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?

Examples? How about the poster who spends all her time renewing passports.😂

I find it quite a useful term for stuff that I need to do.

Lol that was me and at no point in any of my posts about it did I complain or mention how long it took.

I was pointing out to the poster who said you only need to think about your passport every ten years that that isn’t true for everyone.

For a family with dual nationalities plus kids under 16 who need renewals every five years you have multiple passports with renewals which currently come up every 15 months or so.

It was just a simple example trying to show how different our admin/chore bundles can be.

So you still haven’t given me an example of someone exaggerating how long it takes to do a specific piece of life admin compared to you.

how long do you think it takes to move house, or plan a wedding, or decorate a house, or deal with an elderly relative, or research and buy a car

Weddings aren't life admin!

If you want a new car, isn't that a nice thing to research? It's not a burden and t's not admin. The garage usually does most of the admin for you these days.

Moving house is a different issue but hopefully not something you do very often.

Decorating depends if you can do it yourself (much easier in some ways) or have to find a reliable tradesperson (huge hassle unless you know someone already).

Dealing with an elderly relative eg move to a care home or having to deal with their care home IS life admin. When my dad was in a care home it was like having a child in a nursery, they used to call up about every little thing.

I know it was you. Hence the laughing emoji! And yes your passport example is a perfect example of exaggeration regarding how long it takes to do life admin.

And again - at no point did I use that example to talk about how LONG life admin took.

It was showing frequency as an example of difference of experience.

Not how long something takes and definitely didn’t complain about it.

So still waiting for the examples you claim to have where posters have talked about how long it takes to do particular life admin tasks that you think are exaggerations.

Seriously, what is your problem? People are answering the OP’s question and you are replying to every answer with a sneery comment making fun of people’s lives

The question was not “what do you do that takes loads and loads of time”. It was “what is life admin “ and people have different definitions. Genuinely don’t understand the twatty comments

Re weddings - I helped plan a wedding last year for someone else and there was a spreadsheet with dozens of tasks assigned to me - certainly felt like a chore/tasks/life admin. Was hours of work.

But it wasn’t a burden and I enjoyed it - but it took a lot of time and would have been a reason I was busy and couldn’t do other things.

Again this is a lot of discussion over how people categorize their time - as I said previously I don’t really use the word life admin but I can see how it can be a catch all term for some people.

If you are not claiming that it can takes a long time to do a passport renewal how does it demonstrate that frequency has much effect on the experience? If it only takes half an hour to renew then doing it once every 15 months doesn't have much more of an impact on time than doing it once every five years.

If you want another example I would say all the posters claiming it is necessary to spend loads of time doing insurance renewals are exaggerating. There's no need for it take a long time nowadays with price comparison websites.

Lots appointments due to us all having medical conditions and kids with SEND.
Often EHCP meetings are at Shirt notice with very little flexibility.

Things I would class as "life admin" that I've done over the last week or so

Arranging appointments for a DC with SEN and emailing school to explain they will be absent on those dates.
Booking car in for MOT.
Filling in consent form for school trips/activities (x3 forms sent out in the last week).
Booking tickets and transport for a show in December.
Changing my phone contract.
Booking a routine medical appointment for myself.
Planning a birthday party for a DC and sending out invitations.

None of these things are particularly difficult or time-consuming though.

@LydiaBennetsUglyBonnet just ignore it - some people only post to get a reaction

I'm surprised about the frequent mention of passport renewals. I've just done mine and it's such a non-event. It's just a simple idiot proof process with no right or wrong answers. I was able to multi-task whilst doing it (was watching Bake Off at the same time).

Reading this thread, I don't know how some folk get through the day with all the 'life admin' taking up their time. It's a miracle they have time to go to work. 🤣

It was an example of how life is different for different people. Someone made the claim that you only have to think about your passport every 10 years. I was just using that as one simple example that not everyone is the same.

The discussion about what people mean when they say 'life admin' never included for most of us replying anything about burden or length of time that seems to be something you are focused on.

I started the passport discussion off (although now I obviously wish I had used a different example) to show that some of us have different needs because of our family when it comes to scheduling life admin.

So I live overseas with a dual national family - we have two sets of passports each and each country has different requirements etc in terms of renewal - one country you cannot do online - you have to make and turn up at a specific office to do the renewal and the appointment itself can take an hour or more - and that's after you've done all the photo stuff document gathering and form filling out, and for kids you are not allowed to do it on your own - both parents have to be there for some of these appointments.

So my example was if I said I couldn't meet for coffee this week because I was busy with a specific life admin task and you said what task and I said passport renewal - you and celestialsphere would say to be - that's rubbish, you can do that in 30 minutes while watching TV, you must be lying about how busy you are.

But no, I would not be lying or exaggerating. I would be dealing with a different experience than you.

You can transfer this example to many of the other tasks that have been dismissed by some people. Just because one person takes 20 minutes to book their summer holiday doesn't mean that the person who likes to do extensive research and perhaps book bits of the holiday individually rather than go for a package deal is lying when they say it takes them several hours to do the 'book holiday' task.

And again NOONE on this thread who has replied with their opinion on what they call life admin has said it takes up an inordinate amount of time or complained about it taking up a lot of time. I really don't understand why some posters seem so fixated on that.

@Cloudyz7 and the many many others who have completely misunderstood the thread.

The op literally asked 'what exactly is life admin?

A passport renewal is indeed life admin, ie tasks of an administrative nature relating to life.

And, lo, quite a few posters have listed a passport renewal as life admin. Because, that's what it is.

No one has said it's a drama, no one has said it takes weeks, no one has said it's onerous, no one has made a song and dance about, I can't remember what other nonsense has been said.

What it is, is life admin, ie the blooming question asked in the op!

It is of no relevance how easy it is or how long it takes you.

I don't know why you chose the passport as an example then as it is pretty obvious that if you don't live in the UK your renewal of passport experience would be different to that of people living in the UK. Do you really think that people don't get that? People are comparing the time it takes for something to be done in the UK when they say that something doesn’t take that long such as insurance renewal. I don't think anyone has said holiday booking only takes 30 minutes either. It's just not a frequent task for most people and anyone who said they had little leisure time because they spent all their time booking their holidays would be exaggerating.

At no point in the original OP did anyone specify the UK vs other countries.

And again who are these posters who said they had 'little leisure time' because of any of the tasks on their chore list?

Is it that you know lots of people in real life who are always moaning about how busy they are and you can't understand why?

@celestialsphere

I don't know why you chose the passport as an example then as it is pretty obvious that if you don't live in the UK your renewal of passport experience would be different to that of people living in the UK.

That was exactly my point - people have different experiences - it was in response to the poster that claimed that passport renewals were only every ten years. Even in the UK with kids it's every five years - so a family with 3 kids all renewing passports at different times - it's definitely not a once every ten year task. And even if it is it still comes under life admin for some people.

Do you really think that people don't get that?

I really don't think you get the point of this thread

People are comparing the time it takes for something to be done in the UK when they say that something doesn’t take that long such as insurance renewal.

Most people are NOT comparing the time it takes for something to be done with how someone else does it - that's what you seem to be doing and it's not the point of the original question.

I don't think anyone has said holiday booking only takes 30 minutes either.

Yes - someone said it only takes me 20 mins to book my holiday. I think you were the one who said that Christmas prep took no time at all. And several of us pointed out that we choose a different kind of Christmas experience that actually does take a lot of prep time.

It's just not a frequent task for most people and anyone who said they had little leisure time because they spent all their time booking their holidays would be exaggerating.

No one has said they take all their time booking holidays - it's just what some people said they would include on the life admin list.

I don't think it's that serious @wordler , I wouldn't take it so seriously.

Lol - I know, it’s a good job I don’t include MN arguments in my life admin list or I’d be severely over budget right now.

😂😂😂

😂😂