To ask about Life Admin

[sweeneytoddsrazor]

What do you class as life admin. It isn't a phrase I was familiar with before seeing it on here. And given how often people cite it as one of their chores I wonder how long people spend on it. It never really occurred to me to put things like renew insurance in the same category as say cooking dinner so never really thought about it as a chores. I am now pondering who does what between me and D H with regard to it and I don't even really know what it should include.

It's a shit expression, it's doing life . Sometimes it's boring sometimes it's great.

@peak2021

I class life admin as a stupid silly expression.

I prefer to call it running a house. Others have described the tasks.

Completely agree. It’s not difficult making appointments, checking insurances etc some people make such a big deal out of having to deal with normal daily life.

It's just admin isn't it? Any admin you do outside of work. If it doesn't weigh you down there's no issue.

When I was working it seemed to take up all my evenings, but we do have quite a lot due to our child's additional needs.

It is a daft expression but it’s stuff that needs doing and somebody has to do it. Unless you want unpaid bills, untaxed cars etc and you are happy to leave all post unopened.

My list of life admin in the past week or so has included:

Writing to both my children's teachers
Writing to head
Writing to SENCO
Researching treatment/ consultant options for my children's conditions
Booking medical appts and dental appts for children
Finding a new swimming teacher and booking lessons
Booking music lessons
Online banking
Organising summer holiday activities / accommodation
Organising quotes for some household repairs
Researching window companies as we have some that need replacing
Chasing insurers on much delayed pay out details
Booking activities for weekends (as everything needs to be booked now)
Booking physio for me
Booking hair appt for me
Booking hair appt for DC
Meal planning
Food shopping
Googling and buying new bedding needed
Sorting paperwork

I've nearly made my way through it...

There was a massive thread on it not so long ago.
For someone it's just bills and such, but some people include diy, clothes shopping etc.

People who are like “this is just normal daily tasks!” - yes. That’s the point. It’s just a useful collective name for these normal daily tasks. It’s not a big deal. You don’t have to use the term if you don’t like it

@FloralJammies yes, but they are neither paid nor pleasurable things, hence as I explained they go in the day-to-day tasks category, aka “life admin.”

The last few weeks for instance, i had to arrange a plumber to come and install a water softener in our plumbing system because we’ve had recurring problems with various machines due to limescale, chase an electrician we badly need who was not responding to messages, filled in the forms for dd1 to return to swimming, buy her new kit for ballet and tap and rush her to class because i was told the new reduced-covid numbers meant they didn’t have space for her until suddenly they did and she had outgrown her pre-lockdown kit, arrange two playdates in parks for her, sort out the paperwork for our nanny’s maternity leave at the end of this month, fill in the forms to get dd2 registered at nursery during that leave, get them both new summer sandals as they suddenly shot up a shoe size in the last month, organise and take out the rubbish/recycling, cut the lawn, trimmed the hedges, meal plan for us all and order and cook, do all the washing up, laundry, drop dd1’s bike into a shop for repairs, find and arrange a meeting with a new cat sitter after our old one retired, and organise easter egg hunts. And the reason i know it was life admin was a) that none of it was fun or paid, and had to be fitted around my 3 days at work, and b) my husband doesn’t do any of it or is even vaguely aware that any of it happened (long hours high stress job etc etc), but everyone’s life would be crapper if i’d just said “sod it, i’m going to read my book instead.”

On the basis of what a lot of you are saying I appear to do the bulk of it, although its considerably less now kids are grown up. I just never thought to give it a name or lump it in with cleaning and cooking

Not that I'm particularly enamoured with the term, but when I see life admin on here its usually in the context of one person goes to work, comes home does little around the house. Life admin is commented as one of the chores falling on the other person. To me it makes sense in that context. These small tasks, including remembering birthdays / special events and buying thoughtful presents, do take time and some effort. They're not automatic. Finding tradesmen, best deals on furniture etc takes time. Kids schedules and running to and from activities is another. Who makes sure there's always milk for coffee etc - you know looking ahead, thinking the milk's low, I'll get some when I go out even if it isn't the time for a normal shop. Typically one person is blissfully oblivious to this and there's always milk magically in the fridge.

It's easy to see why one person would begrudge another who sits back and expects everything to magically happen. There is no generic term to group all these little tasks, so it seems to have been shortened to life admin. To me it's the burden of being the one to remember, take action and do a myriad of small tasks required for life to run smoothly.

I live by myself. I don't have milk for coffee. Enough said on my life admin skills!

[quote RubaiyatOfAnyone]@FloralJammies yes, but they are neither paid nor pleasurable things, hence as I explained they go in the day-to-day tasks category, aka “life admin.”

The last few weeks for instance, i had to arrange a plumber to come and install a water softener in our plumbing system because we’ve had recurring problems with various machines due to limescale, chase an electrician we badly need who was not responding to messages, filled in the forms for dd1 to return to swimming, buy her new kit for ballet and tap and rush her to class because i was told the new reduced-covid numbers meant they didn’t have space for her until suddenly they did and she had outgrown her pre-lockdown kit, arrange two playdates in parks for her, sort out the paperwork for our nanny’s maternity leave at the end of this month, fill in the forms to get dd2 registered at nursery during that leave, get them both new summer sandals as they suddenly shot up a shoe size in the last month, organise and take out the rubbish/recycling, cut the lawn, trimmed the hedges, meal plan for us all and order and cook, do all the washing up, laundry, drop dd1’s bike into a shop for repairs, find and arrange a meeting with a new cat sitter after our old one retired, and organise easter egg hunts. And the reason i know it was life admin was a) that none of it was fun or paid, and had to be fitted around my 3 days at work, and b) my husband doesn’t do any of it or is even vaguely aware that any of it happened (long hours high stress job etc etc), but everyone’s life would be crapper if i’d just said “sod it, i’m going to read my book instead.”[/quote]
Too funny 😂😂

@FudgeSundae

People who are like “this is just normal daily tasks!” - yes. That’s the point. It’s just a useful collective name for these normal daily tasks. It’s not a big deal. You don’t have to use the term if you don’t like it

Agreed!

Also it’s a bit disingenuous of some posters to make out that anyone who struggles with this must be making a fuss, surely it’s not impossible to imagine that people have different responsibilities and different lives. Yes, if you have been in the same job for yonks and lived in the same house for twenty years and you don’t have young children/elderly parents/other people who depend on you, you probably don’t have much in the way of life admin to do day to day. Some people have lives with more moving parts, as it were.

Life admin is horrible for people with ADHD/ADD since they prioritise tasks based on interest not importance. The more boring a task, the more impossible it becomes to do and the awareness that you are procrastinating but not being able to chance that causes significant distress. It also often results in penalties, late fees, delayed medical diagnosis, kids missing out on crucial registrations like securing a nursery/school spot ahead of time or living with un-repaired car and home damage just to name a few.

Some PPs sound quite sneery at the idea that people struggle with basic life tasks or that this is "even supposed to be a thing". Consider yourselves lucky to not require superhuman mental energy in order to plan and execute hundreds of big and small tasks every day. People with ADD (and possibly ASD as well) can often only cope with a far smaller number of tasks. If life admin takes up too many of those slots then it becomes impossible to do other things like cook, eat or bathe and put your child to bed. Obviously those are non-negotiable so life admin tasks keep getting shoved to the back burner until they incur warnings and penalties.

By conservative estimates, ADD affect 7% of adults which is common enough to make the idea of "I'm just bad at adulting and everyone else has their lives together" a normalised belief about themselves. And there is significant proportion above that who probably have some traits of executive function disorder without qualifying for a full diagnosis.

Exactly what @k1233 said. Yes it's mostly little jobs that don't take long to do, but they do still take time and head space, and if one partner is doing the majority of it then that does create a disparity. And if you look over the population as a whole, women spend a lot more time on this stuff than men. That's why it's important to factor into conversations about the fair split of labour, finances, caring etc within a family and in society as a whole.

I have only really seen people use that term on Mumsnet when they are talking about what super busy people they are.

I pay bills, most are direct debits, the couple that aren't take like 5 minutes a month to pay. Booking appointments, taxing car, booking a MOT etc is a part of life and doesn't take that much time and really not something that is hard work, or needs a special name like 'life admin'.

Appointments for children etc are things I would class as parenting.

It's a wanky term. It's just bloody life .

Completely agree. It’s not difficult making appointments, checking insurances etc some people make such a big deal out of having to deal with normal daily life.

Yep.

As k1233 said, it’s more often used when there’s disagreement about workload.
Most household stuff these days just bobs along. Direct debits take care of bills so you never have to think about council tax or utilities unless you want to switch the latter.
I’ve been divorced for years, so to me organising things is really just life, not ‘life admin’. Putting out the bins & calling for a hair cut isn’t worth putting on any kind of list.

We’ve had more of it recently but it’s involved moving twice in the space of 2 years. It can be little things like returning a parcel at the post office or bigger things like sorting out paperwork for a house purchase.

I don’t mind what it’s called or if there is a lot of it or a little right now, but I do care that both my partner and I share it and neither of us feels like they are lumbered with it all.

I don’t say ‘life admin’, just admin, but that includes:

Bills
Insurances
Bank accounts
Non-work related taxes
Repairs/DIY
Organising diary
Scheduling appointments
Organising paperwork for said appointments
Organising/remembering social events and birthdays/cards sorting
Booking travel and everything that involves - in normal times, I go abroad 3-4 times a month
Reorganising wardrobes/kitchen

There’s probably more I’m forgetting

To retract my above post slightly as I think I was too harsh in my response.

I understand that daily tasks can be difficult for many people for a variety of different reasons. Some people have to book many appointments due to illness, or having children with additional needs and so on. Of course that can be time consuming and exhausting. I know, I have been there.

I think of it is a part of parenting and running a household.

I understand the idea behind life admin, but I hate the term. Sounds a bit too much like "adulting" (a term I hate with a passion).

Life admin is just stuff that needs doing, isn't it? Sort your life out, etc etc.

Much like an office admin?

Make appointments, sens a d reply to emails, deal with mail, deal with parcels, arrange meetings, workmen, book holidays and events, plan for weekends and half terms, order stock be it stationary, toothpaste, groceries, clothes ..sort out the familys diary, organise kits for specific hobbies and days all ready, budget and review bank and savings statements, sort out and send birthday or greeting cards and gifts, self assessment/tax, shopping around for cheaper energy/phones/deals, submitting meter reading chasing anything that needs holding on the phone or endless back and forth emails or letters.

So basically everything outside of the job?

It's funny people are so dismissive of what mothers do even more so if it she is a stay at home mum when in fact they are chores that someone else would get paid for them like an office admin, a personal shopper, a cleaner. When you are a parent you don't just do your own admin, your own cleaning and cooking, you actually have children who bring on their own sets of jobs for the parent. Mothers who are home also end up doing the lion share of jobs for the husband.. jobs that had he not had his wife he would have had to do them himself or pay someone for them. Mums are taken for granted and what they do like stating home management on a cv is mocked and devalued.

Was that to me @schrodingersImmigrant?