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 don't generally buy from anyone other than Amazon, which makes purchases quicker, easier and safer than they would otherwise be

I enjoyed reading your tips until I got to this one getoff, that is why our towns and cities are dying. Buying tat en masse from Amazon is not something I am ever going to do to save time. I am not compromising my ethics to save an hour.

As a vegetarian, I found hello fresh largely inedible, nobody enjoyed it and we threw most of it away. I don't find meal planning a chore because we have the same more or less every week on a fixed day, a saved list with ocado that comes every week at the same time. I go to the farm shop for a weekly top of vegetables, fruit and bread.

Having pets is a wonderful thing! Certainly for us they bring great love and joy and an excuse for a walk and exercise. I couldn't be without them.

I think some of it can depend on your job. My DH has a job working very long shifts, ie longer than 12 hours, and he can't use his phone during that time and is almost always with patients. He usually doesn't get a lunch break (yes, I know he's legally entitled to one, but it doesn't happen. Hey ho)

I, on the other hand, have a desk job which, although is also very busy, means I manage my own day and book my own meetings. I also have my phone out. It's only during meetings that I can't use my phone.

We could work the same number of hours in a week, and I will have done half of my to do list in that time, where as he'll have done nothing, because I can do quick things on my phone in work, and sort stuff on my lunch break, and he can't.

See I would find that absolutely joyless. It’s about your perspective.

But not being able to have a day as a family Apart for the summer holidays or even just one of you with all the kids, would make me miserable. I couldn’t have my life set up that way.

As I said, I have a very senior role and been a single parent and never had that.

But it works for you. Wouldn’t work for me.

Again, point of view.

also to the poster who said if people don’t do it doesn’t get done, that’s a obvious. But still feels like normal life. Not a drudgery.

So you would stop your teens from doing sports because you wouldn't have your 'life set up that way'?

I would think that quite selfish.
My children need to exercise, and that entails effort. They do wash their kit - not every time but they are very fit and healthy. I could leave them to languish on screens at home because it suited me, but it wouldn't be what is best for them.

So because you take several weeks a year out if normal life, your everyday jobs as an adult and parent are stacked into less weeks.

and that’s leading you have such a small amount of time to do anything, all the normal stuff takes longer. So ordering in the internet, masses of returns etc take you longer.

Thats because that’s the life you have chose. It’s a lifestyle choice. And you find it everyday life outside those holidays stressful.

You could choose differently. So again it’s going back to the point of making jobs longer than they need to be.

and if you are happy with that, great. My perspective on that would be that I purposely making myself busier as a trade off, for the several holidays. So again, not see it as drudgery.

Did I say that?

I said I wouldn’t have my life set up so we never got a day together apart from when we go away.

How does that equal stopping them doing sport? Or hobbies?

I am not sure where you work where you get 'several' weeks off a year!!

Our annual leave is five weeks max.
One of those is over Christmas.
So four weeks a year. One two week holiday and one week holiday spread out over the year with a few days off for long weekends.
Not unusual for most people.

@Dinotour We both work full time, if I was part time I'd probably eek the tasks out for the sake of it to feel busy
How would you actually eek out a task though? I mean if you had to book a hairdressers appointment or a GP appointment, it takes everyone the same amount of time to actually complete this task. Sure, some might procrastinate over actually making the call but once on the phone it is very difficult to eek out the actual 'doing' of the task for very long.

If it's more of the 'costume for WBD' variety of task then of course you could take different approaches to getting this done with different levels of effort and time associated with them but this doesn't mean that anything but Amazon priming an outfit is 'eeking' out a task. PP ripped into OP for making a costume but why on earth shouldn't she? That costume could be extremely important to her child and be something she remembers forever. No doubt OP could make something specific for her child that brings more joy than some generic costume sourced after a 2 second Google. Spending longer than the bare minimum doing a task isn't 'eeking' it out and nobody can dictate to anyone else that they have spent the 'right' amount of time doing something.

And where did I say my kids languish on screens or actually spend much time at all on them. Or are not fit or healthy?

See yet again, thread full of people saying ‘those who don’t see this as big deal are joyless or smug or insulting’

whilst completely ignoring the posters that are just making things up to make themselves feel better about the fact that some people enjoy their everyday life, more than them and don’t see everything a task to be done and ticked off.

We have Sunday afternoons together, but the shops close early. We tend to have a late Sunday lunch and a walk, maybe watch a film in the evening. We don't micromanage our teens lives, they may prefer to see friends etc but they usually join us.

5 weeks holiday or even 4 is several.

I think you may find 4 weeks of actual away from home holiday a year is quite unusual.

5 weeks holiday or even 4 is several

No it is not - it is 25 days. Not several weeks!

I think you may find 4 weeks of actual away from home holiday a year is quite unusual

Where did I say I was away for 4 weeks??
I said I had one two week holiday a year and one week's holiday in the winter. Definitely NOT unusual. We use the rest of the time at christmas, and the odd long weekend away to take the dc hiking and camping.

4 of something is several.

By definition 3 or more of Maine thing is several.

I think part of the problem is that this stuff gets dumped on one person. My dh wouldnt be even thinking about this let alone doing any of it. But then he works way more hours than me and i take over obviously . Its remembering what needs doing rather than doing it that i find tricky. Keeping a list and ticking stuff off works for me. Generally each thing doesn’t really take very long.

So yes, over the year you away from home for several weeks.

You have 3 or more weeks holiday a year are are away from home for those.

Which means you don’t have time for much else and have to do things in a very long way when you are at home.

as I said, nothing wrong with it. If that’s suits you. But it’s a choice that’s making normal everyday life more difficult. It’s a trade off. When I trade something off I don’t see it as a negative or stressful thing. I need to do something this way because I want to do xyz instead.

Back to my original point. It’s about how we look at things.

I'm not bothered how long others spent doing things, but if I had a day I didn't work and DS was in school I'd definitely end up making it some sort of life admin day when it needn't be- saving things for that day when making a list probably takes longer than actually doing it in some cases. I interviewed someone once who had only had 2 years out of the workforce and a really fantastic job history and set of qualifications. They answered every question going on about all the life admin tasks they had done during the last 2 years, even when guided to talk about previous paid employment as this was more relevant. They didn't get it but they probably would have if they didn't spend the time bigging up everyday tasks that everyone does.

I don't really see making stuff as life admin personally, but DS also doesn't see time mum has spent making a costume for me as a reflection of anything. We tend to make stuff together as even though it turns out.. interesting its time we have spent together and also he's proud to wear it. I wouldn't judge anyone who buys something from amazon though or someone who is actively choosing to spend ages making one; but the latter is an active choice.

I refuse to waste precious annual leave on life admin!
You can do that if you want, but it is definitely not for us.
Annual leave is strictly family time and for fun and good times, not sitting in the garage waiting for the MOT whilst on speed dial to customs and exercise.

**Excise

Half of these take longer to write on a list than actually do ! Just do them as and when they crop up and enjoy your day off.

I would not write something down in a list when it's simply quicker to just do it. You can book a restaurant or order a present from Amazon while waiting for the kettle to boil. Most of the items in your list would not take 30 seconds if you don't overthink and just do it

Can’t they just be done in the evenings? If I was taking a whole day per week on ‘life admin’ I’d be a bit worried. I have to say I always see people complaining about spending a lot of time on life admin but this is just part of life and you just do it as it comes up, I don’t think it needs to take so much time.

Can’t they just be done in the evenings?

No, we have 5am starts mid week so we need an early night.

Again, that’s simply made up.

No one said you had to do anything with your annual leave. Certainly not use it for your MOT. I wouldn’t. I don’t. That’s fine while I am at the office and not using it.

Not sure where you get the impression that I suggested you shouldn’t use it for family time. That’s exactly what I said.

I said that I would not like to run my life in a way that we only get time together on holidays. Where we can only have a day out together, it’s it part of a break away.

So I will take the day off work, take the kids, go do clothes shopping (so not returns or tracking refunds, which is where this conversation started) have a nice lunch together. Might see a movie or stop off to do something like crazy golf (if we go to the Trafford centre) on the way back. Might take my dad if he is free.

That way, in my point of view (my original point was that this is about peoples perspective) I have had family time, a nice day out, done something fun, spent time with my dad and

Got clothes for both kids
School shoes
New trainers
Got some bits for dd starting uni
any presents for the next few birthdays
taken in and then picked up a prescription
Fed the kids
enjoyed a meal I didn’t cook
Picked something up for dinner
got stationary and supplies for school
The dogs will have been with their sitter and had 3 walks
(this is based on my last shopping trip)

When we get back don’t need to get the kids to try on and decide on the clothes or prepare a return or track refunds or take something to the post office to return. It’s fine and dusted in that one day.

So from my perspective it’s a day well spent. Not a day of doing chores.

So back to my point. It’s about perspective and choice you make.

You choose to spend all your annual leave on breaks away. That’s fine. But that’s why you have to do things the king way round. It’s a choice that adds to the list of things you have to do. Through choice. Not because that’s how life if and life admin takes so much time. It’s takes so much time because of choices you make.

So it’s about how we look at it. If I were you I would look at it as ‘this will take a while, but that’s because I get to xyz’ and not find it a big deal.

If you can have a simple life, with nothing in it, and still enjoy it - good for you - but most people want something more meaningful and joyful, more of a multi dimensional experience of life than simply existing.

You don't need to have a huge list of "life admin" to have "multi dimensional experience of life" (whatever the fuck that is, lol).

My life is great but I don't need to justify it by writing out huge lists of all the "life admin" I need to do in order to somehow how and prove how wonderful my life is. I just live - without all the stress and the lists and the hassle 😉

andro you sound tiresome. I would not have this/not have that. Really! What do your teens think of that? Everyone just needs to fit in with you!

We have a great time with our teens, and plenty of time outside of holidays. I would rather be on a greek island than in the Trafford centre.

As you say we all have choices! So I am going now to enjoy a sunny Saturday