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. It's usually stuff I do whilst I'm sat watching TV or waiting for dinner to cook anyway!

It's not the SAHM the problems for me, it's (sadly always mums, never dads!) those school mums, working or not, who make such a HUGE deals of dealing with .. an EMAIL (shock horror) from the school.

While being on their phone all day 😂

even if you have 4 kids, 4 different schools, as my kids are in the same school.. after years of the same nonsense, I still cant' figure out what the big deal is.

The hysteria about a school email is puzzling.

DH and his brothers registered their POA for FIL fairly simply in a couple of hours one day, once done that was it. no further thought required.
Do you have a family who need visits/cards/presents? Yup - but not weekly, or even every single month. Visits don't take any forethought here but we all live fairly locally
Do you go to the dentist/Dr/optician? dentist, appointment is booked every time I leave the last one, Dr only when required, optician every couple of years, they email. I book it - minutes if that.
Have you children? Do you take them to the surgery for vaccines etc. 2 kids, not had vaccines in years, not needed dr in years.
Do you take them to school? Sort out lunch money? Stuff they need for Food Tech? Forms for school trips? Lunch money done once a term, extra curriculars on DD, walk them to school daily that's just life, forms complete as they come in again not often enough to warrant anything particular.
House/car insurance? once a year, quick comparison, buy if needed otherwise auto renew
Organising getting the gutters cleared? never in 15 years in our house have I booked this
Organising the car service and MOT booked online, takes moments

the big thing is that people put so much value on these things which barely even register in many other peoples heads

Those things need doing, but people on here sometimes act as though it’s a full time job and somehow equivalent to paid employment.

It does, but don't you do that in the shower/on the bus/walking to work?

I do think where it all falls to one person the thinking, rather than the doing, can be exhausting.

I always just consider things like this to be chores, no different to general day-to-day things like washing up, cleaning etc. It's stuff that needs done to facilitate parts of my life but takes time away from leisure.

The vast bulk of the "admin" stuff is online and only takes a few minutes of my month. I can't recall the last time I actually had to make an appointment in person, and even speaking to a human on the phone has become a vanishingly rare event. I think a lot of the complaining about this stems from the fact that a lot of people experience a form of dread when it comes to opening mail, dealing with authority etc, but in reality the switch to mostly online functionality has completely dismantled that for me and it barely even registers with me now that I'm actually doing "life admin" because it's so trifling.

I had a few things to do this morning, that you might call life admin. One was to ring the bank as I had a few questions about my mortgage and I wanted the mortgage account added to my app. That took about five minutes.
Then I also had to log into my pension provider app because I wanted to check some figures etc. That also took about 7 minutes.
I then had to message a carpet fitting company to say yes I would like to go ahead with the order I made…that literally took one minute.
I have one more phone call to make and I don’t envisage that lasting more than five minutes.
And that was a particularly busy day for me in terms of having to do stuff under the umbrella of life admin.

Well, I think that's true but reading the responses I think it hugely depends on how one categorises things. What I would call admin, others wouldn't. Perhaps it's better categorised for me as 'things I need to think about'.

I don't even disagree that it does take A LOT of time, when you add everything up.

Even booking a holiday actually takes me quite a lot of time, when you add everything up.

But I think that some people are generally very disorganised, and a lot are frankly... lazy. Some people will think nothing of sitting down in front of their computer in the evening or early morning, and spend 20-30 mn dealing with "stuff" (life admin or whatever you call it)
But others resent this and see it as a massive job and chore, and are drowning in a teacup.

Thank you. I think I was trying to say that but used too many words.

Quite. Even if I saved everything up and only did it one night a year, I'd struggle to fill a whole evening with it.

I don't think anyone disputes that this stuff exists, only whether it's worth making a song and dance about.

I really like doing admin possibly because I'm a bit of a control freak, but mainly because it's quite satisfying to tick off a list of important but very easy tasks. Insurance renewed- tick, energy price comparison done- tick, Ocado order- tick, uni fees paid- tick. If only everything was so easy. I therefore do it all and DH does the stuff he is good at.

I can absolutely see how frustrating it must be if you're married to a lazy man who doesn't contribute but I'm not sure that putting the emphasis on admin/mental load really makes the point- rather the reverse, in fact.

But if it's a number of different things, not just one specific thing...

You got through to your bank in one minute? That's amazing!

I think it comes up like that when one person feels like the only person who even thinks of needing to do it, let alone actually doing it. It's the dirty dishes next to the sink.

Yes as others have said, no problem you calling your jobs whatever you want, I guess it's more just a bit irritating when people act all martyrish and overburdened as though it's this enormous all consuming task when what they mean by 'life admin' is just the stuff everyone has to do and really doesn't need to take up a huge amount of time or mental energy unless you overcomplicate it hugely - things like online banking, paying bills, renewing insurances, buying/sending gifts and cards, booking and paying for activities or holiday accommodation is so easy nowadays, it can all be done online in seconds. I personally wouldn't count things like caring for elderly parents or managing a long term health condition, or undertaking a major house renovation or maintenance project as 'life admin' though, because (a) those are not universal experiences that everyone has to do regularly and (b) they go well beyond 'admin', they're stressful, emotional difficult things to do as well as being time consuming, tedious etc so not really 'life admin' in my book.

I would have said it is neither here nor there, but since my husband retired he has taken on so much of this (he always did his share before), that I notice a big and positive difference. I know now that it has an impact on the amount of headspace I have.

definitely agree with this, DH and I both work FT and are also studying for professional exams on top of these things so actually they aren't really a priority for either of us or given any kind of category other than must do now haha - they come in, they get done and they aren't really given much extra thought as we don't have any spare headspace for them, I can absolutely see how other people will give them much more thought and categorise them with a higher importance.

Ah yes I love this my Mam and Nan were always going ‘a message’ when I was little.

Isn’t it just another way of saying “having your shit together?”

I think it becomes ‘admin’ when you’re constantly having to do it for someone else (other than your immediate household), as is the case with my MIL.

But there are some people for whom it is, if not a massive job, genuinely a time-consuming one because there is so much to do. That's not drowning in a teacup or being disorganised, it's just acknowledging that there's a lot to do.

I think a lot of the time it depends on the school.

DC secondary was awful - you'd need five minute to work out which kid it was likely refering to as having more than one kid so putting year on e-mail didn't seem to ever occur to them - then deadlines changing or being very soon.

DC first primary was awful for homework but very good with letting you know about things coming up well in advance and kept dress up days to a minium. Second hardly had any homework but random cryptic texts/apss/e-mails and things needed for next day were common and once had three dress up days in one week - in half term with one a week already - and my kids would get upset if they weren't dressed right.

Mostly though it was endless barage not one off e-mails they made me stressed - with clubs and swim lessons and school stuff that felt overwhelming - but it was only a few years- then it passed.

Life admin is a thing and it depends hugely on people's lives. A single 20 something in a houseshare with bills included will have hardly any, but others will have a lot. I say I have catmin (insurance, jabs, flea, worming, catsitter for hols, bulk order food and litter etc), parentmin (medical appointments, finances, IT and "yes, that's a scam text, please delete") and unfortunately sadmin (sorting estate after death) because they all take a lot longer than my own life admin but yes it is a burden, it takes time and it falls unevenly when one sibling carries the load for elderly parents, one parent does all the life admin for children. I thankfully have a grateful aged parent which helps a lot. It is a lot in your situation, don't feel bad about that, it's just reality.

Due to work I only have one day a week to sort out these things so I do schedule time in for “life admin”. I call extras life admin ie hospital/dental, educational, car garage, banking stuff etc. Maybe people who have everyday all week to slot a little job in here and there don’t think it is but when you have to cram it all into a couple of hours then as far as I’m concerned it is.

For those with no or very few dc this probably isn’t a big deal, for everyone else it absorbs a huge amount of time - assuming you have an interesting life.