it a useful phrase.

By the way OP, I also have a fairly serious medical condition for which I need hospital appointments, tests and scans etc, as well as going to the pharmacy to collect repeat prescriptions. I have also asked for help from a charity who campaigns for people with my medical condition. In no way do I label any of these things as life admin. They’re just appointments, tests, scans and picking up my prescription.

If you want to use an umbrella term for run of the mill daily tasks, by all means do. I think that averaged over the course of a year I spend more time washing my hands than doing life admin. I don't think taking care of an elderly parent counts as life admin, however, that is in a different care category.

None of these individual tasks (which could be categorised as mental load or life admin) are particularly challenging or onerous. But the elephant in the room is the fact that the vast majority of them are done by women because a lot of men either can't be arsed or pretend not to know they need to be done

I’d argue that the elephant in the room is that a lot of women prefer to be doing what they label as ‘life admin’ because it suits their purpose. It also at times gives them something to be competitive with their DPs or friends - ‘oh I’m so busy paying the electricity bill whilst you sit on your arse all night’. Well I’m not sure about you, but I pay all my bills by DD, all done on my iPad whilst sat on my arse watching Emmerdale. The same with shopping for gifts - all done online or by spending a day in town browsing whilst stopping every hour in the hour for a much needed coffee / cake / wine. I spend approximately 15 minutes once a year filling in everyone’s birthday on the new calendar in January and buy all the cards a few days later for the year. I do a great deal of the admin because I don’t mind doing it, I want to be in charge of it, I’m not dependent on DH to do stuff I can do. He does more of the physical workload and of that I’m more than happy.

Nobody is denying these tasks are important and need to be done. It’s just that I associate the term “life admin” with a certain type of person who idealises busyness without actually doing that much.

You know you hear about some workplaces with that colleague who switches on their computer, goes off to make a cup of tea, types loudly and fast without actually sending anything, goes to inspect the photocopier, talks to her colleagues about how busy they are and gets all stressed and flustered about it, and yet several hours later they still haven’t actually done anything useful or productive yet, and then it’s time for lunch? Those are the sort of people who I imagine refer to everyday tasks as life admin, a phrase which I’d never even heard until joining MN.

I once did 2 or 3 weeks of temp work covering for this woman who was going on holiday. On our handover day she told me she was very busy, and that she frequently took work home with her as she didn’t have time to finish it all during the day. Except that she spent about 80% of that day chatting to people, faffing about, moving papers about without actually doing much with them etc, to the point that when I came in on the Monday, I had to ask the Office Manager how to do several things as there hadn’t been time to cover it all on the handover day. From that point on, I got all the work done every day, found most of it straightforward, and never left any backlog. I didn’t even think I was being efficient beyond normal, just getting stuff done without faffing or pretending to look busy. I feel like the woman who went on holiday probably refers to her own personal tasks as life admin. I don’t know, it’s just the way the phrase is used.

Absolutely!
I don’t call cleaning ‘maintenance’, or visiting places with my children ‘home education’, or prepping meals ‘domestic servitude’.
Its just all getting on with life!!

When working full on I do ‘life admin’ without thinking really. It just gets done. When I’m not working as much, ‘life admin’ becomes more of a thing.

I suppose it’s similar to if you need something doing, ask a busy person.

@ruethewhirl

Agreed. But the vociferousness with which some people (I mean generally on MN threads, not specifically on this one) like to deny and even ridicule the fact that they might constitute a sometimes time-consuming entity, and that entity could legitimately be referred to as life admin, bemuses me.

Coming late to this and haven't RTFT but I totally agree. I don't understand why people get so furious about the use of this term and are so hell-bent on rejecting the use of it as a phrase. Life is full of categorisations: marketers label various categories of shopping, for example (groceries/white goods/home care/personal care) and this passes without comment. Why does "life admin" draw this reaction from people?

I can't help feeling quite a lot of the reaction is because its gendered and people don't like being reminded that this is one area where women are well and truly stuffed.

See also "mental load": there have been literally dozens of threads on here about how much people resent the use of the phrase "mental load" and are hell bent on pointing out that its not a thing and it can all be done at the click of a button, conveniently avoiding the real issue which is that its almost all done by women.

None of these individual tasks (which could be categorised as mental load or life admin) are particularly challenging or onerous. But the elephant in the room is the fact that the vast majority of them are done by women because a lot of men either can't be arsed or pretend not to know they need to be done.

That's what this is about. It's not that your online banking is particularly challenging, it's the fact that in most households most of this falls to women to manage.

It's how big it feels to the person that matters.

When I was depressed even putting a load of washing on seemed like a mountain to climb sometimes. I don't get like that about paying bills or chores so much now, but can really procrastinate at work sometimes about thngs that turn out to be not that hard.

But PP clearly wasn't happy, as she says she ended up "infuriated" with it.

One of the other factors is your own mental health. If you’re already dealing with anxiety or depression, it’s very easy to spiral into letting the to-do list get out of control, making your mental health worse and it feels overwhelming and unmanageable.

So yeah, Just Do It is a great idea in principle. But I consider it as pretty much the same as saying Pull Yourself Together to someone with depression. As an example, I’m still paying for an out of contract data sim that I don’t need anymore because I can’t cancel it online and the prospect of a phone call feels more overwhelming than the loss of the money.

I did all of this, quite happily, for my late husband. He was an amazing man, and while I was busy with that, he might be replacing the brake pads on the car, mending the fences, cleaning the guttering or fixing the washing machine. It doesn’t matter how other people live their lives, or divide their respective workloads, if they are happy.

I renewed my car insurance 2 weeks ago. My premium had gone up, despite not making a claim for at least 10 years. Took me around 3 hrs to research different companies etc. saved £65. Some things do take a while to sort out, but at least only need doing yearly. But add in energy provider, tv/broadband, boiler service, bloody vets (again) it can take up large amounts of time.

some people just find doing these things mentally more time consuming etc.

This. Just get on with it surely?

I don't really think about it or label it anything? I was just trying to think what I've done in the past few days that might come under 'life admin'. Moved some money between accounts (on my phone), requested flea and wormer for the cats (rang vet after getting automated email reminder), requested a repeat prescription online? I don't know, none of it takes more than a minute or two? I'm sure if you have school-age kids there's loads more, but I wouldn't call that life admin, I'd call it parenting tasks which should be equitably shared I'd hope?

I have read more posts complaining about ‘the mental load’, and how it’s often not shared by a partner. I think it’s probably quite a new term, replacing ‘stuff that has to be remembered and bought/seen to/completed’. As such, it’s a great term! I never used it when my life was full of stuff to be done……because I had never heard of it. But it’s so succinct. I love it. It also sounds somewhat professional. One could go around saying ‘I’ve conquered my mental load’. Sounds much grander than ‘I’ve run all my errands’.

It's just a label some people use to make themselves sound busy. I just have stuff to do so just get on with it. I have a son with health issues and I am his advocate so deal with Pip and UC. I get fed up with it but only because they aren't keen on answering the phone but once it's done that's it for a while. I organise all dhs medical appts as he has cognitive difficulties.
I don't label any of this, none of it causes me issues. I am retired now but obviously did it while working. I am usually very organised and actually like sorting stuff.

Why on earth would you sort your husbands car insurance or buy his parents presents?

Oh I didn’t know there was anything contentious about calling it ‘life admin’, but now I come to think of it, I suppose it’s just living your life and doing tasks as part of that! I’ve always quite enjoyed saying ‘right I need to sit down and catch up on my life admin’, cos sometimes all those wee annoying tasks pile up like sorting out insurance, appointments, reading and replying to various emails, online shopping, cancelling stuff, ordering stuff for my pets etc so I sit and dedicate time to sorting it all out and catching up! But maybe I just sound like a twat saying it 🤣

I only heard the term “life admin” recently. These are just thing we have to do. Some people need to give it a label and become a martyr to it.

I think it really depends on how much you have and how naturally organised you are. Also i think if you are short of money there is more life admin because purchases have to be more carefully considered. I am dyslexic so struggle with this kind of thing. I also have 5 dc with SEN, a dh who also needs support and i volunteer. I also don't drive for disability reasons which adds complications.

So this week so far we started off with dc4 in hospital for day surgery. Which turned into a 2 day stay because firstly he wouldn't wake up from the anaesthetic and then they couldn't get his pain under control. Thankfully I had anticipated this and brought extra snacks or it would have been a very expensive stay with me having to buy all food from m and s and costa.

Tuesday was meant to be parents evening for dc2 so had to phone them and rearrange. While we were in i had phone calls to arrange medical appointments for dc3 and dc4.

Today i had to sort out a spreadsheet for all dc4's post op meds. Parents evening for dc2. Emails from school about dc3 and dc5 that need replying to. Dh's meds have been delayed again so will have to chase that up.

I've got 2 dla/pip forms on the go at the moment. I usually phone the gp/hospital twice most weeks and the dwp once. That's on average 1 hour on the phone each time.

I am not caring for elderly relatives at the moment but that often takes a lot of time, especially if they are confused/forgetful and need things explaining to them over and over again.