To not understand claims that life admin is 'not a thing'

[LabradorsInThePond]

I keep reading this on MN threads about organisation, time management etc. And that the life admin tasks of renewing insurances and checking mortgage rates can't take up that much time. But I spend a huge amount of time in the throes of life admin. We live a pretty normal, busy family life. I work 4 days in a professional role and can easily spend the 5th day (or at least half of it) in the throes of dreaded life admin.

My list tomorrow extends to twenty three separate items. None of which involve renewing insurances, but they do include buying clothing items (Scout shirt etc.), paying instrument hire, photocopying medical reports for school, booking airport parking, collecting worming tablets, booking a restaurant, buying zoo tickets, arranging a delivery of flowers for mum's birthday, an online grocery shop, buying a thank you gift, arranging a birthday party, booking a roofer, buying new windscreen wipers, emailing the GP, updating kids' Nimbl cards, finding a way to teach DS about dividing decimals, paying various people online etc.

None of these are yearly tasks, and next week there will be another 23 items to complete. It is relentless. DH does most of the house and long-term financial admin and he's also executing his father's too-complicated will, which makes my 23 items look like peanuts.

Do we just have an over-committed life, or does anyone one else find (what others consider non-existent) life admin burdensome and time-consuming? What am I doing wrong here?

I think it depends on how busy your life is, and how many friends/how big your social life is! - this is probably true, but again, being that busy that basic life becomes stressful is a choice - nobody's making you live like that.

We travel a lot for business and on holidays, so that takes hours to organise.
How does it take hours to organise a holiday or business trip? Surely work are doing the latter anyway?

The bills are automatic but need checking. - I have never done this. I check my bank daily but it takes about 30 seconds on my phone.

Children's dentists/opticians/asthma checks/hair cuts/ - book the dentist when you finish the appointment - opticians can be booked online or it takes minutes to ring once a year. Hair cuts - again, just book once you've done the last one. I accept asthma checks might take a bit longer.

regular clothes checks and replacements - how often are you really needing to do this?

school trips/playdates/birthday parties/presents for family and friends/Holiday activities and plans/school emails/school friends emails/ help with homework/organising sports and hobbies/ remembering the million and one fundraisers/volunteering for the fairs at school etc. - but most of this is voluntary. Your kids don't need loads of play dates, you don't need to volunteer at school or organise loads of hobbies and sports. Holidays are only as stressful as you make them, same with homework.

Yes you can let it all slide, but I don't that is good parenting and detrimental to the children's health, and of course an amazon voucher takes all of 5 seconds but we prefer to send thoughtful gifts. - it's not about "letting it slide" - most of that is work of your own choosing and it's hardly necessary.

We have dogs/cat and two rabbits all need walks/feeding/exercising/ attention.. - again, you chose to have multiple pets! It's a choice not a necessity - don't get them if you don't want to put the work in to care for them.

Then there are house repairs, decorating, organising car insurance/tax/MOTs car repairs and associated recovery services - how often does this come up, really? It takes me about a minute to book my car in for an MOT or service. Insurance and tax are all on auto-pay, same with the breakdown cover.

Checking on line refunds weekly and food shopping is life admin to keep everyone alive. - How many online refunds do you need to check? Surely the food shop is easy online once you've done it a couple of times? Just add all your favourites and delete/add as necessary.

My own long list of smears ( I have them annually) hair apps/pedi and mani/ waxing/opticians/physio for back/gym membership/dentist/teeth cleans etc - oh, come on. Hair apps, manis, pedis, and waxing are all 100% optional, so is the gym. The dentist, physio etc. you just either book as you leave or have a standing appointment, surely?

There is Christmas, which is huge. Birthdays, Easter and Halloween. - these things are only as big as you want them to be. Don't make them "huge" if you're then going to moan about the work?

Then there is the catching up with friends/family making time for everyone. Organising nights out, dinner. 1000s of emails. How does that involve "thousands of e-mails?"

I find it is bloody relentless. It is click on ocado and pay the odd bill, maybe if you have no kids, no pets and a very minimal social life it is like that...but not for me, or any of my friends. - But you're CHOOSING to make your life that way! If you don't want to do all that work - don't. The world won't fall apart because your kids don't do constant activities or have constant playdates, or a "huge" Christmas.

But you can do other things while you're on hold. Stick your phone on loudspeaker and get on with something else.

In the same boat as you everyday I set notes reminder on my iPhone for all the things that need to be sorted. Prescriptions and booking doctors for dc just to name a few

I would count all this stuff as life admin - as it’s admin that needs to be done for the household. And Op is right that this stuff can be endless week by week - and amplified by special events such as organising parties, holidays, attending weddings or dealing with house/will stuff.

but I work 5 days a week in a full on job as a lawyer so need to fit this kind of stuff in during the day or most likely a couple of evenings during the week (whilst watching tv).

but there have been times I’ve taken a whole day off to do this stuff too and it’s really cathartic.

not sure there is an easy answer except to automate everything where possible and use online banking for everything so it’s quick

also my bank account has a concierge service that can book things like theatre tickets, zoo tickets and help to plan parties etc

there are family virtual assistants available but never used them

This. It's just poor time management and disorganisation. You just know the kind of people that label day to day tasks 'life admin' are the sort who spend all day chasing their tails, achieving very little and probably running late for everything.

What is showering and teeth cleaning referred to on these timetables I wonder, personal care time or free time?

Yep, I have a non work to do list of double figures every week. Guess what ends up at the bottom and never gets done...anything to with me! X

You have choices of how busy and stressful you want your life to be

I agree @Waxonwaxoff0. When DD was at primary school I limited her activities to 2 after school activities plus Brownies. Some women run themselves ragged running their DC here there and everywhere. I wasn't one of them.

Exactly. Someone upthread referred to getting a manicure as "life admin", ffs 😂

Today:

download and print NHS apps for travel
buy sun cream, bags and a million other forgotten items for travel to France tomorrow
print off car insurance details etc etc
pay for kid 1 clarinet exam
pay for kid 2 first instalment residential trip
pay for kid 3 school trip
cancel direct debit and arrange refund on mistake LinkedIn account!
sort out new home insurance
Get new tyres for the car after they turned out dodgy on the MOT (this turned into a wild goose chase around multiple garages that took 3 hours)
book in builders and window men for work we are having done
check in with bank about processing times for additional mortgage loan (40 mins on hold!)
pick up prescriptions

IT IS CONSTANT

Absolutely. People here are talking about pets, activities, volunteering, etc. Those are choices. I'm a single parent working out of the home. I'm not getting involved with volunteering of any kind, I don't have the time for that. I refuse to have pets as well. I'm not one for making my life any more difficult than it has to be.

Most of those are at the very least monthly though and stuff like downloading apps, paying for things can be done in front of the tv at night time. I also assume that all these jobs have been building up?

But most of these are on-offs, voluntary tasks, or stuff you've been putting off for a while. It's not like you have to do all of that week in, week out.

Most people have a couple of stressful days before they go on holiday but it's not like you're paying for music exams an sorting out insurance every single day - it's either very bad luck that all this has come at once, or you've been putting some of it off for a while.

I think that people posting lists of stuff they have to do "daily" are just badly organised and let everything pile up until the last minute.

I'm sorry but most of Marmee list is ridiculous. Why would you leave buying sun cream till the last day?

Most of the 'I can't cope / too much to do' types of this thread, are just disorganised, ..... blithering idiots. I'm sorry, but it's true.

I think this is all pretty normal however as the mum of two teens with disabilities and mental health problems my list can easily be tripled. Luckily I'm fairly articulate and can just about cope, although I have to admit I didn't reapply for our son's Dla for nearly 3 years because my mental health couldn't cope with filling in 40 + pages of answers about how he is at his worst! I also gave up claiming carer's allowance which you had to do annually and had to give them our earnings figures before we had time to file them with HMRC as we were self employed. I really feel for families who are completely unable to cope with it all, it's just not fair that only the people who are able get the funds because they can fill in forms. At one stage I had 12 forms to fill in annually for various forms of funding! That's on top of all the normal stuff 'normal families' have to do.

'cancel direct debit and arrange refund on mistake LinkedIn account!'

Cancel direct debit? It takes seconds with online banking, not like the old days of trudging to the bank and queuing up.

So many of these jobs are easy. So very quick and easy. I have total respect for those living with disabilities/chronic conditions or caring for those with disabilities who really do face daily challenges. They must read self indulgent threads like these and be gobsmacked at the haplessness displayed.

I have two carrier bags of life admin crap to deal with - and all the online stuff. It’s relentless.

You can't seriously be saying that downloading an app and printing off some certificates (there is a direct link on the NHS app to do this) along with printing off a car insurance certificate are worthy of calling a task?

How do people get through a normal day if such minor things have to be allocated to some work stream?

I'm flabbergasted reading some of the posts in this thread.

I'd say the opposite actually. It takes time to do things properly. I think most of the people who can do hundred and one things in 5 minutes whilst bathing the dog are probably wasting a hell of a lot of money by not shopping around, buying the wrong things, making mistakes, etc.

I see a lot of it with my clients when I do their business book-keeping, I'll often query why they're paying two different direct debits for business insurance, with most answering they just forgot to cancel the policy when they changed provider, or when they buy a van and sell it within a couple of months, with the answer that they thought it would be big enough but couldn't fit all their equipment/stock in it, etc (i.e. couldn't be bothered to check the dimensions). I always tell clients that they should be spending a few hours per week on their book-keeping, many say "nah, I can do it in an hour" - yes, indeed, and it shows, with mistakes everywhere, money lost because they didn't chase up unpaid bills, etc etc.

My sister is the same, she'll always boast that she can do the shopping in 10 minutes, but when you look in her house, her kitchen cupboards/fridge have things that are well out of date (she never writes a list nor meal plans), her wardrobe is full of clothes with labels on that she bought on a whim but forgot to take back (of course she shops so quickly she never bothers to try anything on in the changing rooms!). Only ever uses the one same supermarket so never benefits from offers at others, etc.

Competitively busy people are tiresome. You need to work smarter.

Completely agree, all these martyrs to business - it's crazy! No-one forces any one to have multiple kids, multiple pets, multiple cars that need new tyres, - maybe you need you downsize your life - get rid of the pets, the cars, keep the kids, and chill out a bit more

That's nonsense. I'm a single parent on minimum wage so I don't have loads of money to chuck around. I just refuse to make my life any more stressful than it needs to be. Your clients are obviously wealthy people. I don't own my own business or a van or any of that stuff you're banging on about.

I'd do a lot of that as multi tasking. I'd leave the decimals to the school to teach

Doing my 3 year old son's admin takes so long, I don't know how people with four kids do it!