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 understand that different sized families have different sized life ‘admin’ but i would also say this is about mindset.

majority of those tasks I would do in times between work (breaks etc) or just see as a part of life itself. I would not dedicate a day to tasks that can be done at home, with a flexible time frame. The out of house errands I might batch together but thats it.

Do people say it's not a thing as in the tasks you outline do not need to be done or it's not a thing as in its not a full time job?

Most of these are a few mins and I do them in between doing other things as I go about my day, I don’t let them all build up and allocate a day to it. I suspect that’s why it looks longer to you.

I never have a list like that as I consider it normal things you need to do, like put your dishes in th dishwasher or get dressed or have a pee.

I think it is a case of things getting saved up so they seem like more. I booked airport parking this morning while the kettle was boiling for my coffee, checked ds's lunch money situation while drinking the coffee, put stuff in the online shop basket while I drank the rest.
It sounds like you are in the part time trap where your non working day absorbs all the little jobs to leave no big time left. But maybe as well you are over committed/ giving too much time to things - does a thank you gift really need to be bought? If the kids are old enough for Nimbl cards, surely they are out of birthday party arranging age?

I work 4 days a week and found myself storing all the tasks up for my day off, then complaining how much I have to do. Then I thought about how on earth I managed to do it when I was full time and decided to try and go back to that. Now I spread tasks over the week (done some banking and online shopping on my lunch break today). On my day off I have more time for exercise, diy and cooking, which I enjoy.

The amount of tasks are the same but psychologically it feels better - like the difference between cleaning little and often or blitzing everything for ages on one day.

My experience of this is that it expands exponentially related to how many people you are dealing with.

If you are single and managing yourself, life admin isn't really a thing you register.

When you start looking after and managing stuff for more than one person for some reason it doesn't work like
Time spent on X for one person = 5 mins
Time spent on the same X for two people = 10 mins

It's more like X is multiplied by 3 or 4 times. I think it's because you have to have other information that you have to check or look up - eg. inputting passport numbers or NI numbers for other people takes much longer; selecting dietary requirements or choices for an event is quick for yourself but you have to check with other people.

The more people you add in the more exponential the time increase is. It's witchcraft.

A lot of it just IS life. It sounds like you've convinced yourself that these are separate additional burdens on you that get in the way of real life - maybe you can work on seeing them as just part of every day life, in the way that eating and buying train tickets and buying tootpaste is? They're not necessarily activities that need to be done every day, but they are the sort of thing that people do fill up lunch breaks, evenings, or weekends doing at some point, whoever they are, becaue they just need to be done.

YANBU in that life admin definitely exists.

Your problem is you’re using your non-working day to do it. If you worked full time you’d have to do some of those things during your working day/lunch break etc.
But because you have the day off you’re saving them all up. Which means you have to think about everything twice and it takes more time and brain space.

Your ridiculous list and your claim that you do a similar amount every week is the reason people ridicule these claims.

buying clothing items (Scout shirt etc.)

Let's be generous and say you need to buy some sort of clothing once a month. Also, that's not life admin.

paying instrument hire

Every three months? Six months? A year?

photocopying medical reports for school

A one-time thing, only to be repeated if there's a new significant diagnosis. Let's be generous and say yearly.

booking airport parking

Once or twice a year.

collecting worming tablets

Every 3-6 months.

booking a restaurant, buying zoo tickets

Once a week at most.

arranging a delivery of flowers for mum's birthday

Once a year unless she's the queen.

an online grocery shop

Once a week.

buying a thank you gift

Again let's be generous and say once a month.

arranging a birthday party

Once a year x 2 or 3 unless it's for the queen or you're the Radfords.

booking a roofer

Once every 25 years.

buying new windscreen wipers

Once every 2-3 years at most.

emailing the GP

I don't know how you find the energy to write an email.

updating kids' Nimbl cards

Up to you. Put a month's worth on it at a time.

finding a way to teach DS about dividing decimals

Not life admin.

paying various people online

Not life admin. Also extremely rare not to do this at the time of purchase.

You could probably have done half of those things on your list the time it took you to write this on MN.

I think it's because those things are all just part of living life and everyone has to do it.

What people object to on here is stuff like buying the kids clothes and sending cards to people being branded 'life admin' and made out to be some big extra task that people need to do, often to emphasise how busy they are and to justify life choices (which don't need to be justified in the first place!)

I retired a couple of years ago and though great I have an extra 50 hours a week to try new things.
In fact I have found housework and life admin have expanded to fill 90% of that time.
In reality I just dither about instead of cracking on with stuff, something I am now trying to change.

I do wonder how people manage with insurance renewal - assuming they're not just accepting the auto renewal quote. Every time I have to sort car insurance x 3, house insurance or annual travel insurance I lose the will to live.

I think the issue is that you save everything up. We have friends who will say "shall we go out to xyz restaurant? " and by the time we've answered he's checked availability and booked online whilst we're still talking. Similarly the other evening we were discussing an up and coming UK holiday with them. Whilst talking about food to take, one of them booked a Tesco delivery slot there and then for the day before departure. Job done - no adding to a list and creating a job.

Well booking zoo tickets and airport parking I’d put into the category of “first world problems”

I don’t think anyone has any doubt that we have admin tasks to complete but they can often be fitted around other things. I’ve done my online food order on my commute this morning for example. What I would dispute is that “life admin” is a full time job. I personally don’t care if other people work or not but laugh at those arguing that “ I couldn’t possibly work because I need to book the dentists and pay the window cleaner”

YANBU

Thanks for the responses. It is helpful to hear other perspectives. I think that the differences in the time people have available in their working day might make a difference. I don't work in the sort of job where I have a lunch hour to complete tasks (my lunch hour is normally spent on work calls or supporting colleague, or on the road between visits), and I drive straight to collect my children from my work and so have very little 'space' in the day for the odd life admin job. I also work in the sort of job where it's not psychologically helpful to have too much 'mingling' of home and work life, if that makes sense. Hence, my day off being a day off for home stuff. However, the part-time trap concept is interesting. I save everything up, have a huge list and feel guilty if I don't get it all done, as that's my role on that day. I'm sure that I could streamline some ways of doing things (I didn't even think to get wormer posted, for example).

All of us do this kind of shit, I think it's the idea of giving it a title and making it into a thing that some of us find weird.

All these things are just the normal stuff of life, aren't they? Bits and bobs that need doing, things that need buying, build that need paying. I just get on with them as and when they're needed, just as I do with getting dressed in the morning, cleaning my teeth, cooking dinner etc. I don't see them as one single category of "life admin" - they're just things that I need or want to do, like everything else.

You could do most of these while waiting for the kettle to boil.

Teaching your child is life admin?

These are the kind of tasks I do on my phone or iPad while waiting for the pasta water to boil or the coffee machine to finish.

Each one is a couple of minutes, some can be combined so the weekly food shop could also include a box of chocolates as a thank you gift and whatever clothing basics I need that week/month.

I arranged DDs birthday party this month and did most of it online, booked and paid for the community centre hall and bouncy castle and food while I was on conference calls at work because it was easy enough to multi task.

Absolutely this. I wouldn’t say I like doing these jobs, but I just did my weekly online shop while my lunch was cooking. Some of the other items on the list could be done in the time it takes to wait for the kettle to boil.

It doesn’t sound like you’re overcommitted, but rather than by saving up all the little jobs that you’d otherwise just fit in around other things, they seem a bigger deal than they actually are.

So much of it, if it was part of a paid job would be tasks that were given respect. Life admin is a thing. Negotiating with builders, remortgaging and applying of SEND support for a kid going into reception has all been far more time consuming and head wrecking this week then work. But no, none of those things are a “thing” and I should just crack on with them in my non existent lunch break 🙄

I always find that ‘paperwork’ takes longer than expected also.

They just get done morning, lunchtime or after work.

We share the 'life admin' and although I do work part time I don't save it up, just get on with it as it comes up. Takes a minute to pay someone or order something.

I estimate I spend about 3 hours a week on average on 'life admin'. This includes -

45 minutes for online shop (meal plan, fill basket, book next slot),

90 minute session working through my regular admin jobs (including personal work admin as I don't get to do this at work and DDs school admin) and tackling my to do list (which is epic with some long standing items on it as a result of getting backed up during lockdown with a toddler).

Then approx 45 minutes of random errands or extra phonecalls/emails that crop up.

So half a day, if you don't do any admin at other times, seems reasonable for a busy family/household.