Does anyone have a PA for personal/home admin ?

[floooooofy]

I work FT and am seriously considering hiring someone. I cannot keep up with the amount of personal/home admin I constantly have. Add in Christmas planning too - which is fast approaching - and I cannot cope.

Would be interested to know if anyone uses a PA for their personal/home admin.

My friend is a personal assistant like this. Her client is a wealthy woman who runs her own business and owns several homes. She works 3 hours a day, three days per week. If you can afford it, why not?

Her client has a separate work PA, so my friend is strictly for personal tasks not related to work.

That’s just adulting with children surely. I agree it’s hard going, and a total pain but it’s what needs doing

I don't have a husband or family or the money for a cleaner.

Have a look at https://blckbx.co.uk/

I don't have one & couldn't afford it, but can see why you might need it at some points.

This year we have/had -

• DS1 doing GCSES, finishing secondary school, prom, looking round/enrolling in 6th form provisions
• DS2 with SEN - needs worsening so EHCP review, exploring SEN schools, hospital & other medical appointments, fetching medications x 5
• DS3 finishing primary & starting secondary. All associated leavers' events, gifts etc & induction days, uniform, meeting new friends, forms
• Drama, football, Scouts for all 3 & associated forms, packing for trips, ensuring they have the right kit.
• Holiday preparation- booking, getting car ready, packing, passports/insurance/money
• Regular dentist/orthodontist/optician for all
• Birthdays, Christmas, Easter
• DIY
• Cat appointments & care
• Mother had a relapse of MH issue so unable to help with DC any more

So this has been a particularly heavy year for us (although it always is with SEN 😏)

Whereabouts are you OP?!
I'd be your PA, salary negotiable 😉

Sounds like you need a wife.

This is absolutely a thing, not sure why some pp are so dismissive (well, that's not true, I am sure).

I do this type of work myself on and off, around my other freelancing. It's good money. I work remotely though, OP, so I'd be no good for you I'm afraid!

You don’t mention that you’re single OP so whet does your DH/DP do admin wise?

I came on here to be a bit sneery (where is your husband/partner in all this?) but on reflection why not? If you can afford it you can outsource almost anything.

The problem is a lot of things listed need to be done by a parent or guardian.

A consultant I worked with laughed when I was chuntering about holiday club, and birthdays, and getting ready for our holiday and said, yes that's why men have wives!

There's a firm called Consider it Done who do this sort of thing - you can book a package of hours rather than having to hire someone full time.

I used to be a PA for a UHNW family and organised all those sort of things (and more) but not washing/cleaning. I think it’s unlikely you’d get a PA willing to do that!

I would ditch the Christmas planning as a first step.

I'm with you, OP, I'd definitely benefit from this. I'm in a senior role, busy job, young child, school, extracurriculars, various health-related issues, trying (and failing) to keep fit and have me time, pets, juggling life admin not just for me and my little one but also DH who has ADHD and even on meds I consider him far more chaotic than me and he needs a manager so the whole family doesn't fall apart. It's SO exhausting. I wish I could have someone doing life admin for me, it'd save me hours every week that I could use on me time/staying healthy/sleep. Can't put the price on that. But, as everyone said, you'd be a manager of the PA which also takes time.

There's no winning here, I hate this.

Do you have a cleaner and a laundry service? I'd start with that.
Do you have a spouse/partner? What are they doing?

One thing I have found useful is to use ChatGPT to help me manage tasks because I struggle a bit, particularly with getting started. I put in the tasks I need to do and it tells me what to do, in which order. I spend an hour a day on admin and cleaning and laundry and I have a set time of day to do this, though I am self-employed so this means it is in the middle of the day when I can phone people and doesn't really help someone working full time who can't just phone the doctor, the optician and the vet in the middle of the working day.

Op I’d never ever have considered so many people would hire cleaners or bin cleaners or personal shoppers (brain fog so can’t think of more) and now I totally see why people dii oh and think those of us who don’t are possibly idiots!!!!

Everyone has areas they stumble on, because they’ve so much else going on. I heard a psychologist talking the other day and she said once you decide something is too much it becomes almost debilitating trying to do it, and it might be something someone else finds easier. As someone who just spent a fifth of her day off trying to sort out our car insurance I’d say if you need help go find someone to help!

And btw, I have a cleaner and a window cleaner, highly recommended. Saved me at least 2hrs a week.

Might also look into ironing service but only if they collect & drop off.

Yes I've worked for UHNW too, and most of the things OP listed were handled by either the governess (everything to do with the children), or the housekeepers. I mostly did travel planning, staff management, house management and personal shopping.

Would a tutor for your DS be able to help with a lot of the education based things. Could you find one that specialises in the field of study or perhaps ask someone to be a mentor and you could offer to pay them. It seems a bulk of your tasks are related to his education.

If DS is old enough to be considering a career is there some of those tasks that he could take on himself?

Health wise I think each thing could be dealt with as a list and work through it making one appointment a day?

Both kids could have a haircut at the same time?

The car will likely be a priority.

I think you may end up answering the PAs questions for the time it would take to do these tasks yourself.

I was a PA for 30 years and now manage a team of 50 other PAs. I still have time to do Padmin (personal admin), unless you’re living in a castle, or have multiple properties, 6 kids, a home business, I fail to see how you would or anyone would need one? I mean, DM me I’m happy to do it for you. I run my own calendar, about 20 other peoples calendars at work, have a family calendar a friend group calendar and at least 10 muted group chats. Without preaching to the choir here exactly what would you want the PA to do for you? Like I say to my PAs, if you ask a busy person how you can help them you’re just giving them one more thing to think about. So if you do find a home PA please make sure they understand the difference between reactive and proactive.

I was going to suggest the same as @Whyx a tutor / nanny for for your home educated DC and after school for the others would probably take more off your list than a PA, but if you can afford it why not!

You’re not a qualified accountant I assume with that approach?!

Yes I use one. I work full time in a very busy pressured job and so does DH and we have two very small children.

The responses here are quite sneery. It’s no different to hiring a cleaner or a gardener really. I use a virtual family and lifestyle PA, who charges about £30 an hour and it works amazingly well. Some months I don’t need her at all and other times she does one or two hours a month. Most virtual PAs like that work in a similar way, no contracted minimum, you just send them the work as you need it and they bill you at the end of the month.

Some of the things I’ve got her to do include:
*booking appointments (dentist, car service, hair and beauty, GP etc)
*researching and booking trips/holidays (including travel arrangements, hotels etc)
*ordering birthday presents and cards
*managing my personal email inbox
*organising home services like washing machine repairs etc
*ordering uniforms etc

I get the replies of “can’t you do it yourself it takes 5mins”, yes I could. But the reality of my life is that I drop the kids to school, start work and am on pretty much back to back calls for the most of the day, and then it’s pick up/dinner/bath/bed etc and the day has gone! I find it stressful having a whole list of stuff that needs doing so instead I send it to the PA and she gets it done, and what is probably a months worth of tasks that have built up takes her a total of an hour and has cost me £30. I don’t see what’s not to like about that to be honest!