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?

Or, we’re just really efficient and can phone a restaurant to book whilst walking to or from the station as part of the daily commute or from one meeting room to another during the day, and sort out the holiday bookings whilst sitting on the tube to or from said restaurant.

It definitely exists but surely doesn’t take half a day or more a week. I wouldn’t class doing an online shop as life admin. It is quicker than going to the supermarket. Helping your child with school work os also not life admin (to me).

i work full time and am a single parent. I also home educate. I certainly don’t spend half a day of my weekend on life admin. I just do bits here and there.

i was trying to think what I need to do this week. Off the top of my head I have:-

• Book DS weekly art class online (5 mins)


• Make app with nurse (5 mins)


• Amend online shop (10 mins)


• Book a couple more online shopping slots (10 mins)


• Amend milk and more order (5 mins)


• meal planning (20 mins)

I check my online bank every morning while I am still in bed. I rarely spend more than an hour a week on life admin unless I am shopping around for something like insurance or broadband but that is only another hour or so each time, perhaps 6 times a year (car, pets, home, energy, broadband, mobiles). I have a lot of things automated. I order worming tablets online so no need to collect. I re order some items automatically (pet food, cleaning products, milk etc). My bills are paid automatically and those that aren’t such as activities/dog field I book a few sessions at a time so as not to have to do it every week. When online food shopping I add a previous order to my basket and then it is a quick job to tweak for that week. I don’t make an event of it and somehow it just gets done.

Soooo many things. It's never ending.

I’m with you, OP. My life admin to-do list is constantly huge.

What I will say is that things often take 20 times longer than they should because of human/organisational incompetence on the service provider end or tech issues.

I’ve also had an extraordinary stream of issues to sort in my flat, one after the other. So that always adds to the list significantly!

So much of it, if it was part of a paid job would be tasks that were given respect

Thats the same as most things you do for yourself. You can be paid top dollar as a professional chef but if you cook your own dinner you don't get paid. It's not that it isn't respected but it's just life. It's like complaining you have to waste time eating, using the toilet and sleeping.

Well, yes, @NerrSnerr - to sort it as it comes up is one way of doing it. Others like to do it all in one go. Probably depends on your job - ie if you're on the checkout at the supermarket, you can't stop and order uniform, in an office you probably can.

Either way, it is absolutely something that needs to be done which takes time. I don't get why people try to pretence it doesn't. For example, if you sweep the floor whilst you wait for the kettle to boil, does that therefore mean sweeping the floor isn't a thing?

Also some of these things are enjoyable aren't they, like buying flowers, organising your holiday and planning a meal out.

I do most of those things while watching tv in the evening. It doesn't feel like it takes up my time tbh.

Have no opinion on how arduous others find this stuff, just want to say how much the phrase “ life admin “ irritates me. So does “mental load”.

Sure nobody else cares but has made me feel better to share

Absolutely agree with this.

A pattern has emerged with those saying 'just do it during x'

Has it occurred to these posters that not everyone can just do it during x? Not everyone commutes on public transport, or has an office job!

So much of it, if it was part of a paid job would be tasks that were given respect.

Most of the “life admin” on this thread is your average EA stuff. I’ve yet to hear my EA claim it took her an entire day to make a couple of bookings, pay an invoice, phone for a sandwich lunch order, respond to three emails, sort my airport parking and check a bank account.

I think the people who 'don't get' life admin, must do absolutely nothing with their lives

No, these people just crack on and don't give these (not so) everyday jobs a stupid bloody title.

I have 19 items in my iPhone calendar today to tick off. It's like a floating list with me - some have to be done today, others can wait and just get moved to the next day if not done, but they all need to to be done at some point soon.

Three of them are also whole other lists in themselves, like Holiday to do, Birthday to do, Parent care etc.

My family tease me as I'm constantly shouting across the room at Siri to "Create event"!

Negotiating with builders, remortgaging

Oh I know - doing those every week is exhausting

Ilovedthe70s I care, me too.

@Scarlettpixie Make app with nurse (5 mins)
im going to assume this is a private consultation because literally nothing involving contact with the NHS takes 5 minutes.

As for stressing over shopping for the "best deal" when renewing insurance, broadband, etc, just don't - just renew it, do a shop around every 3 years instead. The plans really don't change much year to year, the companies usually keep the same USP (whether that be the cheapest, highest quality, etc) and often you can compare for hours to find the plans cost the same down to a few £.

Has it occurred to these posters that not everyone can just do it during x? Not everyone commutes on public transport, or has an office job!

But everyone in this thread does have time to waste on MN, whilst holding the very same device which they could use for about half the “life admin” tasks described in this thread.

Which rather leads to the conclusion that they are procrastinators rather than supremely busy.

Oh come on, this is getting silly!

I travel constantly for work and book all my own travel - flights, hotels, parking, everything. Booking airport parking takes a couple of minutes. Not hours.

Google "XYZ airport", go to the official site, click on "parking" (there is always a link to that), enter terminal no and dates, enter reg' no., click "pay". Done.

This is what gets people's backs up or makes them laugh about "life admin". People making out everything is a monumental task when it takes almost zero headspace and literally a minute to do.

I think it's really dangerous to not give it a title!
Otherwise just one person ends up doing this thing that doesn't exist in a relationship. And it's relentless.

Just becuase you do it whilst watching tv, in between other jobs, on commutes, waiting for the kettle (what else have we had?) doesn't mean that it's not a thing which needs doing.

Well it’s definitely a thing outside MN. There are books about it. (Very like the fact that there are lots of books about how to manage admin in the workplace — only there it’s far more accepted that you actually need to have people to “do” admin.)

I’m always baffled by how so many people on these threads seem to regard it as a moral duty to pretend it doesn’t exist and/or can just be polished off during a lunch hour or when booking a kettle. In the pre-modern period work was considered religiously virtuous - as long as you were of the lower classes. Now capitalism has replaced the religious imperative of virtuous work (“early to bed, early to rise!”) with an internalised sense that somehow we are more virtuous or deserve more if we are more “productive” or “efficient”. We’ve made the grade under the capitalist imperative! We’re good people! We deserve to be middle class because we get all our food shops done and our insurances organised so quickly on our phones!

Sure, it feels better to get life tasks done quickly and there’s a tendency to bask in the glow of being the right sort of person who does all their “work” so well we can pretend it isn’t really work at all. But that’s also just as much an ingrained cultural expectation (particularly of women), as in previous eras when home making skills were seen as some kind of index of a woman’s moral righteousness and worth. We ought to keep that in mind, too.

5 minute jobs. But there's 23 of them. 2 hours.

Most of them need to be done a couple of times a year, though. It is not two hours weekly.

Most of the stuff you have listed sound like very minor short tasks that you could do throughout the day. Of course 'life admin' will seem overwhelming if you list it all out like that, but a lot of the things you listed like booking a roofer, photocopying medical records and organising a birthday party are one-offs. You can also do a lot of those things while doing something else, like a grocery shop could be done on your commute, booking zoo tickets could be done while waiting for a kettle to boil etc. It sounds like you have let all your minor tasks build up and are trying to tackle them all in one day, which seems a bit odd to me..

Are you me? I had a mini meltdown last night about exactly this. Sometimes it’s not even the admin itself, it’s the remembering what needs to be done and when. I’m organised, I have spreadsheets for finances and budget well, plan birthdays and Christmas and so on well in advance, but there’s always something!

This week, on top of a full time job:
2 x dental appointments for one DC. Book further hospital appointment linked to these.
Vet visit.
Renew car insurance.
Service other car.
Renew house insurance.
Get new TV license.
Cards and presents for three family birthdays.
Cards and presents for parties DC will attend.
Order red/white/blue clothing for DC school Jubilee event.
Ferry DC to additional activities on top of regular ones - one concert and one sports event.
Complete forms for Scouting event.
Buy kit for said event.
Attend event at school for youngest DC.
Haircuts for all DC.

It never stops.

Life admin is not a job

Most of us work full time and more and also do these jobs

It's called multi tasking