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 suppose it's more interesting than paying the gas bill!
Most things in life are. Get a direct debit set up and you never need to list that as a task again.

I wonder why so many women people facilitate it though - is it learnt from their parents' marriage or something, I wonder?

It's partly cultural expectation - in the majority of households a woman still does most of the domestic work, some willingly, some not so.

But I also think it's a way of carving an importance to ward of feelings of insecurity and inadequacy.

I bet everyone knows a woman who rolls her eyes at her 'useless' husband and bemoans his lack of help domestically but secretly adores that she's the only one who can do all these things because that makes her indispensable, right?

'Oh, he'll never leave me,' they trill, 'he wouldn't be able to find a clean shirt for work'.

It's insecurity imo. They're subconsciously infantalising their husbands because it makes them dependent on the wife and that makes them (the wife) feel safer.

You see this a lot if men bugger off with another woman. This outrage that they've left 'despite all I did for him' and that 'the OW won't look after him like I did' etc.

So why did you only mention one side insulting people? That seems quite goady.

some people like to throw insults. That’s not based on their pov of this subject.

Do you imagine the people who find these things hard, need to the self esteem boost by trying to pretend they must be better people, more interesting people and better parents?

Especially the ones who are offended people don’t feel see things the same way they do?

Do you think that’s strange behaviour?

Haha. Not biting. Sorry. I've made my opinion clear.

Have a good Sunday afternoon everyone.

It's a discussion forum. You're saying everyone has different views yet are moaning about people who hold a different view 🤔

Yep, hate it. I’m on Maternity leave so a lot of it falls to me but it’s not like I can actually get anything done with a toddler and a 6 month old. It’s just so relentless, I’m endlessly writing lists and it feels like we are barely making inroads into the bigger jobs because there’s just so many little tasks.

I can see why rich people have people who manage all this shit.

You mean you realise the irony of what you said?

I mean op’s literal question was ‘aibu to not understand those who claim life admin isn’t a thing’ followed by a bunch of mainly optional and not very strenuous tasks. Presumably this is exactly what she wanted, to hear from those who don’t think that’s a big thing. If she didn’t want to hear from people who don’t see it as a big thing she could easily have posted something like ‘overwhelmed with all these tasks today, just looking for support and advice.’

No that’s not what I said.

I was wondering why a poster says one side was throwing insults and must have self esteem problems. Then immediately acknowledges its actually coming from certain posters on both sides.

I wondered if she felt the same about all people who are throwing insults or only if they held a certain opinion.

I also believe that’s quite goady, which is ironic as that poster thinks other people are being goady.

at no point did I say she couldn’t hold that view, I was having a discussion about it.

Yep. I do all the bills, renewals, searching for insurance, sorting out problems, placing and returning orders, etc my wife doesn't do any of it mainly because she doesn't know the difference between a website address and an email address - she seems to think I waste time sorting out things on the internet - she tells me she would "just ring someone up" to do all this stuff. She still thinks it's 1980.

I briefly worked somewhere where a wealthy couple employed a housekeeper along with other staff and it was quite an eye opener what they'd effectively contracted out. The gardener left a list each week of what was in season in the veg garden, the housekeeper would compile suggested menus for the week and then get them run past the couple (usually the woman!) so no need to even think about meal planning or what was in the cupboards as that was just dealt with.

The housekeeper's husband did general house maintenance, cleaned and maintained the couple's cars which included filling them up with petrol. So they didn't even have the 'I'm running low, must remember to stop off at the garage' thing to do!

I'm one of those people who enjoy doing life admin, but the fact I enjoy it doesn't mean I do not think it is work and like everything in life there are some people that are good at it and some that are crap at it. God knows there is a long list of things I need help with, but life admin is not one of those.
If my husband woke up one day and suddenly decided he wants to deal with plumbers, bills, holiday planning and things like that I'm not sure I wouldn't divorce him in six months.
Six years ago we moved to the flat where we live now. We bought a complete ruin because we wanted to pay as little as we could. I organized everything, complete renovation but one room. Everything was done in six weeks.
Three years later my husband finally decided to tackle the room that was meant to be his study. It took him almost a year. I was so angry through that year looking at him doing mistakes over and over again that cost us money and time. He is good at his work but has zero organizational skills. His family is no better.
But to those that say that planning and organising things is not a job, they're wrong. If you enjoy it and it comes easy to you it doesn't mean it is any less important.
That doesn't mean I am going to let my husband plan our next vacation. I'm having too much fun doing it.

Quite common for managers/senior staff to do the same at work, i.e. get their secretary or administrator to do all kinds of their "life admin" such as picking up their dry cleaning, making private appointments, paying household bills, ordering flowers for the wife's birthday etc.

My mother was the "mayor's secretary" in our local town hall for about 10 years - it was a large part of her "job" to do all the mayor's private stuff. It was just regarded as a perk of the job for the mayor for his secretary to do all the personal stuff as well as the business stuff.

Likewise my sister is a dental nurse who's been with the same dentist for about 30 years. She has a list of his wife's birthday, their anniversary, etc and has a standing instruction to order flowers, ask him where he wants her to book the restaurant etc. The list of dates also includes things like his car service/MOT for her to organise. That's on top of doing the work admin, i.e. ordering supplies, checking payments from the NHS against claims, etc. Her dentist basically just sits there and does the drilling & filling leaving her to do everything else.

Same with things like booking a restaurant. Neither DH or I needs to make a huge thing of our ‘life admin.’ We’d just say ‘we’re going to X aren’t we? On Friday. Yeah, will you book it? Okay, I’ll do the airport parking for Sunday. Good.’ It doesn’t require a huge performance of how totally busy we are and how relentless it all is.

LOL, back when I was married exH once said to me, 'Why don't you find a babysitter and make a reservation wherever you'd like, and I'll take you out for dinner this weekend...'

But planning and booking holidays should not be a chore.

Why?

Because holidays are nice?

If it always falls to one person to plan and book holidays, then yes, it's yet more responsibility that one person shrugs off and the other person takes on. There used to be travel agents doing all of this and getting paid for it.

My rule of thumb is, if there is someone out there getting paid to do the hundreds of little things that fall to women, then it is work.

And because so many men feel these tasks are beneath them or will distract or take time away from promotable tasks, they farm them out as soon as they arrive at a position where they have someone available to do it all.

"But planning and booking holidays should not be a chore."

I find it very stressful. You think about where and when you want to go. You ask work for time off. You check again and the prices have gone up. Maybe you have to ask work again for different dates. Then you're buying your 'go' part and by the time you've done that, the return price has changed or your transfer flight price has changed. You have to change the date of travel again, but now the hotel price has gone up, etc. I suppose you might not have any of this if you have an unlimited budget. I travel by myself so all this stress is just for me!

If you're planning travel for others you quite often have to face whining and complaining about it when they're all finally there.
Why isn't there a diving board?
Why did you book a place with so many mosquitos?
The sand isn't right...

One year I said, OK, next year you plan and book all of this and it'll be my turn to sit by the pool and moan about it.

My dh books our holidays alot

Gosh that sounds awful. However, as I’ve said, the issue there isn’t ‘life admin is terrible I’ve got to spend my day off booking a restaurant.’ The issue there is ‘gosh I’m married to a horrible selfish man and I’m being left to facilitate our lives all by myself because he doesn’t care about me.’ Now that’s a whole different thread!

But why is it necessary for dhs to share the load if life admin isn't a thing in the first place?
I think you are undermining your argument there rather!

If it isn't actually "a thing" and is certainly not worthy of half a day's attention and can all be done in five mins while watching TV or boiling a kettle, then it surely doesn't constitute enough of "a thing" to be shared between two people?

Unless of course, as most of us normal non- super-whizz organised people with human failings are prepared to admit, that it is actually "a thing" that can be onerous at times and is therefore best if shared out?

Because it’s just normal life. I don’t sort out my DH’s insurance and tax in the same way I don’t wipe his bum for him. Neither is worthy of remark, adults do them as a matter of course.

I’m not undermining my argument at all. I’m simply saying all these things are just normal things that people do. They’re not worthy of a big performance over them.

It's hardly worth arguing over but it is not "us" who are making it in to a "performance" though. The op was saying (in a factual.way) that life admin was ever present and therefore she was finding it onerous. That she had 23 items on her current to-do list and she could easily spend half a day on it.

She wasn't making it out to be a performance. It's all the people on here who are denying life admin exists who have used the words "performance", "mountains out of molehills" and, my particular favourite, 'exaggerated effort in order to look busy and justify your existence' (or words to that effect) in order to bolster your argument. And in doing so, you are doing the very thing you are accusing "us" of, that is, being unnecessarily hyperbolic!

I am with the pps who say it's not linear. Sometimes there isn't a lot to do. And some times of the year get very busy and during the busy times, the "life admin" can get you down. And I think if you are finding it onerous, I think it's perfectly fine to to say it, without having a load of posters pile on and tell you you are incompetent! That is all!

You check again and the prices have gone up that isn't life admin though, that's the operators acting like shysters. I had that myself - I was booking a trip for my mum and me, it was a certain amount. I went right through the process, put in payment details and then it didn't work. So I went back to the beginning and it had gone up by £300! Extremely irritating. But it wouldn't matter who was doing it and it would probably happen even if you used a travel agent.

I always book our trips. But my family don't whine once we get there. If they did, I would tell them to do it next time.

@Calafsidentity

OP literally appeals to those who don’t give it a whole name and dedicate an entire day a week to it in her title, then asks ‘what am I doing wrong.’ Presumably she wanted to hear from those of us who don’t feel the need to take an entire day to do these small tasks and don’t find them the ‘dreaded’ and ‘burdensome’ tasks. If she just wanted to say it was onerous and have everyone agree of course that’s fine! But she didn’t - she was specifically asking what she is doing wrong and why she finds it so burdensome.

And to be honest I think saying you almost always spend an entire non working day or at least half the day giving your undivided attention to such ‘burdensome’ tasks as ordering flowers, doing an online grocery shop, and booking airport parking is making a mountain out of a molehill really.

Well I have just spent 10 mins on the phone to the optician and 10 mins on the phone to the GP and got precisely nowhere with both. Diary not made up at GPs beyond start of July so cannot book smear when I need to - will need to ring back. It's this sort of shit that's annoying and time consuming