What are you life admin tips?

[WhatWillSantaBring]

I am permanently drowning in things to remember - when do the cars need their MOT, what's the expiry date of my DC's passport, when's the dog next due its flea treatment, pay the window cleaner, change the water filter etc etc. I can do it, but it takes up so much energy, I want to have a list I can check AND more importantly, that DP can also check.

How do you organise yourself to remember everything? Lists? Calendar reminders? Is there an app or a book?

Please spam me with your bright ideas, oh collective wisdom of the Mumsnet.

Personally I find bullet journaling really helpful, I’ve been doing it for years and it works really well for me. This video is slightly wanky but explains the basic concept:

I’ve adapted it slightly over the years, one thing I find helpful is I keep a list of when I last did things eg de-flea the cat, defrost the freezer, dentist check ups etc etc. Having it all in once place means it’s easy to check back and see when things were last done and when I do them I just cross out the previous date and write the new one.

DH and I have notes from our phones linked. I have a master note called calendar which has every one

Eg
January
S MOT
Helen Birthday 5th
Smear due 2023
B passport needs renewing
Think about H birthday party

February
Out of fixed term mortgage 2024
6th Caleb birthday (2015)

Smaller things like cat flea treatment and water filter jobs are divided up and it because one our responsibilities. I tend to write things on the paper family calendar on the kitchen wall and DH does reminders on his phone.

I have a family calendar in google. Everyone in the 'family' can list events, set alarms etc, and we 'colour tag' events we would do. I also have a widget on my phone's homepage showing events that are coming up in the next week. If an event doesn't have a colour tag, I know that no one has volunteered to do it yet and if I have free time, I will tag it purple to indicate that I will do it.

calendar on the wall, but then we can't be bothered with smart phones and apps. Much easier just to write things down.

each January I fill it in with birthdays. Insurers send reminders by email. With only one car it isn't hard to remember when the MoT is due - and the garage send a reminder as well.

Google Calendar. Whole family has access, my rota and all the kids clubs are on there, plus all the insurance renewals, services etc. I set reminders a week or whatever ahead.

I have recently discovered Siri and Reminders on my iPhone - it is like having a secretary in my pocket. Just tell Siri to add something to a list (create lots of lists), set an alarm for a specific reminder etc etc - you will never look back. I have shopping lists for various places/shops, Lists of stuff to do daily/weekly/monthly/yearly, lists of social stuff/birthdays, etc etc. If you put a reminder date on each entry then they will all feed into your list of "Scheduled" for the day and you have a ready made To Do List every day (sorted by time due).

Filofax. I did stop for awhile and use my phone but didn’t like it and went back to the Filofax.

I like to write with a pen.

I used to remember everything, didn't need reminders or alarms. Now I need lists, multiple diaries and calendars, memories away with the faeries these days.

Google calendar that me and DH see and fill in. Everything on there with enought info, eg " house insurance 3rd March policy number 123456, cost £233 last year, phone 0223233 for renewal." Then all the info is at hand and anytime you've got 5 minutes spare you can get on and sort stuff without having to find the paper copy etc

I just put everything in my phone calendar.
As soon as I get anything.
It goes in. Then you can search: when the next window cleaning is, and when the last one was.

Google calendar.

I have my own diary on there, a family diary that is in a different colour and a meal plan in a third colour.

So everyone should know what's happening each day and what's for dinner (DH and DD are both good at getting on with the cooking if I'm not around, but the need telling what I've planned and shoppe for).

I find google calendar best because I can enter stuff years ahead (eg phone contract due for renewal, or mortgage agreement etc) and repeat items yearly eg birthdays - I enter the details once (including year of birth) with an annual repeat. That way I can easily work out if it's a 21st, 40th or whatever.

And it's easy to add calendar invites onto google calendar, such as PTA meetings etc.

Apart from calendars, I've got myself into quite a good laundry routine - Monday bedding, Tuesday light colours, weds darks, thurs towels, fri whites, sat light colour, sun dark colour. Ironing on Sunday.

Meal planning is a great time saver. I've got 31 meals/recipes in a folder. So we always have Bolognese on 1st (for instance). And as it's a 31 day rotation, we don't always end up having Bolognese on The same day of the week. If it's a birthday or we're out, I just skip that day. It makes it very easy to do my supermarket delivery order.

I always get my shopping delivered weds (cheap subscription) and the minute it's in the cupboards I book the next slot. I've generally got slots booked 3 or 4 weeks ahead.

I've jut realised this has turned into a preachy essay. So I'll leave it at that 😂

I've just realised you were only asking about calendars. Sorry to go off topic and bore you with my Bolognese schedule!

@Jongleurterre

Filofax. I did stop for awhile and use my phone but didn’t like it and went back to the Filofax.

I like to write with a pen.

Me too. I'll rememeber it if I write it down.

I have never remembered anything. These days there would be no chance.

I write everything in my diary. Longer term things I record on a page at the back of my diary and they get transferred when I get a new one.

Google calendar, each category has its own colour. You can set events to repeat themselves every X days/weeks/months. Takes one day to input absolutely everything into one google calendar account, problem solved forever. You do need to be super careful when setting the repeat events, but after that you choose to get a reminder a day/week in advance or whatever, and it works beautifully.

Good old fashioned family wall calendar split in to columns for each person
And (don’t laugh) but different coloured pens for different things.
Like birthdays go in green, medical appointments in red.

Google calendar for me. I think this is the first year that I haven't written anything on the wall calendar, and next year I won't bother buying one.

If there is something to do, I write down in my diary to do on the day I intend to do it. Dh and I both work and we also work in the evenings after dc go to bed, so if it's a task that needs to be done during office hours, it's in my diary to do that day and I do it. If it's sending an email or paying a bill, I do it in the evening when I'm returning work emails. That's it, it really doesn't consume my life. I just have a daily to do list and I do what's on it. Dh does similarly to sort his stuff. We have a family calendar on the fridge to keep track of any dc's appointments or homework that we both need to be reminded of.

Organised mum wall calendar with columns for each of us too. I have a pretty good memory so rarely need to refer to it once I have written something down. The act of writing it seems to fix it in my memory.

I have tried online calendars but I don't get the same visual image stored in my brain so I have no perception of whether an appointment is near or far away.

@Gazelda Very impressed by your meal planning!

I'm off to set up a Google calendar!

I’ve got all this written down on a week by week paper cameo next to the fridge so I see it several times a day and each week I check ahead to see what needs doing the following week. I find that better than an online calendar as I don’t physically see that unless I go into check and reminders on my phone always seem to come in when I’m doing something else so I ignore them

Also I do all these jobs in the morning in the half hour I have after dropping the kids off and starting work. Pre working from home I’d do it in the evening

I use an app called family wall. It has a calendar for each of us and the dog, shopping lists, to do lists etc, and you can assign jobs on the list to people. It also has menu plan, recipe storage, timetables for each person, photo gallery, contacts and messages between users, and a little newsfeed as well. It does reminders and you can add photos to calendar appointments, so for when the car insurance is due I have a picture of the car reg number and the previous years premium in there. Its a couple of pounds a month but we all use it, everything goes in it, and it keeps me on track.

You can sign up here to get a free MOT reminder a month before it’s due. www.gov.uk/mot-reminder