How do you manage to find time for life admin/essential tasks when both adults work full time?

[lardida]

All the banks in town have very part time opening hours and it’s pretty much weekdays only.

Doctors, dentists, can only call on weekdays and lately whenever I’ve tried to ring through for a GP appointment be it at 9:30am or 1pm I don’t get through and the automated message tells me that the phone line queues are at capacity so to call back at another time, or 111. I don’t have hours of the day to be sat on hold. I’m lucky I have a job where some days I can break off for half an hour to take a call but this is a privilege that many don’t have

House viewings. We’re trying to buy a house and arrange viewings. Estate agents call throughout the day at inconvenient times when we’re both working, then offer their only viewing availability as Tuesday at 2pm. No good if you’re in a meeting, or literally doing any other job where you can’t have your phone on you.

Scheduling with an engineer to come out and replace the boiler, except someone has to be home when they are doing it and the work might take all day. Again, lucky that I can WFH if need be in my job but I don’t like to take that as given.

How does anyone else manage in a household where both adults are working full time? It honestly seems impossible long term. This is before we have kids too, I’m all too aware the mental load and time juggling exercise will grow!

This is not hard. Some people do seem to find life challenging.

No one has been to a physical bank for years.

GP I call at 8am for 40 mins and fail to get an appointment just have my phone on as I take the kids to school and head into work. Sometimes they say they will give a telephone call in the middle of the day which usually comes when I'm in the middle of something work or not or my phone drops the call anyway despite being sat next to it all day.

EA just say you will only do evening and weekend viewings. I succeeded in buying a house while working FT no dc. I used to work 9 to 9 most days too.

Dentist you go rarely and in work time if necessary. Use evening and weekend slots for check ups.

Why is this stressful? It's called life.

I work in retail so generally have one day during the week off as I work Saturdays or Sundays but a lot of the time we don’t manage, we put things off or argue on who’ll take time off. Things like the bank or phone calls are fine as I’m lucky enough to work in town so I use my lunch break, but if the kids need to go to an appointment it’s basically a ‘who’ll do it this time?’ job. Same with the animals, absolutely hellish trying to get an appointment as I don’t know my days enough in advance and we can never get a Saturday appointment for dh to take them. Juggling, running, arguing, pleading… it’s the reason I regularly wonder why we do it all

I don't know; I just don't find there is an awful lot of this "life admin" to do. I'm not regularly having to make appointments or constantly arranging repairs in and on my house. I'm not arranging insurance etc more than once a year. It takes minutes to do on a lunchtime or after work.

I work part time and wonder how people that work full time cope with appointments. Whenever I've had an appointment it always on the weekday. They are also very hard to rearrange and you're just expected to be available. If you work full time it's difficult to get time off especially last minute.
I work for 111 and regularly tell people a doctor is going to call them but I can't give a time. This frustrates people as they work and it's one of the reasons they call us in the first place as they don't have the time to call the gp in the morning.

I once had to see a dentist last minute and I needed a filling. They said they had a cancellation and could fit me in the next day. Great I thought as I was not working that day. I wondered how full time workers make arrangements.
If you have hospital appts they never run on time. You don't always know how much time you need to take off. I had a hospital appt in London and the clinic was only running on the Thursday that I worked. I managed to get a shift swap. A lot of people would have to take a whole day off. When I have had operations they have always told me 2 weeks or less. They've managed to fall on the days I don't work . You still have to come in for a pre op assessment etc. I guess if you are ill then full time jobs can be difficult.

Also appts get cancelled last minute. I was in the dentist waiting room and the receptionist was calling people to say their appt is being cancelled as the dentist is going on holiday. The receptionist asked them to come on a different day. But what if you made arrangements for work or taken the day off? I had to get a vaccine at the gp surgery. When I turned up with my family they said they only had enough for 2 people and there were 4 of us. They didn't bother to call us to let us know. What if you had taken the day off or swapped your shift just for the appt and then had to take another day off. We don't have unlimited amount of time off we can take. At my work you need at least 7 days notice for leave and if there is no availability you can't take the day off even if you have enough annual leave. I once had an appt and they booked me Into the wrong clinic and I waited 3 hrs to be seen. They then expected me to come in the next day. I said I'm working I can't

I prefer doing things on the weekday. Everywhere is so busy on the weekend. I prefer to go shopping, day trips and restaurants in the week. I work on the weekend as well. Eventually I will have to work full time and I am dreading it.

I really struggle

My work is not flexible. I cannot for example take a call from the GP at work. I cannot just sit and wait at 8am in the morning, I have to leave for work. I cannot get last minute annual leave easily

Last year I needed to visit the bank and I just couldn't get there.

So many appointments expect me to be able to be randomly free in the week. How?

Fortunately I don't often need to see the GP, but i had a problem that required me ringing HMRC the other day. I leave home at 8 and get back at 6.30, only free time is my lunch break and on several occasions I was still on hold by the end!

Time doesn't just appear. I just fit it in is Bs advise and often given by people who have a level of flexibility in their work

I haven't been into an actual bank for about 15 years, as you can do pretty much everything online

Doctors do econsults where I am (which start at 6am) so I prep everything in notes the previous evening and just copy into the econsult when I get up

Boiler service etc I book online several months in advance so I can plan round it

So basically I do everything online as far in advance as possible!

But most people surely have left for work at 8am? I'm in work at the start of your 40minute phoneca

Your using time there that a lot of people don't have access too and are being smug about it. For example going to the dentist in work hours, only if your work let's you and the appointment can be booked in advance. Some people need a lot of dental care/medical care, not as simple as go rarely. A lot of dentists don't have evening/weekend slots, certainly nor for NHS patients

It's a struggle & I've used up a lot of annual leave for life admin!

We do, I work from home a bit so I get landed with letting tradies in and going to the post office and chemist etc. we can book all gp appts online, our bank doesn’t even have a branch although we do have to call them sometimes. It is a challenge but that is with 3 young kids, it is much harder with kids!

I have a lot of flexibility at work, but it is give and take on both sides. I organise my calendar as far in advance as possible, so I have (eg) DD2 orthodontic appointments to the end of 2023 in my work calendar. I put an hour in the calendar on Mondays that is purely for house admin - my house insurance is up, and that’s on this week’s list; I will plan out the summer activities/childcare; and I’ll write the birthday cards I need to send. I’m having an argument with my energy supplier over this month’s bill, so that’s in the calendar too! Next week I will have other stuff to sort. I don’t get how others can minimise this time. For me, I’ve a never ending list of things to do at home, so I lock in one hour a week to focus on that. It is a diary management job for me.

^ and I’m a single parent to four DC. The other thing is dealing with school notes on the day they come in - at this time of year, it’s notes and cash for school trips, and admin for next academic year. If I don’t deal with it promptly, it lingers and consumes more energy.

We're a single parent household so it all falls to me.

School admin at lunchtimes mostly. Dentist, we just rebook while we are there so no need to call them. Banking, bills and paperwork in the evening.

And I can wfh if I have a plumber visit etc

Im very lucky in that I work in an office (or WFH) and can make admin calls during the day.

However, having 2 DC with SN I can only manage all their appointments by working PT (4 days a week). We cram a lot of their appointments into Wednesdays when they dont have school (not UK).

And something I am eternally grateful for is the French health system. I can book Dr and other specialists (for DC) online. I can usually see the GP within 48hrs (booking online choosing a timeslot which suits - slots run from 8am to 7pm). And if Im really stuck I can get a Dr to come to the house. The longest Ive waited to speak to someone is 45 minutes. When its for a DC the Dr has never taken more than 3 hrs. For me, its been 7 hours.

On the minus side, there is no self certifying for being sick off work. You need a Drs note every single time. Hence why I am used to calling a Dr to the house....

Sprry - the 45 minutes is to call to ask for a Dr to come round. Then we have waited 1-7 hours for Dr to arrive.

@StrugglingWeight I'm in work by 8 .. officially done by 4.30 so I can occasionally fit some "office hours" admin in at the end but as I said, I just choose v v carefully what I care about doing, I look months ahead and book appointments in school holidays and I don't have anyone to bicker with about who is doing what. Please don't dismiss anyone who says they can manage as having an easier life set up and "calling bs". It's my life, I get shit done. However, I am fortunate that neither me nor DC's have frequently needed medical appointments or had ongoing issues. I do think that if that is the case there needs to be more legislation around employer flexibility.

It’s hard. Lunchtimes: back to back admin tasks. Before WFH, boiler issues were a nightmare!

Now throw money at the problem and have private gp and dentist so don’t have to queue on the phone for an appt and then appts are at a time that fits in with work. Not an option for most people I appreciate though (but you may get private online GP appts if you have private health insurance through work?). DH’s firm has a free private GP on-site for staff as they worked out it was a worthwhile perk for staff given difficulties with getting nhs GP appts. Not uncommon in the City in London.

None of those need doing every week. Looking at houses is once every few years. Dentists are yearly. GP appointments maybe every few months. Banking, bill paying, insurance renewals, shopping around etc all online. Perhaps the OP is stressed at a few things all needing doing at once?

When we were house hunting, we did weekend viewings as we both worked miles away in different directions, so workday viewings simply weren't possibility. Most EAs have weekend viewers.

Just think how hard it all used to be without mobile phones and the internet!

I'm not dismissing people who can manage? I said it was BS advise to say I just fit it in. That helps no one. How do you do this? I just do. Great, thankyou.

Several posters are being dismissive of the OP and not offering anything helpful, saying they find it easy and actually their solution is they can wait for a call from the Gp at work for example.

For example you say book for the school holidays, presumably you mean annual leave because obviously people will still be working in the school holidays. Book the dentist, for when? I cant get time off work for a dental check up and there's no out of hours appointments.

I do work out how to get basic things done, lile a check up. But its not easy to manage and I don't think it makes anyone a better person because they don't struggle, which is what a lot of posters have suggested

I'm a teacher, hence school holiday appointments but again, if I need a medical appointment I tell my school it's at x time and they have to cover me. I don't schedule hospital clinics so it's not within my control and I won't apologise or not take care of myself for work reasons. I do find it really sad that so many employers apparently are without any level of human empathy or practicality about these things. None of the 6 or so schools I've worked in have ever said staff can't go for necessary treatment or appointments.

I can make the odd call from work. So can DH. But we both work in offices / WFH. If we were frontline emergency services or hospitality I know it wouldn't be as easy

My house is never as clean as I would like though. It was lovely and clean when I was between jobs recently 😂.

I would also just go to a medical appointment regardless of whether it was a work day. I agree with the pp that my health doesn't have to come second place after work

It is hard op.

We wfh and manage our diaries around this. We take time off during the day and work late or start early to make up for it or use holiday. I do things in my lunch break. I wait on hold on loudspeaker or headphones while working. Imust say I haven't had to go to the actual bank for years though.

Being able to work from home even one or two days a week does make it a lot easier.

The response to an unreasonable time for an estate agent is to point out who is most likely to not be able to leave in the middle of the day at their convenience. If they don't get it, ask them what they have against key workers.

I had years of working in flexible jobs where I could start a bit later to attend an appt or pop out the office if my phone rang. Now I am in a totally inflexible job where I can't just start a bit late or leave a bit early. If I do that then the whole clinic gets cancelled...company policy. I can't just answer the phone when it rings. I get 30 min for lunch if I'm lucky and that's not enough time for many calls where I am on hold for ages. I have a number of regular medical appts which I need to fit in somewhere so I have now dropped a day a week to allow me a free day to get stuff done. Couldn't use annual leave as it has to be booked 3 months in advance which is no good for last minute appts. It's hard and I don't think anyone can realise how hard until you are in a totally inflexible job.