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!

OK, so what if your circumstances chaned and you do have to contact your GP regularly, you couldn't get EVERYTHING done online and within a few minutes and there were banking tasks and other similar tasks you had to do regularly and for quite a few people. Would you consider it a 'thing' then?

Don't you shop around a bit for the best deals when the time comes to renew these things, though?

Or maybe they have more/harder tasks to fit in than you do. Just saying.

many of us have busy lives, I certainly do compared to some not compared to others its not a competition

lots of us just don't need to bleat on about it all the time or validate our time to others

Oh, I totally accept there are people like that, in fact a friend of mine is. Tbf she does seem to fit an impressive amount into her life, but very much wants the kudos for it, imo anyway. The number of times I've had to hear that she didn't get time for a wee until mid-afternoon or something like that...

Last time I checked, starting a thread to discuss something wasn't 'bleating'.

you asked a question you got a response and my opinion, tends to be what happens on AIBU

its not personal towards you

Also people in the UK you MUST hang onto the NHS for dear life because if you end up with an insurance model like the USA you will find you have ‘life admin’ coming out the wazoo.

For example DH has complex medical needs - GP recommends going to a specialist. I have to contact the insurance company to get a list of practitioners who are ‘in network’ meaning our co-pay to use will be in the hundreds of dollars rather than the thousands. Then I have to look up each one and see which one we prefer based on distance, reviews etc. Then I start phoning to see if we can get an appointment.

Then there are several forms to fill out to be admitted as a new patient.

If this doctor recommends a medication I have to go back to the insurance company and find out if they will pay for it. If not have to go back to the doctor and find out if there’s another option.

At any moment in time the insurance company can suddenly decide they won’t cover a medication and you get to the pharmacy and instead of a co-pay of $30 the medication now costs $500 for a month’s supply.

So then you have to go back to the insurance company and find out if there’s a similar drug by another name that they will pay for.

At a recent incident of this the insurance company had decided that if we get a 90 day supply from one specific named pharmacy on the other side of town to our regular one then the co-pay for my asthma inhaler would be $19 for the 90 day supply but if I wanted to get my regular pharmacy to supply a 30 day one then it was going to cost me $350 per inhaler.

Run through a comparison sites don’t think I’ve ever spent more than 20 minutes

She said about overwhelmed by doing everything. Well I ( and many others ) had to do everything. Bills and kids stuff is not less to do if you don't have a partner there

My "life admin" jobs are boring but they have to be done. Like ordering my weekly online shopping. As a single childfree person I try to keep them to a minimum. I dont buy christmas or birthday presents nor do I send cards so that does away with a load. I avoid neighbours and anyone who might ask me to do something for them. All my regular bills are on direct debits. As for correspondance most letters get thrown in a pile unless I recognise the sender. I dont open anything hand written or addressed to "the occupier" and when the pile gets big enough I dump it in the bin.

Of course not - but people in that position aren't dealing with "admin" caused by, or ignored by another adult - another adult who could be lightening the load.

People (mostly women) think they're signing up for a partnership and find it's not.

Ok so what sort of " admin" is caused by another adult? I mean bills, car insurance etc is tge same whether there's one or 2 adults. As gor the " ignored" well again that's no more stressful than another adult not being around

That sounds v stressful.

Mind you, this morning I had to set an alarm to make sure I filled in an e-consult for my GP on the dot of 8am (5 minutes late and you can't do it as it's full) and then wait 3.5 hours, phone in hand, for a call back, then drive to the practice to pick up a paper form, and now we wait to be sent an appointment (in what format I know not but I can guarantee it will NOT be in the remaining week of school holiday - DH and I are teachers so time off in term time is a PITA). Or I can ring a number (that probably won't be answered) to try to change it.

That's for a blood test needed by a 12 year old. In 2 months apparently she can access the adult service which is at least bookable online.

The NHS creates plenty of life admin and the services are generally "like it or lump it", although without the payment element (except when you give up and pay for whatever it is privately - can't really do that with kids though).

Yeah I do know how AIBU works, thanks, just wasn't sure why the unpleasant tone was necessary.

I'm not sure if you're deliberately not understanding? Fortunately for my husband I love him, but unless I really put my foot down I have a bunch of stuff to do that I wouldn't need to if I were single. My financial affairs, family stuff, even Christmas arrangements and so on would be much simpler if I didn't have to take another adult into account. I am fond of my inlaws too and would feel bad if they never saw us or heard from us.

Someone wrote a book about it: "Wife work."

According to others on this thread making a medical appointment in the UK is a two minute job. I think that's where you get the divergence - if your experience really is that something like that is very quick and easy, two minutes, then I can see you wouldn't understand why others struggle. For those of us for whom it's not so streamlined, they think we're making a mountain out of a molehill, but if every time they tried to do one of those two minute jobs it turned into an hour or more then I think they'd also get frustrated.

Well OK some of the jobs are shared - one lot of home insurance, one lot of household bills. But if you're breaking it down you're often talking about doubling the workload in other areas. Two cars equals two lots of insurance, servicing, MOT etc. Two sets of life insurance too, two sets of medical appointments. Without making this a sexism issue, depending upon how you divide your household labour, two sets of present/card buying, invitations, travel plans etc. Yes, in some households each person sorts themselves out but in some others that's one person's job (either because the other won't do it or because they've agreed upon that being that one person's job).

But why would anyone sort another adults stuff? If someone agrees to it then no cause to moan. Otherwise adults can deal with their own stuff. When I was married I never sorted stuff like his car or his parents. Why would I? He's a grown man. If he hadn't sorted his stuff out then that's his issue.

You see my admin takes a lot longer than 10 minutes a week. It takes longer than 10 minutes a day. The mental load takes up longer. And it does stress me out.

I think perhaps this thread shows just how unempathetic people are on MN - different things make different people stressed. I do feel anxious about my to do list. It definitely makes me feel stressed and overwhelmed sometimes. But I can stand up in a room with 100 people in and give a speech, I can give an interview on live television and enjoy it, I can walk into a room where I know no-one and talk to people. I can answer my door after 9 pm and not be stressed, I have no problem cooking a Sunday lunch for 20 people, running down the street in my leggings or flying in a plane to places where I'd have to drink bottled water. all things which people on here seem to spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about.

It does absolutely show the differences in our lives, it's what I love about MN.

I can imagine for some people, like you, it is longer than 10 minutes and is very stressful. I don't have any ongoing health issues etc that requires my attention so I imagine, compared to others, that I have minimal jobs to do.

I've put plans and steps to make things as easy as possible for me, I do things at the same time. I use my morning break to add groceries to my click and collect from my list so that I don't have to spend 30 minutes in one go. I don't have lots of down time so when I do have it, I want to do something I enjoy.

Life admin is definitely a thing, I just don’t understand how much time some people are allegedly spending on it. This is primarily something I see from people who don’t want to work or want to work less. The concept of needing a day or more for life admin makes me laugh - just say you don’t want to work full time, that’s a personal choice and no one’s business. Don’t make out that banking and changing your home insurance over once a year, etc, requires part time hours.

Is anyone saying that? Really?

Is it not more accurate to say that people are pointing out that different lifestyles and circumstances carry different requirements in terms of how much time and effort has to be used to get this stuff done?

I find those saying life admin is not a thing because it only takes them two minutes per week as ridiculous as those who deny period poverty exists because they only have to buy one packet of super light tampons per year 🙄.

Yeah I agree that that would also be ridiculous, and different lifestyles do play into it somewhat. There have been several past threads where it’s all got a bit out of hand - my favourite was the person who could only work part time because they needed a whole day to go food shopping and put it away. I think there’s a lot to be said for “if you want something done, ask a busy person to do it.” In my experience people with less to do will drag out small tasks or perform tasks in a more inefficient way.

I thought it was well understood that being a single parent is hard. If you don't find it hard, good for you, but I think a lot of people find being responsible for absolutely everything quite full on.