056: Define it to refine it

Life Admin Life Hacks

It is important to have a mental model of what life admin is in order to be able to approach it in a more systematic way

Mia and Dinah start the episode by discussing how:

• for most people, life admin is a blurry amorphous bundle of tasks - and with no mental model of the different categories and types of tasks is can be difficult to approach or share the tasks in a systematic way
• their definition of Life admin - that it is not housework or parenting but it often overlaps; housework is defined as cooking, cleaning and laundry, parenting is about child-rearing and supports the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of your child; life admin is the third piece of the domestic labour puzzle - it includes the scheduling, booking, shopping, paperwork, and planning that often facilitates housework and parenting tasks, but also has its own areas of responsibility.
• life admin is often conflated with housework and parenting and that can be problematic because it can become hidden which is a big issue as life admin generates a significant portion of the mental load
• life admin often gets more complex and time-consuming at the precise time you have less time to manage it - particularly having children generates a significant amount of life admin
• their recent survey of more than 300 Australians revealed that
  • the average Australian does almost 500 life admin tasks each year
  • parents grapple with 33% more life admin tasks than households without dependents
  • 37% of people do life admin tasks for a parent or adult relative
• most people think the reason their life admin is out of control is their lack of motivation and/or time - but usually, the problem is not having the know-how or system and/or the lack of a scheduled time to do life admin

They discuss the cost of not having your life admin in control including:

• spending more time than is necessary on it
• wasting money - it has been estimated that Australians are paying more than $11 billion in ‘loyalty tax’ by not shopping around.
• cognitive load - stress, anxiety, overwhelm - worrying, scared of forgetting, monkey mind, brain chatter.
• relationship friction - their survey showed that life admin causes friction in 85% of two-parent households

Mia and Dinah describe their framework for life admin:

• that there are two types of life admin - everyday life admin that occurs cyclically or seasonally and event-based life admin (eg getting married)
• that there are four categories of life admin and that these can help you prioritise and determine how you will share them in your household
  • household operations eg meal planning, decluttering, paying bills
  • personal affairs such as tax, super, other investments wills and health checks
  • comparison shopping for plans and policies
  • leisure and social planning eg holidays, Xmas, social life, kids extracurricular
• think about life admin tasks by how much time is required to get them done -
  • Hour of Power - recurring slot in the schedule for chunky life admin tasks
  • 2 Minutes Too Easy - tasks to complete as they arise
  • 10 Minute Time Killer - tasks to complete in idle time - include them in a to-do list

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