How do you keep on top of “life admin?”

[Rainbowsandrascals]

Any top tips when you both work full time and your dd seems to have an endless stream of things needed for school too (performance outfits, slips to send back, money for trips etc).

I have nearly everything on direct debit but contacting HRMC (endless wait on phone), booking dentists etc are tedious but necessary tasks that seem to take up unnecessary amounts of time. Also I seem to spend ages sorting out money in bank accounts and when the mortgage is up for review, that takes a fair bit of sorting too.

Any good ideas for being more efficient and organised?
Thank you.

There's a good book called Life Admin by Elizabeth Emens with lots of tips - and doesn't take long to read.

My best is not to let things get into a list to start with, deal with them as soon as they come in rather than have them pile up. I keep a cheque book in the kitchen for the school stuff and get it back out the door the next day.

Apps generally for small things on the move.

Also batching stuff - so if you do have to do errands group them into a few at a time. A quick post office is worth finding too. Our smaller one is better.

I also get cash out at the start of the month and have a stash of small envelopes when I need to give money for things rather than searching for money at the last minute.

Swimming/sports bags packed and ready to go as soon as the kit is clean again with locker money and hairbands in the bag too.

Milk, bread, and the making of a couple of quick meals in the freezer plus something to feed a crowd in at short notice. Also one or two multipurpose presents - like a small box of chocs - hidden.

YY to headphones for phone calls. Also dictating simple messages into your phone rather than typing and using Siri to set up calendar appts.

Incremental changes really help - it doesn't need to be all at once.

I turn up at work one hour early (I live very close to work) and spend 30 minutes a day every day sorting things out- payments, scheduling etc. I see it as my first task of the day. Then i start work 30 minutes early and work like crazy- through lunch then go home right on the dot of clocking off time.

That 30 minutes means I sigh stuff, organise childcare, buy school kit online etc. It works for me.

*sign

sign stuff like permission slips- e-mail teachers about homework etc

I like your idea Girl.
I used the online chat option instead of ringing HMRC today and that seemed far more efficient!
You’ve all inspired me - so far I have:
*contacted HMRC
*made family dental appointments
*sorted out our bank accounts and set up some direct debits
*booked a holiday to France for next year!
I’m never this organised- esp the holiday. Thought it would give us longer to save up.
Thanks everyone, you’ve all helped 😁

well done on the holiday! What a great idea thinking about - and booking early! I might do that.

You have reminded me about dentists.

yesterday I gave my bank accounts a thorough review and finally sorted out a list of birthdays I need to keep track of. :)

Love the idea of starting to think about next year's holidays!

I’m astounded some people don’t think life admin takes that much time. I have three kids, a dog, a job, two voluntary posts, a busy social life and life admin overwhelms me. Even with all bills on DD the following regularly takes time and organisation and I always feel behind the curve:

• booking and keeping track of doctor, dentist and hospital appointments (Oren of us has a lot);
• researching and booking after school hobbies and clubs & remembering to pay, attend performances on the right date etc,
• researching and booking family holidays and weekends away. This takes forever especially when coordinating with wider family all of whom have opinions;
• arranging childcare, school holiday care, rearranging when a child is sick;
• buying presents for endless rounds of kids’ parties, keeping track of invites and what we are doing;
• cards for family birthdays. Remembering when friends and family are celebrating anniversaries etc. Marking those events.
• remembering friends and family birthdays;
• replacing broken appliances, Hoover bags etc;
• gardening and keeping the plants trimmed and fed;
• making sure I have cash each week to leave for the cleaner before I go to work;
• hiring musical instruments for the kids, replacing them as they grow;
• responding to school trip money requests, school surveys, school bake day requests etc
• keeping an eye on when contracts for phone, electricity etc ends so I can move to a better deal
• organising our adult social life, keeping the family calendar up to date.

I try and do must via Apps on my phone while commuting. Amazing Prime is a life saver as is a standing weekly supermarket delivery I rarely change.

We just fixed our mortgage for 10 years

Insurance takes time. Took me a morning yesterday to do ours not a regular job thsnkfulky

I spend quite a bit of time on life admin. I'm quite organised but can't ever get over how much there is- maybe it's partly because I hate it when I'm not on top of things so I'm on it all the time. My tips are very ordinary but they work for me:
I have an appointment diary I carry everywhere. I check it every Monday morning to see what's coming up. If I need to arrange something I can do it there and the ( I seem to know a lot of people who have to go home and check the calendar, then forget and things just get bigger or more urgent )
I have an ongoing to-do list on my phone. I put everything on it, even things that sound very trivial. I check it frequently and try to do something off it
Kids' stuff, I do straight away as soon as it comes home.
I never leave a room without taking something that needs moving

Appointments - I always book the next one when leaving the last one.

Money - what is there to sort out? Everything paid by DD. Savings amounts to other a/c also by standing order. All spending money that can possible be put on CC is put on CC. Can check balances on phone app and if I need to move cash back to current account eg if I’ve put a holiday balance on the CC then do that from the phone.

Money management can be done on your phone whilst you have a coffee break.

Why do you have to contact HMRC so often? Even with a self assessment I can’t think I’ve ever had to call them?!

And people saying booking holidays is life admin - I see that as a fun thing to do.

remembering friends and family birthdays
Set up moonpig to send cards and I have reminders in my phone telling me to call/text and say HB. More important people who need gifts I have a reminder 2 weeks and a week before as well.

replacing broken appliances, Hoover bags etc
How often do your appliances break?! Lol. Hoover bags and consumables just add them to your shopping list or immediately order from amazon!

gardening and keeping the plants trimmed and fed
Fair

making sure I have cash each week to leave for the cleaner before I go to work
Pay via standing order. Or, get 8 weeks worth of cash and envelopes and do it in batches so then you only need to put out the envelope. Reminder on your phone to do again in 8 weeks.

hiring musical instruments for the kids, replacing them as they grow
Come on, you have to do that what, once a year maximum!

keeping an eye on when contracts for phone, electricity etc ends so I can move to a better deal
I have reminders. One month to home insurance. 2 weeks to home insurance. 1 week to home insurance. That way I get reminded with enough notice and enough frequency to sort. Although this year my car auto renewal was actually less than anything that came up on compare the market. So that was nice and easy.

Also I’m always laughing at the irony of people with time to post on MN who complain about not being able to deal with life admin. If you’ve got time to MN, you’ve got time to do some online banking.

Things that genuinely take your time:
Children
Other caring duties
Moving house
Any building or renovation work
Divorce
Other legal matters

I keep on top of the easy stuff as others have said by using a spare 5 mins here and there on my phone, most stuff is electronic. I have a big banking sort out once a month (our income is erratic due to DH running his own business so I have to move money around depending on what has come in that month and whether there are any bigger one-off payments due such as insurances, also do savings manually with what's left). Also check all bank and credit card statements in detail. Whole thing takes about an hour.

What I find harder to keep on top of is the DCs admin now they are young teens, I thought it would be easier once they were at secondary school - wrong! They are at different schools and do lots of extra-curricular activities. It's no longer a case of just sign a slip and return. There are so many one-off events they need to be consulted about whether they want to take part in (sports, so a match for one might clash with training for another sport plus they can have options within them, such as which races for a swimming gala), so I have to hold these tasks till I can speak to the DC and DH who might need to take them or I might need to sort liftshares. So they don't get dealt with immediately but need doing within a few days, there always seem to be a few of these on my list. One has SENs which creates a lot of extra admin at times too, much of which is not easy.

Then there are the things that will take a bit longer and require some research and decisions then doing but don't have specific deadlines, at the moment I want to set up a password manager but haven't decided which one for example. So I always have a longer term to do list for those plus house repairs etc

I manage all the longer term things in my bullet journal. Short term most stuff comes in by email now so I check several times a day on my phone, delete anything irrelevant and add a star to anything that I need to come back to such as the aforementioned sports events. Then later I filter by starred emails, either deal with and delete or move to a folder, anything I can't do there and then goes in the bullet journal to remind me.

I never rebook dentist, optician etc at the time of going as I have no idea when will suit us 6 months to a year in advance and would nearly always end up having to rearrange but these don't take long to do.

@ExpletiveDelighted I haven't regretted getting last pass. Yes there is an initial set up burden but now life is a million times better! I also have things like bank details, car details, passport photos etc saved

School stuff or slips from activities - done the day they come in and returned the next day. For activities I scanned and emailed them back apart from the techno-hating Brown Owl from DD’s brownie pack.

Same with all payment requests, if they don’t quote bank accounts I ask for them if possible unless it goes via Parentpay or similar.

I have all insurance renew dates in a calendar with a reminder 30 days in advance to start checking quotes. Same with MOT and pet vaccinations.

DH’s company uses a financial advisor for their pension plan and offers a reduced rate to use her privately as well. We meet twice a year and apart from rainy day savings accounts she has all investment accounts now merged together and it is a lot easier to manage and overview.

Once every couple of months I kick DH and DD out for a day or wait until DD is away on a weekend trip with the Scouts and sort out old paperwork and old school stuff.

For school emergencies I have a jar with small change and a back up kit for equipment like pens, pair of compasses, ruler etc. If used it goes straight on the shopping list to be replaced.

Merging all calendars online is a godsend esp as DH has business trips and meetings which may cross DD’s activities and alternative transport has to be organised.

Yes please, place marking!

I can't believe how much admin kids are adding! I only have a 15 month old who hasn't created any yet...

Still can't understand why you're ringing HMRC

Train the kids to do recycling! I seem to end up with duplicates of letters from school, kids now know if there is for a example, a letter pertaining to a trip that has passed, they don't need to ask me to bin it.
It will work fine until we start planning for trips a year in advance- they will be at comp by then!

"I can't believe how much admin kids are adding! I only have a 15 month old who hasn't created any yet..."

It's a whole different world when they are at school. Especially if they have additional needs and everything they ever do - after-school stuff, parties, holiday childcare, special events in school, everyday stuff like music lessons in school - require my extra input over and above filling the form in, sorting it out on the calendar, paying etc. And then there are extra things like medical appts, meetings with school and assessments that often require non-trivial paperwork.

Yes, the additional needs takes it up a step, especially we've found when its time for a change of school, but even without that it ends up being a lot to remember. Also, as they get older the extra-curricular stuff encroaches more into evenings and weekends so you can be out of the house ferrying them about a lot more, I get a lot of my admin done by the side of swimming pools and football pitches to offset this.

Some things are much easier than others though. Scouts admin is entirely online including payments and their system can load events directly to your calendar. Our Guides on the other hand is still slips of paper, cheques/cash and adding to calendars manually.

Jomalone.....just wait until you get to primary school! Endless communications about dressing up for things, needing slips signing and payments for things. Add in after school / weekend activities and your child almost needs their own PA! That’s without coordinating any childcare that you might need. You seem rather intrigued by the HMRC thing - it’s a long and protracted battle that I have with them as I am trying to claim some tax back from a professional course that I did. Some people have been paid the tax (£5000) and yet they are claiming some of us are not entitled so it’s becoming a long and drawn out process!

I try to do most of my life admin at work...i do my online banking and shop around for car and house insurance prices all at work...im a lone parent of 3 and dont find it too time consuming.

Marking my place for ideas

I booked my car in for a service by email that took 2minutes. That’s the only life admin I’ve done in the last month and I have a DS.

Thankfully, now that primary school has finished, the huge number of emails / letters we were getting has now stopped- at least until she starts secondary!
I agree with the previous posters too that if your children have additional needs, it increases the communication too.

I never see to have much admin. Most post gets ripped up the minute it hits the mat. I have a file for everything else. I have one bank account and I keep all financial matters very simple. I have a spreadsheet for accounts and spreadsheets for lists. I have electronic diary reminders for the important stuff on pc. School stuff isn't really that much, I pay for lunches and trips online and any letters that come in get dealt with immediately or pinned to the notice board if I need to remember something. I think I spend less that 30 minutes on admin per week.