Life Admin, what is it?

[OneSugarOneSpoon]

Have seen the phrase a few times now, where people have little free time as they're doing this " life admin" most days
What exactly is it? My bills go by direct debit, shopping on line, kids stuff from school doesn't take that long...so am I missing something?

@InCheesusWeTrust it literally mentions buying furniture, painting and hanging up art. which is what most people would say is decorating.

So which bit did you exclude to get it all within 4 weeks? Are you just referring to painting? Have you included curtains, lighting, the garden, flooring, building IKEA furniture, sourcing and collecting second hand furniture. Or does none of that count as life admin either?

@InCheesusWeTrust and surely the point of decorating is to make a house feel like your home! It all needs to be done and is stressful for some people. And some people will refer to that stuff as life admin.

It literally mentions that it took 24% 6 months to do these things.
It literally talks about "feeling like home".
It literally does not mean average decorating is 5 months.

No point innit.

Off to life admin a shower

@InCheesusWeTrust it literally says average 5 months with 24% taking over 6 months.

looking around my circle of older family members they all say house decoration is a never ending job and can take years.

if it only takes 4 weeks then why doesn’t it take property developers much longer to do up a house for resale.

you do seriously have a superpower!

@InCheesusWeTrust this convo went so over your head! No one has ever said a shower is life admin.

but remember a shower only needs to last 2 minutes or you could just do it while on your dinner hour or maybe while on hold to your energy provider 😆

Surely with decorating it depends exactly what you're doing?
I moved house and I didn't have the money to buy new stuff so stuff came from the old house
Over the last 15 years I've changed the sofa, kitchen handles, painted, bought some extra art etc etc but I've never done a "lets decorate the entire place in one go" because I couldn't afford to, and I like it to evolve over time
But it's not taken 15 years to decorate...

I mean if you're taking it to the extent of maybe doing the whole house once a year, using interior designers and have £££ to burn, it takes more time. Same with artwork - I mean I would love to have the time and money to faff about curating artwork for walls but I don't think most average people do that

But surely people just think "I need a new sofa"
Look at sofas, buy the sofa
Or "this room needs painting"
Stick with old colour/pick new
Paint room
Or "I like this piece of art, it'll go well in the living room and I can afford it"
Then stuff like kitchens/bathrooms are big jobs done way less often

So now if you don’t drag out random jobs over a thousand steps you’re a lazy slob who ‘doesn’t bother making a nice house’ 🫤

I really think that’s where all the comes from. Some people are just desperate to believe they’re doing everything the right way and anybody who isn’t having several formal black tie parties and nearly killing themselves over Christmas dinner just doesn’t care about anything.

By the way there’s nothing wrong with getting your paint from B&M, or not agonizing over paint samples for east/west facing rooms. Bit of nasty little snobbery in that comment really.

Does cleaning and tidying count as life admin? Because if it does, it really is never fucking ending!

I think most people would see the actual decorating as a chore rather than life admin. For it to be admin there has to be some organisation/mental effort.

No. I would see it as a chore but not admin.

@celestialsphere of course decorating has organisation and mental effort?

• which colour should we paint the walls?
• lets get some quotes for painters if we need them
• which sofa can we afford?
• will it fit in the space?
• lets organise an afternoon to view some sofas
• lets arrange a day where someone can stay home to wait for the delivery? Maybe shifts need rearranging etc.

how is all that not effort? A chore is hoovering not redecorating.

so I have now established that some people include medical appts and chores within the term life admin. Others don’t.

If we start removing the different types of life admin and calling them by their own name then of course life admin won’t be a thing anymore. Everything is just described individually instead of all under one easy catch all term.

@Kanaloa i agree there was a bit of snobbery in my comment about b&m and I apologise for that.

i don’t actually think there is anything wrong with b&m paint. It’s just not my way of doing things. It’s probably a separate issue of mine where people think decorating a house is just painting walls when it’s so much more than that.

Thanks for rethinking it. It’s nice to put lots of effort into decorating, especially if you enjoy that type of thing. But just because somebody does it quickly or cheaply doesn’t mean they aren’t interested in having a nice home. They just have a different idea of what a nice home is. Also some people might be able to just do it quickly and others slowly. Bobby from Queer Eye would have built you a village in four weeks and in that whole time Antoni would only have managed to buy you an avocado and tell you what hummus is 😂

I mean the actual act of painting/moving furniture is not mental effort. That's the time consuming bit. Choosing paint or furniture every few years is hardly going to take up a bit proportion of your total free time surely?

Ffs you manage to put insult and point of superiority basically even into an apology. Amazing.

Mrs Hinch, Is that You Hun?

How utterly pathetic to Google how long it takes to re no age a house just so you can be petty and ‘prove’ another poster is crap at painting 😂

Dear dear what a sad little life Jane

What’s the difference between chores and admin?

Cant believe people are getting upset over a word. We all mean the same thing we’re just saying it differently

It wasn't even just painting 😂

it was stripping, wallpapering, buying furniture we needed, changing door and redoing frames, buying wall art from local artists etc😂 We just decide things quickly.
I moved counties AND countries on decisions made there and then. Put notices in next day, booked tickets, and fucked off. Not just once😂. DH and I are just quick deciders. Otherwise we would overthink and complicate everything.
Took us week or so to decide on main things while stripping old wallpaper and paint (we know which colours we like), visited few shops over weekend, ordered stuff, cracked on with works and ironed out details as we went.
I guess we are just reckless weirdos with each room in different colour yet actually working together 😂.

I do feel like @CrushingAndClueless should get a proper apology here though. Not some half arsed attempt not even directed at her fully

Thank you.

I do think her comments aimed at me were unnecessarily cruel and they did upset me.

Why do you think people are upset?. I just think it is pretty obvious what OP meant when she asked what "life admin" was and why people has no free time because of it. She obviously wasn't asking why people spent a long time doing house work, grocery shopping etc.

@celestialsphere yes pretty much that!! This has gone waaay beyond what I thought I was asking, am sorry if its turned into a bit of a bun fight. As I said, I wondered if it was paperwork and there's stuff to do that I should be doing but haven't!! But I do get that it means different stuff to different people, thanks to all who did reply...and yes made me think " oh gosh yes...I need to sort that!!!"

I think it's another "staycation", OP 😁
No one will ever agree