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?

It doesn’t really matter what is is you spend the time doing though does it? It’s the fact that many little things, which may only take a few minutes each, still demand attention, and they all add up to a chunk of time, which adds up to a bigger chunk of time over weeks, months and years. But each to their own. We can agree to differ! It’s not worth losing one’s wig over

I think I've already replied @LabradorsInThePond but seriously life admin is massive, I don't know if I'm doing it wrong or not but my head's often spinning with my to do list.

I'm a SAHM and carer and some days I half joke I need a PA!

For example here is this week's list, which isn't actually that bad, if anyone has any tips about getting it down tell me or if this is just life as busy Sen mum that's fine too!

This week....

Make a hospital appointment, appointment lime only open 9-3

Print and laminate some documents

Print and laminate different documents

Make an appointment for one DC

Change the date of an appointment for me

Book haircuts for 4 DC probably on different days as otherwise DC get bored waiting

Email school about something

Set up a meeting with school.

Go to the bank to sort something that has to be done in person

Buy write and post a birthday present

Sew badges on DC uniform x 2

This isn't even a busy admin week tbh!

Some of those I would stop seeing as separate jobs. Print and laminate some documents/print and laminate other documents - this is one job. Do some printing. Also, does it need to be done? Is it necessary for the thing to be laminated? Same with email school/set up meeting with school. Just ask about the meeting in the email surely? Same with booking haircuts.

Maybe also look at how you’re organising your time too. To be honest the jobs you’ve listed don’t seem a lot for a whole week with presumably all your kids at school 9-3. It sounds like, in a whole week, you’ve got to print off some documents, book the kids’ haircuts, make an appointment, buy a birthday gift, and visit the bank. It’s not a lot for a week really so I’d break it down and look at why you’re struggling with it.

If you can then why not book haircuts on a rolling schedule? So every second month first Friday is haircut day. I do this for my haircuts and my hairdresser books me in as I leave. For school I have to attend a few appointments as one of my kids is autistic and unfortunately does struggle. If I need to make an appointment or ask something I do it when I’m picking him up from school rather than sending emails etc. It makes it easier.

I’m not ‘losing my wig,’ I’m just answering op’s question and it happens to disagree with you. But yes I think we’ll need to agree to disagree.

@Decafflatteplease -

1. stick-on labels that are surname only for all DC, keep by the laundry and put on anything missing a label when it's going back to drawers
2. appointments and emails do all of them on email or internet booking, while waiting for DC / other appointments
3. schedule hairdresser for regular sessions, 2 at a time
4. no idea why you are printing and laminating, but that's one task, bribe one of the kids to do it
5. go to the bank, get present & a raft of cards on the way there, keep other cards for next time.

I agree OP and we don't even have children yet. I used to do a much 'easier' job and for a large part managed to fit my life admin in during my working day my career has since progressed and sadly for me I have no time during my working day (which is extremely long as it is) to fit any of this stuff in so I end up doing it at weekends which I hate.

Not my 'life admin' but seeing what DH has to go through to get his repeat prescriptions. In theory every 2 months but in practice one thing only comes in 28 day packs so runs out slightly before the rest.
Repeat prescription request via GP online form - 15 mins because the form is so lengthy and complicated.
Repeat logging in to check this has been actioned. Several x 3 mins
Visit pharmacy to collect what is there 20 mins
Visit GP reception to chase up remaining (they never answer phone) - 20 mins
Wait two days for GP to call back (this could be at any time!). GP doesn't call back. Back to GP reception to chase up again - 20 mins
GP to call back next day. In fact rings two hours later so call missed.
Back to GP reception to chase up again - 20 mins. GP happens to be lurking near reception so remaining prescription suddenly gets actioned.
Back to pharmacy to collect - 20 mins.

I've never seen anything like it - so much time and effort for something that should be straightforward, and was at our old GP practice.

@RidingMyBike - why not just change GP? My repeats take seconds to order on the NHS app, then check when I'll be passing the pharmacy that it's approved (usually within hours) and collect. Failing that, at least complain to the practice manager that they should start using the NHS app.

We've just relocated 200 miles @MRex and signed up with the nearest (and largest!) GP in our new location. We're waiting to buy a house so will move GP again once we're at the new address - it looks like it'll be a choice of carrying on with the existing one (no way!), changing to a second and the third isn't accepting new patients.

It also seems to be impossible to tell from the outside what each is like for efficiency and systems used. Our old GP was absolutely amazing! I can't work out if this is the norm now for GP surgeries and our old GP was an outlier of brilliance or whether our new GP surgery is awful.

That only works if there is another practice to move to.

Mine has got spectacularly shit since lockdown, which is frustrating as they were actually really good during lockdown, but the other one near us isn’t taking new patients.

We managed to move the younger kids to the other one as DH is a patient there (thankfully as the original one caused a delay to DD4’s operation), but me and the Uni age kids can’t move.

I mean that’s ridiculous but not an example of life admin.

it’s an example of how a bad GP surgery and/or pharmacy can make life a lot harder for people.

I'd consider getting a repeat prescription sorted as life admin - an admin task that has to happen and it should be a few minutes job to organise and then collect from pharmacy. On its own, every other month, not a problem.

But loads of people must be struggling with things like this. I have no idea what someone who isn't confident using a computer or assertive enough to go to the GP repeatedly and make it happen does. Or someone who couldn't physically make the repeat trips to the pharmacy and GP (DH still hasn't got the full prescription and the GP failed to ring back again so that's another 30 or so mins tomorrow when he'll be chasing that up!).

That’s the point if this thread m. As I said before perspective.

Some people see it as life admin. Some of us just see it as a part of life. To us it’s not a full time or part job. It’s just what you do.

I think the main issue (going back to the op) is that people list life admin tasks that are either rare ones and claim they take hours up. Or they list every little job they do. Especially one that are just part of parenting.

I don’t think either side is right or wrong. I just think it’s how you look at it. To me arranging my bereavement counselling wasn’t life admin, it’s just what I am doing to try and cope with my mothers death, done around my normal life. Arranging my sons hospital, school, hair cuts, buying clothes etc is just part of parenting and is done part of normal life.

I would absolutely consider arranging the counselling as an admin task, same with all the other appointments.

But (not necessarily replying to you here) just because I consider it a task doesn’t mean it’s a full time job or that I make a huge song and dance out of it, it’s just one task amongst many. Naming life admin as a thing doesn’t mean someone is a disorganised mess who can’t cope with life or who makes a mountain out of a mole hill. I’m as capable of making an appointment as anyone else, and I don’t think I see it as any bigger task than anyone else I just put a name to it. That’s not perspective, it’s semantics.

It's like I consider cleaning the bathroom or doing laundry to be housework despite them being things that just need to be done. That doesn’t mean that I make a huge show of going to clean the bathroom or to hang out a load of washing, I just do it. But I call it housework.

To me life admin is simply a name for the admin tasks that need to be done as part of life, it really doesn’t mean I’m making a huge deal out of them. Similarly, accepting that these tasks do take up a bit of time isn’t making them bigger than they need to be, it’s just acknowledging that no matter whether you do them between work calls or while making a coffee or while sat on the loo, whether you share them with your partner or do it all yourself they still exist and still take up time.

Life admin tasks come along fast and furiously, even when you think you're up-to-date with everything! It doesn't really matter how efficiently you try to keep on top of them.

I am enjoying all the smug messages from people who fit all these jobs and more “around other things” while at work and do an online food order and organise a party in 3 minutes flat.

You are not being unreasonable, poster.

In most of the jobs I’ve had you could not do all these things during the working part of the day, but could in a lunch break if you had time for it.

Add in a child who is not happy at school, a sick parent, a difficult boss or a husband consumed by executor duties and it’s no wonder so many women suddenly take leave from their career job without a better plan in place and wind up in a job without too many advancement opportunities that will allow them the time to stay on track during the day.

Raising a glass to the people only just holding it together!

I used to have the sort of job where I could do these things at work and it was handy, you had a screen in front of you, a phone, it was dead handy. But the job I'm about to leave, I could do NO personal stuff. I was just so busy, so constantly and the work was quite complex (calculations) and we had deadlines......... So I've never felt able to do life admin at work.

I agree with you. When I had a less busy job I would often do 1/2 things during breaks at work. Now I'm much more busy and have more responsibility, I rarely have a lunch break (or any other break) and if I do I'm not spending it sorting out admin. So things take a very long time to get done!

And how long were you waiting on hold to get through to the GP before they even answered the phone?
NHS admin is a giant undertaking at the moment.

Is this just not called living? I do several tasks each day and it just forms part of my life. Most tasks are only a few minutes and I'd never consider spending a full day on them🙄

Life admin is all the secretarial crap your OH doesn't bother his pretty head with and leaves it all to you.

Tbf, he probably has 8-10 hours of actual work to do each day.

I did have to do a fair bit of unexpected life admin myself today. Has a bulb go out on a mixer truck and had to take it to Merc to change as couldn't find the torx head screwdriver I needed. Also had to work out the costings manually as system had gone down, radial miles payments etc. In addition to my actual job of getting loads out to 10 client sites.

Still had a load of laundry to do when I got home but this stuff is just life. Average 9-5 worker could do 2-3 hours life admin a day and they'd still only be around the number of hours I do daily at work.

Tbf, he probably has 8-10 hours of actual work to do each day.

TBF, if you read the thread, women work fuill time too, and seem to think it's a badge of honour to deal with piles of crapola from school and heaps of other paperwork after their paid labour is done.

Congrats on your load of laundry tho.

No need to get it down but it's not a big list. I'd do that in a day around my work commitments. My job is busy and requires efficiency to get everything done. I find it much easier to shoehorn things in and I feel I get loads more done than if I was SAH.

YANBU!

Life admin is endless and can take up so much time eg looking for new mortgage, utilities