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.

I sometimes write a few jobs on the back of an envelope.
Does that count?
Doesn't mean I'll actually get round to doing them.

@Bumberlee

Was that to me *@schrodingersImmigrant*?

More like generally to people on a thread

@Bumberlee

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.

What? No one has mocked mums, these are jobs done by mums, dads, stay at home or work outside of home parents. They are jobs done by every adult who has to do their own life stuff and often that of their dependents.

I work full time, as does DH, we both still have dentists, hair, MoT etc appointments and we have a Dd in primary school who has clubs, clothing needs, appointments, school forms........

None of what has been said on this thread has been targeted to or about stay at home mums.

I hadnt heard the phrase before MN
I would probably include
-Renewing car /home insurance
-Booking or paying Car tax/service/mot
-Checking or paying congestion charge/road tolls etc

• dealing with school emails
• booking parents eve apts/paying for school trips/meals etc
• booking and paying for clubs/holiday camps etc

-booking dr/dentist/orthodontist/optician apt

• sorting out cards for birthdays/weddings/sympathy cards

-filing paper mail such as credit card statements

@PlayDohDots

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.

Very well said. I struggle with this.

Those who say it's easy and no big deal, it's easy and no big deal FOR YOU.

It changes as your life changes.

When we were moving country, then it was very complex and time consuming.

When we were sending a child off to university it was very complex and time consuming.

When we had an elderly parent who needed a lot of help it was very complex and time consuming.

Sometimes it's complex and time consuming for nice reasons like booking lots of holidays or buying/furnishing a new house.

Sometimes it's complex and time consuming because you've just started a new job and there's all the paperwork and the childcare to arrange and a lifestyle to rejig.

And sometimes it's not that much bother at all.

Oh and I didn't even mention when it's complex and time consuming because you and/or your family have mental or physical health issues, and you have all sorts of appointments to organise and prescriptions to fill and special needs forms to fill in, while at the same time your own mental or physical issues mean that it all takes far too long and makes your brain/body hurt far too much.

I wouldnt include laundry , gardening, or putting bins out as to me they are more practical household chores whereas imo admin is more paper/online form based.
I fall short of the MN standard because although most Bill's are on direct debit, and a lot of tasks I can do on my phone on my way to work, sometimes I do find it overwhelming when there are multiple emails from school(s) that require a response for example, all using different online platforms or portals that I cant remember the passwords for

Anything that requires a phone call. I am the default life admin in this house. My husband has asked me to call the vets on Monday but he is the only one who can attend and I have no idea his availability..he is expecting me to call up, find out what dates and times they have and then consult him and try to work something out. Makes more sense for him to do it because he knows when he is available but he argues his Job is nothing but phone calls (my job is admin...I also take a shit load of calls!). I don't mind though generally. But this vet thing has annoyed me because I genuinly have no idea when I'm supposed to book him in. Might just pick a random day and then it's his problem to move his schedule around.

@FlyingBurrito I am a single parent and still don't think it's a big deal.

@nanbread I have a child without disabilities or health conditions, yes. Obviously some people will have more or less to do.

@Bumberlee

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.

I'm a single working mother and I think this is a load of bollocks.

I've never called it Life Admin but I know exactly the sensation. Boring stuff that you have had to sort out. There's no need to sneer at the expression.

This weeks Life Admin :

Goddaughters Birthday Card
Replacement Part For Hoover
Wrong Part Arrived, Sorted That Out
Arranged return collection for a separate purchase that arrived damaged
Ordered my repeat prescriptions, doctors fucked it up for the millionth time
Had to ring my consultant to get it fixed
Went to a different doctors to register and move.
Sorted out tickets for something
Helped my mother find something on her computer

Thats this weeks tedious shit sorted.

And yes I wish I was like Spreadsheet Poster - shoutout to you
Booked Appointments for Hair and Beauty

It's really frustrating when people say "so what, that's just life"/"it's not hard"/"it doesn't take much time" - first of all, what do any of those statements have to do with some people referring to it as 'life admin'? Secondly, presumably, if your frustration is with people complaining about their 'life admin', their experience is not easy, or taking little time. As pp have mentioned, those of us with caring responsibilities, disabilities, chronic health conditions etc. may have less capacity for those sorts of tasks, and many more of them to complete.

As an example, I have to be seen by four separate clinics at various hospitals on a quarterly basis, and EVERY single appointment requires multiple phonecalls, emails or letters to arrange because hospitals are struggling to squeeze in even the most at-risk patients, often they forget to book you in, or don't offer you an appointment within the time your consultant said you MUST be seen... I have lost count of the number of times I've had to go to Switchboards because the quoted telephone numbers on letters are incorrect or are never answered, to then be passed from person to person and end up having to speak to a Patient Liaison Team just to get your appointment scheduled.

Then there's the amount of time you spend filling out paperwork, being assessed and appealing incorrect decisions made by the, frankly incompetent, DWP.

That's before you even start on the mental energy it takes to advocate for yourself when doctors dismiss abnormal test results despite textbook symptoms of the issue the test is confirming.

Point is, if people are complaining about struggling with their 'life admin', try considering that their experience is more difficult to manage than yours, and show a little empathy (or don't bother reading it if it bothers you so much). No need to put people down for not managing as well as you do.

May I clarify that my Goddaughter couldnt be less tedious, and my resentment stems from not having been able to see her for 15 months

I think when people talk about life admin they mean the organizing/arranging of the tasks that go with household life. If you are on your own it can often feel like the burden of having all those jobs with no one to share the load. When its a couple dynamic it can be the imbalance if you suddenly realize you are left to do it all or the other extreme you are excluded from decision making and a partner is maybe controlling everything. Life laundry is an innocuous term I think but has different meanings in the context of how people are asking or describing it.

Today: passport photos for my son, trip 3 as photos from first trip were put on application and sent off and it was rejected, I went back yesterday to the post office (where they take them here) and explained this but they couldn’t take the photos yesterday so drove somewhere else today. Christening present bought, other child’s shoe size checked. We need to do budgets, and check progress on a planning application. We are short winter school uniform so need to buy more.
That’s a regular Saturday really.

@sbhydrogen

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.

Yeah I agree with this. It’s just a weird name for normal life stuff that needs done 🤷🏻‍♀️

I make a conscious effort once a month to check up on things - usually the last week in the month because that’s just what I like to do. Quick check that all bills have been paid etc (all DD so really just double checking our online banking all looks fine), deal with anything that needs renewing like insurances etc, and I always have a look forward to the next month and see what birthdays/occasions/events we have coming up and try to get organised ahead of time for anything we might need for those. DH works offshore for a few weeks at a time and I have a busy work life here (when not on Mat leave like I am now) so I prefer to get organised rather than leaving things more last minute.

We don’t really divide up these tasks as such 🤔 it’s all just family stuff that needs done. If his rest weeks off fall at the end of the month that month then he’ll do it all as he’s not doing anything else 🤷🏻‍♀️ If he’s away at work, I’ll do it all 🤷🏻‍♀️ And I don’t set aside any specific time to do it at all! Most of it takes 2 minutes!

Once you've got all bills & insurance via direct debit, it's not really admin, as I think of admin as paperwork. I can get appts online now at the Hairdresser & Dr so that's no hassle. I don't vuew lbirthday cards & presents as admin, as I've always got a few cards handy anyway & I enjoy looking for presents .The cats flea & worm stuff is sent monthly from Petsathome, that took 2mins to do. My regular prescription I ring the chemist & he gets the renewal off the Dr: new system which started when Covid did.

I call it admin, but perhaps people call it life admin to distinguish from work admin. It’s the stuff that happens in the background, which some refer to as being organised, but if the tasks don’t get done or get done at the last minute then it causes problems. It can be useful to set aside time to do these jobs if you are at work all day (especially if it requires calls during office hours) or if you have young children you might schedule admin around naps etc.

I assume that all the parents complaining on our school WhatsApp groups that the school haven’t communicated something or having a Sunday night panic don’t set aside time to do admin.

Even pre-pandemic when you didn’t have to book literally everything in advance, I was often surprised by people who would expect to be able to turn up at a popular restaurant with no booking and no back-up option, and would expect to get walk-in appointments for things. And when people turn up late for things because they couldn’t find parking or the journey had taken longer than expected - again, I assume that they don’t do admin and just expect everything to fall into place without preparing.

Anything that involves coordinating group efforts like getting people to chip into presents and chasing up people who haven’t paid is a right pain so might benefit from dedicated admin time so it doesn’t feel like it’s taking over your life.

Some people like to plan ahead, others like to wing it - there are pros and cons to both approaches. But I assume that those who don’t do admin as such and consider it as part of daily life are either wealthy enough to afford fines/last minute delivery etc or rely on someone else putting the work in, often unnoticed.

Life admin is a good term. It encompasses all the tasks mentioned and can be as complex or as simple as your circumstances entails.

And can i just say that being a single parent might be easier in terms of life admin than when you are partnered as you only have yourself to return to to make decisions. You don't have to consult, check the diary, compromise, amend or discuss to suit someone else. Not everyone partnered up actually has a partner that can help with life admin for all sorts of reasons. Being a single parent and working full time is tough i'm sure but let's not make it a competition on who has it worse.

I really don't understand why people are so dismissive of the time these things can take. Our washing machine broke last week. To organise a repair under warranty took nearly two hours on the phone!

Last week I was organising investments and transferred money from one account to another. This triggered a fraud check so another hour plus on the phone just waiting to have my transaction approved.

I've spent this week trying to sort out payments for swimming lessons by phoning the pool. No response to multiple messages so ended up driving there to get it sorted.

We're currently house hunting and DH is checking Rightmove as he sits at a computer daily. He'll WhatsApp me potential houses during the day. I have no access to my phone during the day as at work so by the time I check and ring and arrange a viewing it's often that we can't be fitted in. It's so frustrating that he doesn't just do it himself. This is where the lack of balance between who does what can be a source of stress.

The idea that life admin only takes two minutes is a joke. Having a phrase to describe these tasks can be useful. Don't like it, don't use it.

Yeah I agree with this. It’s just a weird name for normal life stuff that needs done
So is cooking and laundry and it’s perfectly normal to be fed up if left doing all of that! It doesnt fall under the housework bucket so seems fair to give it another name. I don’t understand this denial of it existing. Some people might have less but for some of us it’s a lot. I called the bank Monday and spent an hour on the phone and accomplished 1 of 3 bank tasks. I couldn’t carve out the time from work to call again this week. I forgot to tell childcare I was taking our children out for a day so had a call looking for them, inconveniencing them because I wasn’t on top of everything.
Last year we were signing up for childcare funding (not uk) I literally put over 2 full days hours wise into going this. One day I spent 3 hours in the support office and another 2 on the phone. This shit is a massive exhausting time drain.

^^Bumberlee
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^^

What a load of rubbish. No one’s bashing SAHP’s but let’s be honest it’s bit just SAHP’s who have “life admin”... my husband and I both work full time, with a toddler and still do everything at home that you are saying is a SAHP’s job. I certainly don’t pay someone to personal shop or be my office admin. And if you are in a partnership and you are the SAHP, whilst the other works full time, then yes I would expect you to do the lion share of life admin.

On these life admin threads I can't work out why people are so adamant it doesn't exist!! It feels like if they let themselves believe there are tasks people have to do that aren't fun, they'd realise their own whole lives are endless drudgery, or something. Or some kind of feeling that we are showing off by calling it life admin? I assure you admin is nothing to swank about but it's tasks that need doing.

There's loads of it, and sometimes doing it means I can't have a rest when I need one. I don't call it life admin but it's very easy to recognise it by the term.