If you don't consider life admin to be a thing...

[ruethewhirl]

...then how do you mentally 'label' (so to speak) things like banking and official correspondence?

Not being goady here, genuinely curious. Not a TAAT as such, I see it stated so often on MN that there's 'no such thing' as life admin or the mental load (although I tend to assume the latter refers to slightly different things eg each partner doing their share of things like remembering birthdays, making sure the kids have clean clothes etc). Life admin-wise, part of why I'm bemused by this is that I have a lot of things to take care of in my life that I think definitely count as life admin - not only my own banking, but managing correspondence with my GP's surgery (I have multiple conditions) and also handling my mum's finances at her request (she has Alzheimer's) plus handling her general correspondence and sorting things out on the many occasions her care company drops the ball. 🙄 Oh, and chasing the vet/pet insurance company about insurance claims for our cats that seem to drag on for ever!

And then there are things like handling the correspondence if you switch banks or energy providers, complaining about poor service, managing quotes if you're getting home improvements done... what are these things if not life admin? What do you call them instead?

Is it really so insane to suggest that these types of activities warrant an umbrella term with which to refer to them? Presumably the vast majority of people have at least some of this kind of stuff to do in their day-to-day lives, so it puzzles me when people claim there's no such thing. (And if you're one of them, how do you refer to these tasks?)

YABU: There's no such thing as life admin
YANBU: Yes there is!

This is a very reasonable point. I don't do DH's personal admin, but I have noticed that in our relationship I do the admin my mum used to do (children/schools/birthdays/social/holidays) AND the admin my dad used to do (garden and house maintenance, financial)...

Too late for me but if you're in the early stages of a relationship - think hard about this.

I don't see the problem with calling it that. Personally I weirdly enjoy life admin as I like sorting out my finances. I don't have much time to do it and have a toddler so feel likes a break 😂.

It’s always been a thing and, on the whole, the internet has vastly simplified it. People used to need to write letters or go to banks, the post office etc. Now, when it works well, it is a few clicks.

However, if you have half a brain and get organised, it is a couple of hours a week (on average) at most.

What people (including me) object to is when it is made into some huge thing.

I think your comment about being able to throw money at things is spot on. If you have money to throw at things you don’t have to spend time looking around to find and negotiate the beat prices, or spend time juggling other requirements to fit things around what you can afford. It makes a difference. As an example I regularly have to spend tome ordering car parts and arranging for them to be fitted - financially this works for us as our mechanic is a family member and does the work for free. If I had the money I would get a new car instead and save myself a weekly job. Only one example but it is part of a bigger picture. When our boiler broke I would like to have been able to tell the plumber to just replace it and leave it at that. Instead I did quite a lot of faffing around and got it done for half the price, out of necessity. It’s tome that could have been better spent elsewhere.

Agreed. But the vociferousness with which some people (I mean generally on MN threads, not specifically on this one) like to deny and even ridicule the fact that they might constitute a sometimes time-consuming entity, and that entity could legitimately be referred to as life admin, bemuses me.

Yes, I spend a lot of time differentiating between things that are buy cheap, buy twice, and things which are the exact same product packaged up with a different price tag. I wouldn't do that if I was filthy rich probably, I'd just buy the most expensive one and never consider if it was identical to the cheap one. Like celebrities spending £300 on a Labubu whereas normal people aren't going to do that when the £7.99 "Lafufu" from the market does the exact same job of making your small child happy on Christmas Day. 😂

I had coffee with a disabled friend recently and she instantly understood. She'd spent months getting a blue badge renewal (not a new one - a renewal - and she's no less disabled than she was the first time).

Darn it, you've just reminded me of another item I need to add to my list - getting my mum a blue badge! 😂 (Though seriously, thanks for the reminder.)

You may be right. To be clear though, it's not why I personally would use it.

I think maybe this is a question of definitions. I've done an awful lot of parental visiting over the last 15 years, not all of it was a joy but it definitely needed to happen. Guess I've put 'things I need to do and/or think' about in the box marked Life Admin. Other people think or act differently. Fair enough.

I think it really depends on how much you have and how naturally organised you are. Also i think if you are short of money there is more life admin because purchases have to be more carefully considered. I am dyslexic so struggle with this kind of thing. I also have 5 dc with SEN, a dh who also needs support and i volunteer. I also don't drive for disability reasons which adds complications.

So this week so far we started off with dc4 in hospital for day surgery. Which turned into a 2 day stay because firstly he wouldn't wake up from the anaesthetic and then they couldn't get his pain under control. Thankfully I had anticipated this and brought extra snacks or it would have been a very expensive stay with me having to buy all food from m and s and costa.

Tuesday was meant to be parents evening for dc2 so had to phone them and rearrange. While we were in i had phone calls to arrange medical appointments for dc3 and dc4.

Today i had to sort out a spreadsheet for all dc4's post op meds. Parents evening for dc2. Emails from school about dc3 and dc5 that need replying to. Dh's meds have been delayed again so will have to chase that up.

I've got 2 dla/pip forms on the go at the moment. I usually phone the gp/hospital twice most weeks and the dwp once. That's on average 1 hour on the phone each time.

I am not caring for elderly relatives at the moment but that often takes a lot of time, especially if they are confused/forgetful and need things explaining to them over and over again.

I only heard the term “life admin” recently. These are just thing we have to do. Some people need to give it a label and become a martyr to it.

Oh I didn’t know there was anything contentious about calling it ‘life admin’, but now I come to think of it, I suppose it’s just living your life and doing tasks as part of that! I’ve always quite enjoyed saying ‘right I need to sit down and catch up on my life admin’, cos sometimes all those wee annoying tasks pile up like sorting out insurance, appointments, reading and replying to various emails, online shopping, cancelling stuff, ordering stuff for my pets etc so I sit and dedicate time to sorting it all out and catching up! But maybe I just sound like a twat saying it 🤣

Why on earth would you sort your husbands car insurance or buy his parents presents?

It's just a label some people use to make themselves sound busy. I just have stuff to do so just get on with it. I have a son with health issues and I am his advocate so deal with Pip and UC. I get fed up with it but only because they aren't keen on answering the phone but once it's done that's it for a while. I organise all dhs medical appts as he has cognitive difficulties.
I don't label any of this, none of it causes me issues. I am retired now but obviously did it while working. I am usually very organised and actually like sorting stuff.

I have read more posts complaining about ‘the mental load’, and how it’s often not shared by a partner. I think it’s probably quite a new term, replacing ‘stuff that has to be remembered and bought/seen to/completed’. As such, it’s a great term! I never used it when my life was full of stuff to be done……because I had never heard of it. But it’s so succinct. I love it. It also sounds somewhat professional. One could go around saying ‘I’ve conquered my mental load’. Sounds much grander than ‘I’ve run all my errands’.

I don't really think about it or label it anything? I was just trying to think what I've done in the past few days that might come under 'life admin'. Moved some money between accounts (on my phone), requested flea and wormer for the cats (rang vet after getting automated email reminder), requested a repeat prescription online? I don't know, none of it takes more than a minute or two? I'm sure if you have school-age kids there's loads more, but I wouldn't call that life admin, I'd call it parenting tasks which should be equitably shared I'd hope?

This. Just get on with it surely?

I renewed my car insurance 2 weeks ago. My premium had gone up, despite not making a claim for at least 10 years. Took me around 3 hrs to research different companies etc. saved £65. Some things do take a while to sort out, but at least only need doing yearly. But add in energy provider, tv/broadband, boiler service, bloody vets (again) it can take up large amounts of time.

some people just find doing these things mentally more time consuming etc.

I did all of this, quite happily, for my late husband. He was an amazing man, and while I was busy with that, he might be replacing the brake pads on the car, mending the fences, cleaning the guttering or fixing the washing machine. It doesn’t matter how other people live their lives, or divide their respective workloads, if they are happy.

One of the other factors is your own mental health. If you’re already dealing with anxiety or depression, it’s very easy to spiral into letting the to-do list get out of control, making your mental health worse and it feels overwhelming and unmanageable.

So yeah, Just Do It is a great idea in principle. But I consider it as pretty much the same as saying Pull Yourself Together to someone with depression. As an example, I’m still paying for an out of contract data sim that I don’t need anymore because I can’t cancel it online and the prospect of a phone call feels more overwhelming than the loss of the money.

But PP clearly wasn't happy, as she says she ended up "infuriated" with it.

It's how big it feels to the person that matters.

When I was depressed even putting a load of washing on seemed like a mountain to climb sometimes. I don't get like that about paying bills or chores so much now, but can really procrastinate at work sometimes about thngs that turn out to be not that hard.

@ruethewhirl

Agreed. But the vociferousness with which some people (I mean generally on MN threads, not specifically on this one) like to deny and even ridicule the fact that they might constitute a sometimes time-consuming entity, and that entity could legitimately be referred to as life admin, bemuses me.

Coming late to this and haven't RTFT but I totally agree. I don't understand why people get so furious about the use of this term and are so hell-bent on rejecting the use of it as a phrase. Life is full of categorisations: marketers label various categories of shopping, for example (groceries/white goods/home care/personal care) and this passes without comment. Why does "life admin" draw this reaction from people?

I can't help feeling quite a lot of the reaction is because its gendered and people don't like being reminded that this is one area where women are well and truly stuffed.

See also "mental load": there have been literally dozens of threads on here about how much people resent the use of the phrase "mental load" and are hell bent on pointing out that its not a thing and it can all be done at the click of a button, conveniently avoiding the real issue which is that its almost all done by women.

None of these individual tasks (which could be categorised as mental load or life admin) are particularly challenging or onerous. But the elephant in the room is the fact that the vast majority of them are done by women because a lot of men either can't be arsed or pretend not to know they need to be done.

That's what this is about. It's not that your online banking is particularly challenging, it's the fact that in most households most of this falls to women to manage.

When working full on I do ‘life admin’ without thinking really. It just gets done. When I’m not working as much, ‘life admin’ becomes more of a thing.

I suppose it’s similar to if you need something doing, ask a busy person.

Absolutely!
I don’t call cleaning ‘maintenance’, or visiting places with my children ‘home education’, or prepping meals ‘domestic servitude’.
Its just all getting on with life!!