The Art of Manliness - Stop Drowning in Tedious Tasks by Taming Your Life Admin

00:00:00.000 We're at McKay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast,

00:00:11.180 filling out paperwork, making travel reservations, paying bills, shopping for groceries,

00:00:16.760 returning packages. These are all examples of life admin, the little tasks we have to do to

00:00:22.080 keep our lives moving along. Life admin is typically pretty tedious and annoying,

00:00:26.340 but staying on top of it is essential to reducing the stress and chaos that would otherwise burden

00:00:30.560 our relationships, muck up the gears of our schedules, and prevent us from participating

00:00:34.660 in all the fun and fulfilling parts of life. Fortunately, there are ways to better manage

00:00:38.840 your life admin. Here to share some of them is Dinah Rowe Roberts, the co-host of the Life Admin

00:00:43.660 Life Hacks podcast and the co-author of a book of the same name. Today on the show, Dinah explains

00:00:48.600 what lists you should be keeping, including the 10-minute time killers list, why you should do a

00:00:52.460 regular hour of power to stay on top of things, how to schedule your life admin, how to keep track

00:00:57.140 of and divvy up chores between you and your spouse, how to get all of your meal planning and grocery

00:01:01.280 shopping done in less than 15 minutes a week, how to streamline your kids' schedules and your

00:01:05.420 vacation planning, and much more. After the show's over, check out our show notes at

00:01:09.100 aom.is slash lifeadmin. Dinah Rowe Roberts, welcome to the show.

00:01:25.820 Thanks so much for having me.

00:01:26.860 So you are the co-host of a podcast called Life Admin Hacks. You've also co-authored a book with

00:01:32.680 the same name, and it's all about life admin. I love thinking about and improving how I manage my

00:01:38.340 own life admin. For those who aren't familiar, what is life admin?

00:01:43.460 Well, life admin, it's really the homework of life. So it's not chores, which in Australia we call

00:01:50.000 housework, which is really traditionally, you know, the cooking, the cleaning, and the laundry,

00:01:54.080 but it often is supporting those things. And it's not parenting. It's not about the actual physical,

00:02:00.500 emotional, social development of your child. It's actually a third piece of the domestic labor

00:02:05.740 puzzle. It's all of the scheduling, the booking, the shopping, the paperwork, the planning.

00:02:11.400 It often facilitates chores and parenting, but it's its own beast. It's its own thing.

00:02:16.600 Yeah. The way I think about life admin, it's like the mental work that you have to do to do those

00:02:21.120 physical activities, right? So if you're planning a trip, the thing is like the trip, like that's the

00:02:25.840 activity. The life admin is all the stuff you have to do to make that trip happen, planning the

00:02:31.060 itinerary, rental cars, scheduling flights, things like that. Yeah. It's often a hidden burden and it

00:02:36.820 can generate a significant portion of what people call the mental load, the kind of thinking, the

00:02:41.840 planning, the anticipating that you need to do to make life work. Well, let's give some more

00:02:46.320 examples. What's some more examples of life admin that people might see in their lives on a regular

00:02:50.180 basis? Yeah. And I think then it's really important or it's interesting or helpful to think about life

00:02:56.260 admin being like two types of life admin because there's everyday life admin. It occurs cyclically,

00:03:02.600 seasonally, daily, weekly. So things like planning the grocery shopping, doing the meal planning,

00:03:08.260 paying the bills, all those things that just happen over and over again, never ending.

00:03:13.020 And then you've got what we call like life event admin. So, you know, if you have an event,

00:03:18.640 you get married, you have a baby, those sorts of things, they trigger enormous amounts of life admin

00:03:24.240 as well. So it can be helpful to think about having those two types of life admin and thinking

00:03:28.840 about dealing with them a little bit differently. Why does it feel like we're always drowning

00:03:32.940 in life admin? Like what is so insidious about it that it just seems like it's just always piling up?

00:03:39.100 Yeah. I think that has changed in recent times because of technology and choice. And I think that

00:03:47.640 the more choice we have, the reality is the more life admin it creates. So I think that's certainly a

00:03:53.860 factor. I think another thing is that the costs of communication are lower. And so what we find is

00:04:00.000 our providers bombarding us with emails and text messages and all those things. So we're getting

00:04:05.820 more and more information that we have to figure out what to do and what to process with. And life

00:04:12.020 admin grows with growing responsibilities. So as we move through life, things like buying a home,

00:04:18.300 having kids, it increases the amount and complexity of life admin, just if you've got less time,

00:04:24.320 because you've got more parenting, caring, work responsibilities. So I think that that's often

00:04:29.840 why people, particularly in a sort of middle age, feel like they're drowning in life admin. And I think

00:04:35.120 part of that is very few people have thought about setting up systems for life admin that really

00:04:41.880 optimize how to deal with it. And even though you might do it in your professional life,

00:04:45.980 a lot of people don't do it in their personal life. And so they haven't got the systems to

00:04:50.580 adequately know what to do when something hits them. And I think that makes it feel quite chaotic.

00:04:56.360 Well, another thing too, I've heard about what might be increasing life admin,

00:04:59.460 we've written about this on our site, there's a book by I think it was a sociologist about shadow

00:05:03.780 work. You've heard about this idea of shadow work? Right. So shadow work is the stuff that used to be

00:05:08.880 done by professionals or like companies, but companies have shifted it to the consumer. So I mean,

00:05:14.660 like planning a trip is a perfect example. Used to be just, you call a travel agent or even the

00:05:19.780 airline and be like, Hey, I want to go here. And they'd be like, all right, they just figured out

00:05:23.580 for you. But now it's like, you have to go through just tons and tons of different itineraries to

00:05:29.120 schedule a flight and to the airline's defense. They say, well, you just have more options. You can

00:05:33.600 actually figure this out on your own. We're giving you that choice, like you said earlier,

00:05:36.820 but they're also saving themselves maybe some, some of the hassle of having to pay an employee to do

00:05:42.740 that for you. Yeah, a hundred percent. And I think, you know, often we want to take that control

00:05:47.560 into our life. You know, we feel like we want to be in charge and that gives you that choice,

00:05:52.240 which, you know, has upsized, but with more choice comes more work, more responsibility to

00:05:56.680 make those decisions, do the research, understand what you're looking at. And so that definitely

00:06:01.200 creates more life admin. And the other thing I've noticed too, is that sometimes it feels like

00:06:05.520 life admin, because there's can be a seasonality to it. You can get hit with a whole bunch of stuff

00:06:11.820 all at once. So you see this, if you have kids in school, seems like at Christmas, right before

00:06:17.780 Christmas and right before summer holiday here in the United States, that's when everyone tries

00:06:22.320 to cram everything in and you're signing up for things that are going to be happening three months

00:06:27.100 later. And so the last two weeks of school, before school goes out for vacation, it's just like,

00:06:33.020 I'm constantly like, there's forms to fill out. I'm trying to manage schedules. Like this kid needs

00:06:37.360 to be here and this kid needs to bring this thing. I don't know what happens. Everyone just decides

00:06:41.380 to do everything at once. It causes all the life admin to pile up on you at once.

00:06:46.200 Yeah, a hundred percent. I think that often can come in like waves. And I think there's a great

00:06:50.200 saying. I can't even think exactly what it is, but something like, you know, you can't catch the

00:06:54.240 waves, but you can learn how to surf. And I think that's really what we're trying to help people do

00:06:59.100 with their life admin is actually, you need to actually have systems so that you can ride the wave

00:07:03.860 as it comes in and comes at you so that it doesn't turn your life into chaos.

00:07:08.160 Okay. So let's talk about some of your tips for how we can keep from drowning

00:07:12.080 in life admin on a daily basis and surf the bigger waves when they come in.

00:07:17.680 What do you recommend people do to capture the life admin they have coming into their lives?

00:07:24.120 So one of the things we suggest to people, particularly when, you know, you've got other

00:07:28.240 members of a household is thinking about setting up a dedicated email address for your life admin.

00:07:34.800 So that means it won't get mixed up with kind of your personal emails, which are probably,

00:07:39.600 you know, much more on the social side or work emails. And what it means is if you have a partner,

00:07:44.780 you can actually move your life admin into neutral territory and sort of operate it like you would

00:07:50.000 a shared inbox in a work situation. And that really means that all of your life admin in terms

00:07:55.240 of the electronic stuff comes into the same spot. And you can both share the responsibility of

00:08:00.700 triaging everything that hits you through that inbox.

00:08:04.260 Okay. So it'd be something like in our instance, it'd be like mckayfamily at gmail.com. I don't have

00:08:08.680 that address. So if anyone tries emailing me there, they're not going to get anything. So you'd use

00:08:12.940 that email when you sign up for cell service, when you're doing stuff with your kid's school,

00:08:19.240 et cetera. That's the email you'd use. So all that communication would go there.

00:08:22.480 Yeah. So that's what certainly my husband and I have. We have a shared life admin email address

00:08:27.940 and everything to do with our shared life admin hits that email address. And so what it does mean

00:08:34.340 is that I can happily go away for a week and know that I don't even have to look at that email address.

00:08:39.420 He can take care of it. Or if I'm having a busy time at work, you know, the same thing. And it really

00:08:44.520 means that we can really seamlessly share that inbox and all of the actions that come out of it.

00:08:49.280 That's a good idea because I know sometimes I'll use my email address for something like

00:08:55.620 travel reservations or something with school. So I get the email, but my wife doesn't or it's vice

00:09:02.020 versa. So one of us just ends up out of the loop. So we might have to try that. Okay. So have a shared

00:09:07.800 email address for life admin stuff. If you're married, what about, what do you do to capture stuff

00:09:13.740 that just pops up during the day? You know, stuff where you're like, I need to remember that, or I need

00:09:18.640 to do that. What do you do to, with those sorts of things?

00:09:22.320 Yeah. So I think in terms of the actual doing of it and capturing other things, we really like to think

00:09:27.660 about life admin tasks in terms of actually how much time is required to get them done. And that really

00:09:33.580 helps you think about when you're going to do them. And maybe we'll come to that a bit later, but in terms

00:09:37.540 of anything that you can't do immediately. So we do love to adopt the, you know, two minute too easy.

00:09:43.540 If it hits your inbox and you can do it straight away in less than two minutes, do it, get rid of

00:09:47.840 it, file the email, delete the email, move on. But if it's something that's going to take a little bit

00:09:52.620 longer than that, we recommend setting up a to-do list that we call 10 minute time killers for those

00:09:58.140 kind of 10 minute tasks. So those are tasks that, you know, might take, you know, like maybe something

00:10:03.520 a little bit more complicated, but they're not going to take a lot of thinking time.

00:10:06.800 And if you have a separate list with all of those tasks on them, it means that if you have a bit of

00:10:11.860 idle time, you can easily tackle those tasks. And, you know, usually that's the time that people

00:10:17.480 might scroll social media or, you know, those kind of, you know, if you're in between meetings or you're

00:10:22.720 waiting in a line or you're kind of watching TV. So those tasks don't need to be scheduled, but if

00:10:29.080 you've got them all in a list, you can know what to attack and you can add things that are 10 minute

00:10:33.800 time killers as they occur to you as you go. You just use a simple reminder app on the iPhone to

00:10:39.460 easily add items that I think of to that list as I go. And then I have another list, which has got

00:10:45.480 more chunky life admin tasks in it that we call the hour of power. So if they're more complicated,

00:10:50.940 like comparison shopping and those sorts of things, and that means they're separate in a separate list.

00:10:55.800 And I have a scheduled time once a week to tackle those chunky life admin tasks. So I know if I add

00:11:01.300 something to that list, I know when I'm going to be able to get to it. So we have a shared 10 minute

00:11:06.120 time killer list between my husband and I. And so things in that list get allocated to one of us,

00:11:11.560 but we can also see what the other tasks are that the other person's got to do. And then the same for

00:11:17.220 an hour of power list. What do you do with paper things? I mean, I know you're big on, you have a whole

00:11:21.900 chapter about just reducing the amount of paper that crosses your desk, but occasionally it's going to

00:11:27.220 happen, you're going to get something. What do you do with that stuff? Yeah. So if it's something

00:11:32.140 that just needs to be filed, I'm big of like scanning photographing immediately and trying

00:11:37.580 to destroy it. So I'm a big fan of going completely paperless, but if it is a form that needs to be

00:11:44.140 filled out, I would still add it to the list in terms of the 10 minute time killer, if it's going to be

00:11:48.920 a 10 minute list. And then we just have a little paperwork spot in the house. But to be honest,

00:11:53.760 very little paperwork hits our house anymore. So once you've really made the effort to go

00:11:59.020 paperless, you find that actually there's a really little paper still happening out there.

00:12:03.900 Let's talk more about lists. So you have the two minute, two easy list. Actually, that's,

00:12:08.540 that's actually not really a list. Those are things that just kind of come up to you and you do them

00:12:11.680 right then, but you do have the 10 minute time killer list. And then you have the chunky admin

00:12:17.700 list where you'll do stuff for your, in your hour of power. And we're going to talk about that

00:12:22.820 here in a minute, but beyond the to-do list, you also recommend keeping checklists and reference

00:12:29.680 lists. Walk us through those. Yeah. And I think when we started this whole life admin journey,

00:12:34.600 both my co-author and I, Mia and I, we both had kind of our lists were like a mishmash of all of

00:12:39.980 these three things. And I think that that's often what happens to people and it makes it really hard

00:12:44.300 to sort of figure out what to tackle next. So if you think about having those three categories of lists,

00:12:49.280 to-do lists we've talked about, but the second one, checklists, checklists are things that help you

00:12:54.160 remember how to do things you do over and over again, efficiently and comprehensively. So you write

00:13:00.360 the steps down once, and then you refer to it every time you need to do that. So for me, the checklists

00:13:05.940 that I use most often are like the things to do before you go on holiday, you know, so all of the,

00:13:11.720 you know, organize the pet sitting, organize the mail collection, et cetera, et cetera. But you might

00:13:17.240 also have checklists for things like what to take when you take your child to daycare or something

00:13:22.840 like that. And those checklists really help you not remember important steps in that task.

00:13:28.540 In terms of reference lists, these are kind of the things that you often find on people's to-do

00:13:33.940 lists, but they're not actually things that they have to do. They're more like suggestions or

00:13:39.160 recommendations or, you know, like sources of information. So the reference lists I've got on my phone

00:13:45.980 or in my reminders app is gift wish lists for family members. So thinking about things I might

00:13:51.600 buy for the next birthday or Christmas, I've got reference lists of podcasts to listen to,

00:13:56.780 and one of TV shows to watch and one of books to read. So, you know, the next time someone ask you

00:14:02.940 something like that, you'll have a whole list ready to go and you know where to put that information and

00:14:07.260 refer to it when you need that information.

00:14:09.900 Yeah. So I keep that too. So I keep a list of things to, I need to read, movies I want to watch,

00:14:14.680 which podcast I want to listen to. Another list I keep is, this is a new one, restaurants we want

00:14:20.720 to go to. You know how like, you know, lots of times you're driving around town and you see a

00:14:24.280 new restaurant, like, oh, I want to try that out. It looks cool. And then the next time when you're

00:14:28.880 trying to figure out where to eat that night, you end up forgetting about that restaurant you saw.

00:14:33.880 So we've tried to make it a habit. Whenever you see a cool restaurant, put it on a list so we can

00:14:38.080 check it out. The gift list is a good idea. My wife is really good about doing that. 1.00

00:14:41.880 Another kind of list that my wife and I keep is a things we want to talk about list. So this is for

00:14:48.560 whenever we're about to see a friend that we haven't seen in a while, we're about to catch up

00:14:53.620 with them. We have a list of things we want to make sure we hit with them and ask them about when we

00:14:58.180 see them. Yeah, that's a really good one. I actually read an article about that recently in terms of

00:15:02.060 improving social connection and how important that is. So yeah, that's a great idea.

00:15:06.880 So you can use just the Notes app to make these lists. You use the Reminders app on iPhone?

00:15:12.580 Yeah, and I think that you can get a little bit caught up in trying to get the most complicated

00:15:16.380 app out there. And I think all of our advice really when it comes to technology is use what

00:15:21.520 you find really easy to use. It doesn't need to be super complicated as long as you know how to use

00:15:27.040 it. And you, particularly if you're sharing that technology with someone else, you have a shared

00:15:31.440 understanding of how you're going to use it together. That's way more important than having lots of

00:15:35.680 bells and whistles in the particular app. Okay, I don't, I've never used the Reminders

00:15:39.740 app because I use Todoist. That's the app that I like to use. You can share things on that with

00:15:44.620 other people? Yeah, so I mean, the Reminders app on iPhone is pretty good now in terms of the

00:15:50.240 sharing functionality. But I mean, there's loads of great apps out there. Todoist is a great one.

00:15:54.840 And so if that's something you're familiar with, that's usually the one to stick with. Because if you

00:15:58.300 like it, you're going to use it. And if you don't like it, you won't use it. So yeah, we really

00:16:02.720 encourage you to find one that feels good to you in terms of its functionality and even aesthetics.

00:16:07.380 So that works for you. And think about making one that you can use with a voice assistant,

00:16:11.780 because that's really helpful. I don't know about you, but I often remember things when I'm driving

00:16:16.280 in the car or when I'm going for a walk and being able to just ask Siri to add them to my list. It

00:16:21.960 reduces my mental load because I've added it to the list and I can forget about it and move on.

00:16:26.080 Yeah, I think with Todoist, you can sync it with Siri. So you can talk to Siri and

00:16:31.480 Siri will add it to Todoist. But sometimes it doesn't work. So I'll have to check out Reminders

00:16:37.720 app. So I want to go back to this idea of the hour of power. So you categorize your life admin as the

00:16:45.100 two-minute-too-easy. So if you can do it within two minutes, just do it. Don't wait. I think David

00:16:50.500 Allen from Getting Things Done has that same idea.

00:16:52.560 Yeah, exactly.

00:16:53.460 Then you have the 10-minute time killer. So those are things you can do in 10 minutes that don't

00:16:58.340 take a lot of mental bandwidth to do. You'll have that there to do it. The hour of power. So tell us

00:17:04.160 more about this. So you're going to dedicate an hour, is it each day, each week to doing those life

00:17:09.120 admin that are a little bit more complicated?

00:17:11.560 Well, I think obviously how many of the hours of power you need will depend on where you're at,

00:17:16.160 like in terms of how in control you are and I guess what's going on in your life. So if you're in a

00:17:21.060 time of your life with a lot of life admin, you might need a few of those hour of powers scheduled

00:17:25.440 in your calendar. But for me, I actually usually have an hour of power once a fortnight. And it's

00:17:30.880 really this dedicated time slot for tackling these substantial items that require concentration.

00:17:37.220 So it might be things like comparison shopping, a utility service. It might be planning a birthday

00:17:43.000 party or that kind of thing. And what we really recommend is scheduling this recurring time slot in

00:17:48.380 your calendar so that you know when you're going to get to those tasks. Because that is a thing that

00:17:53.040 will take off the kind of stress and anxiety because you're like, okay, I know I'm going to get to that

00:17:56.780 at this time every week. And we also encourage people to think about giving it like a powerful

00:18:01.880 name to claim the space. So I know that Mia, who's my co-host, she likes to call her Set Me Up Sunday. 0.89

00:18:08.300 So that's really helping her thinking about, you know, setting herself up for a really good week because

00:18:12.660 she's tackled any of those chunky tasks that have been weighing on her mind.

00:18:16.100 Yeah, I do an hour of power. Friday is the day I do it. It's like every Friday I do it.

00:18:22.600 Usually it's an hour. I just set aside an hour. If I can't get it done with an hour,

00:18:26.520 then I move on to something else. But usually I can get most of it done within an hour.

00:18:30.620 Yeah. I mean, usually if you set yourself a time limit, you can get most of those tasks done within

00:18:34.720 an hour. And I think it's really helpful to kind of give yourself a boundary. Like I'm willing to invest

00:18:39.080 an hour in my life admin and then I'm going to move on because the reality is it's boring,

00:18:43.060 it's tedious, but it's important. So, you know, truly trying to knock off those tasks in as

00:18:48.220 shorter time as possible means you can get back to the things you really want to do in life.

00:18:51.960 Something my wife and I do every now and then, we call it a reset day where we take a whole day

00:18:56.700 to just do stuff that's been piling up. We do it when we need to, when we feel like,

00:19:01.520 oh my gosh, there's just so much going on. We need a reset day. So we'll just take a day.

00:19:06.200 Usually it's during the week because the kids are at school and they're not around. And so we just

00:19:11.240 get through stuff as much as we can during that entire day.

00:19:14.820 Yeah, I think that's a really good idea. Like I think when you realize that things aren't feeling

00:19:18.620 good, really scheduling that time in your calendar and committing to actually getting rid of those

00:19:23.300 things that are stressing you out, it's going to improve your life overall. So that's a great idea.

00:19:28.740 You have a whole chapter about scheduling your life admins. I think the way most people approach

00:19:32.900 life admin, they just do it on a, well, I need to do this thing, so I'm going to do it now.

00:19:37.920 How do you recommend scheduling out your life admin? So we have the hour of power.

00:19:41.000 That's one thing, but any other tips on scheduling out your life admin?

00:19:44.780 Yeah, so I think a couple of things there. The first one is, I guess, going back to the sharing

00:19:48.540 idea and thinking, okay, in life, there's lots of, you know, in a household, you do need to actually

00:19:54.560 understand what's going on. And so you really do need some sort of cross platform calendar tool that

00:20:00.420 everyone in your household can access. And so in my household, it's not just my husband,

00:20:04.560 I've got two teenagers. So understanding where they're going and them understanding where we're

00:20:09.640 going is really important to kind of dealing with the family logistics. So we're really technology

00:20:14.820 agnostic about it, but you really need to have a tool that everyone in your household can add to,

00:20:20.020 can see, so that everyone can see what's going on and understand what the logistics are of the

00:20:25.120 household. So I guess that's the first thing. I don't know if you've got a shared calendar in your

00:20:28.320 house.

00:20:28.660 So our kids don't have smartphones yet. So we don't have that shared digital calendar,

00:20:32.360 but we do have this giant dry erase calendar that we put on the wall in the kitchen. And we have a

00:20:39.380 family meeting once a week and we go over our schedule and we have our kids write in all the

00:20:44.020 stuff they've got going on. So that's what we do. But I get maybe when they get older and they get

00:20:47.860 smartphones, we'll shift to a shared digital calendar.

00:20:51.120 Oh, it's a great habit to get them into in terms of the analog system to transition into digital. But yeah,

00:20:56.300 that's, it's been a bit of a game changer for us in terms of, I used to feel like I had to ring up

00:21:00.540 my husband and ask permission of, could I go to the movies with my friend? Cause I don't really

00:21:04.280 know what was going on. And so this kind of shared calendar, like gives me permission to actually

00:21:09.580 know what's going on in our family. So we don't have to have those kinds of consultations about

00:21:14.420 who's doing what by when.

00:21:16.060 So what sorts of things are you putting on this shared calendar?

00:21:18.600 Yeah. So family trips, all of the social events, who's being picked up, who's being dropped off,

00:21:23.780 you know, all of those school events that we want to go to. And then my husband and I both put our

00:21:28.900 own social events on there so that we can see what each other's up to. And we know that there's always

00:21:32.860 needs to be an adult home every night to cook the dinner and, you know, supervise. And so really

00:21:38.020 making sure that we know what each other's doing without kind of feeling like we need to ask permission

00:21:41.880 to be able to have a bit of fun in life.

00:21:44.400 We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:21:46.380 And now back to the show.

00:21:52.340 So speaking of syncing up with your spouse, so the shared calendar can go a long way to reducing a lot

00:21:58.960 of the friction of trying to sync your calendar with your family or your spouse. Do you do anything

00:22:04.300 else beyond just having the shared calendar and the shared list to make sure that you guys are on

00:22:08.720 the same page?

00:22:10.320 Yeah. So I think one of the most important things is, and you sort of mentioned it before,

00:22:13.400 this kind of communication. So you really need to think about when you're going to communicate

00:22:17.960 about life admin logistics and thinking about maybe having a meeting or a regular time slot

00:22:24.040 every week where you kind of go through everything, like what's going on in the calendar,

00:22:28.440 what's on the to-do list, what's falling behind, what might we need help with,

00:22:33.080 what are the things we might want to talk about? Like if, you know, we're planning a trip,

00:22:36.800 do we need to talk about exactly where we're going to go or those sorts of things?

00:22:40.420 things. And so for us, we have a regular Sunday night meeting with one another. We have it over

00:22:47.080 a glass of wine if, you know, if we're feeling it or if it's a, if it's a sort of cup of tea kind

00:22:51.680 of night and we really go through all of those things. So check that the inbox is kind of inbox

00:22:56.960 zero, check in on what the to-do list items are and check in on the calendar for the next week.

00:23:02.140 And that really helps us stay synced and also helps us talk about something which is important is

00:23:06.860 like the standards of doing something. So I think one of the problems that people get into

00:23:12.260 challenges around is around expecting their partner to do it to the exact same standard or an exact

00:23:18.100 same way that they would do. So in those meetings, we can talk about, okay, well, what's an acceptable

00:23:23.820 standard for doing that? Like what will make us happy, make some compromises, and then I can kind

00:23:28.360 of let go of things and give it to my husband and vice versa so that we can kind of divide and conquer,

00:23:33.860 so to speak, because the reality is there's a lot of life admin in that family and you really want

00:23:38.620 to be able to divide it up and share it out. And those communications really help actually make

00:23:43.920 that happen. It's something my wife and I have done for several years now. We've had a podcast

00:23:48.240 about this and I've talked about it on the podcast a lot. We had the weekly marriage meeting as well.

00:23:52.060 We do it on Sunday. It takes about 20 minutes. Our four parts of the marriage meeting is we get

00:23:56.920 together. First, we express appreciation to each other. So we just say thank you for all the stuff that

00:24:02.020 each of us have done throughout the week. Then we do to-dos and that's just like the business stuff.

00:24:06.480 That's when we discuss life admin. Here's what needs to be done. These are the bills need to be

00:24:10.400 paid. Here's what needs to be prepared in the house. And then we have plan for good times. So this is good

00:24:15.720 times as a couple, good times as a family, and also good times as individually. And then we end with

00:24:22.460 big concerns. So there's like big concerns in the family. That's where we discuss that. And it's really

00:24:28.160 is a big game changer for us. Yeah. I mean, I think it's amazing that you do that. And I love those

00:24:34.680 additional elements. I guess our meeting tends to be a little bit more on the practical side. Maybe

00:24:39.100 that's because I'm a life admin expert, but yeah, it is a huge game changer in terms of, you know,

00:24:44.640 checking in on your own behavior and any resentments you might be holding about not sharing tasks fairly,

00:24:50.000 et cetera. And it really makes sure it brings it out in the open on a regular basis rather than kind of

00:24:54.340 storing up this inner resentment about, you know, if you are feeling like you're holding more of the

00:24:59.100 mental load, it's really an opportunity to kind of express that in a calm way, in a much more

00:25:04.220 productive way than perhaps in the heat of the moment. And then we also do a family meeting once

00:25:08.160 a week. We usually do that Tuesday night is our family meeting night. And that's the same sort of

00:25:12.940 thing. We just discuss like what's going well in the family, what can we improve, and then just discuss

00:25:17.500 the kids' schedule. Speaking of figuring out who does what, any advice on how you determine

00:25:24.300 who does what life admin? Because that can get complicated. And I think the way a lot of,

00:25:30.500 a lot of times how couples approach life admins, they just, they don't really talk about it. Like

00:25:34.240 one person decides to do this, the other person decides to do that, but neither of them are really

00:25:39.060 sure what is and isn't getting done. And I think that often happens because it kind of evolves as

00:25:44.360 your relationship evolves. And often in relationships, one person might have like certain

00:25:50.260 systems. And certainly, you know, in our marriage, I had kind of systems, but they were all really

00:25:56.420 designed for me. And they weren't really designed to let my husband in. And so when I guess we started

00:26:02.540 this whole journey, you know, I was had a lot of resentment that I was bearing all this mental load

00:26:08.100 and doing all of this life admin and feeling this huge burden. But the reality was a lot of it was on me,

00:26:14.140 it was my own behavior, this kind of over-functioning. Like I was over-functioning and then just feeling

00:26:19.720 resentment because my husband didn't know how to do it. But the reality is he didn't have access to

00:26:25.160 any of my systems. He didn't know all the things I was thinking about. So I think the first thing is

00:26:31.180 really to think about agreeing on some tools and systems that you're going to both use and like

00:26:36.140 the rules of the game of how you're going to use those systems. So things we already talked about

00:26:40.100 today, like a shared calendar, shared to-do lists, shared storage, shared email, all of those things

00:26:47.180 really set up systems that enable you to share. And then setting up those systems in and of itself

00:26:53.100 facilitates that discussion of how we're going to handle it when an email comes in, who's going to handle

00:26:57.940 it, you know, in what circumstances, etc. And so those are really the beginning of starting to think

00:27:04.040 about how you can better share the load. And it opens up those conversations for, oh, you know what,

00:27:08.920 I'll take charge of all of the utilities because, you know, I'm really good at that. And do you want

00:27:13.400 to take care of this? And really dividing it up so that it's much fairer and it's open and transparent

00:27:19.560 about who's doing what. And it really gives that conversation about that visibility of who is taking

00:27:24.900 care of what in the relationship. And then, yeah, having those regular meetings can just, as things come up

00:27:29.960 that are new, you can have the conversation like, all right, do you want this or do you want me to

00:27:33.840 take this? And then, yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. So another recommendation you have that I

00:27:39.740 really liked was keeping a folder that has information that you use regularly to fill out

00:27:46.660 forms like health insurance, doctor info, kids, you know, sports info. Tell us more about this

00:27:53.880 reference folder. Oh gosh. How much of your time is like dedicated? So much. I had this,

00:28:00.320 I was having a couple of months ago when I was, you know, filling out the application for our kids

00:28:03.980 school. And like, I filled this thing out before and they asked for the same information, but I had

00:28:08.800 to like go and like, okay, I got to find this thing in this file folder that I, I used last year. I don't,

00:28:14.960 I don't know where it's at. Yeah. A hundred percent. So there's a few different strategies here.

00:28:19.860 So you can either like save all this info in a spreadsheet, like in cloud storage, like in Google

00:28:25.220 drive or something. But for me, I actually have all of that information saved in my password manager

00:28:31.240 and then it's all shared with my husband. So that really gives a little bit more security because

00:28:35.980 it's got like MFA on it. And it also means that it's really easy to fill in online forms because

00:28:41.680 when you're filling in an online form, the password manager just automatically fills it in for you.

00:28:47.360 So really encourage you to think about setting up a system that allows that. And I've even got like

00:28:53.220 the secure, you know, even my password manager, I've even saved all the things like copies of my

00:28:58.300 passport, my driver's license, those sorts of things, because increasingly you need those to fill in

00:29:04.000 forms. So being able to have access to those documents on the go just means that a lot of those

00:29:09.240 form filling tasks can become two minute, two easy tasks because you've got the information at hand

00:29:14.160 and it really just takes that pain away. Oh yeah. The one that I see a lot and I always

00:29:20.020 hit myself in the head, like why haven't figured out how to do this? It's like when you're filling

00:29:23.320 out a form for your, you know, signing your kids up for a sport or a camp and they ask for the

00:29:28.400 doctor's info, like the name and the phone number. Address. And I'm like, oh, I have to get, okay,

00:29:34.600 go Google. Okay. What's the, okay. What's the name of the, okay. I got to Google it. And then,

00:29:38.160 okay. Then I, it'd just be easier if I just had like a, just in a spreadsheet,

00:29:41.760 all that information. Yeah. And emergency contacts is another one that I think I used

00:29:45.700 to fill out all the time. And I'm like, well, haven't I just written this down so I can just

00:29:49.200 copy paste or auto fill. And it is a huge time saver when you think about how many forms you've

00:29:54.400 got to fill in during your kid's life to get that nailed early on. Yeah. One thing I did do,

00:29:59.380 so my in-laws take our kids on a vacation every now and then take them on a trip. So I actually

00:30:04.780 created a folder with like documents that they'll need and that my mother-in-law has access to that. 0.74

00:30:09.720 That was nice. Cause I don't think about that anymore. Cause it used to be like, I have to

00:30:13.040 get gathered together every single time. Now there's like a folder there. So I, I, I have

00:30:17.500 learned, but I need to, I need to do better. So you mentioned paperwork. You're big on eliminating

00:30:25.020 as much paperwork as possible. And you said you just scan it with your phone. Is that all you do?

00:30:29.640 So if you get like a bill that's paper, you just scan it and then it goes somewhere.

00:30:33.680 Yeah. So, I mean, I just use Google drive super easy. You can scan directly from the app straight

00:30:38.840 into the folder. So just go paperless, really move everything to the cloud. It means that you'll

00:30:44.480 be able to access it from anywhere, anytime. And it really just saves that. I don't know about you,

00:30:50.640 but I used to have a pile of filing. I was never quite sure whether I should keep it or not keep

00:30:55.600 it. And so now I just kind of keep it. We have a shared Google drive between my husband and I.

00:31:01.620 And so we just add things as we go, makes tax time super easy because all of our receipts are

00:31:07.020 saved in a folder. So yeah, it's been a huge game changer in terms of, you know, just reducing one

00:31:13.020 more task to do in terms of managing paperwork. So you have a chapter about meal planning and

00:31:18.760 cooking. And this, this part of life admin can just suck up so much of your time. Cooking can take a long

00:31:25.380 time sometimes, but it's like preparing for meals can just take up so much time. Any advice on how to

00:31:31.380 streamline meal prep? Yeah. So I think a couple of things there. I think the first thing is to think

00:31:38.140 about establishing like this habit of meal planning. So it, whether it be once a week or every couple of

00:31:45.420 days, depending on, you know, your lifestyle and how many groceries you can buy and thinking about when

00:31:50.620 you're going to do it in your calendar and maybe even scheduling it in so that, you know,

00:31:54.920 you're going to do it then and thinking about, okay, when does that fit with when I'm going to

00:31:59.380 do grocery shopping and that kind of thing. So that you make sure that it's a habit that happens,

00:32:04.800 you know, you can easily aimlessly wander around the grocery store, like picking things up, which

00:32:10.020 can just be a huge time where sand actually, you know, it can often result in a lot of food waste.

00:32:15.660 And then once you've got that habit, thinking about putting that meal plan into a tool that other

00:32:20.760 members of your family can see. So going back to that kind of sharing again. So in our house,

00:32:25.900 it's actually, that's something we do have analog. It's a, you know, magnetized list on our fridge.

00:32:30.360 And that means that the teenagers can also contribute to the cooking, not just the adults.

00:32:35.220 And that meal plan takes into account your household schedule, because there's no point

00:32:39.980 having a meal plan, you know, to cook a complicated meal on a night when you've got three extracurricular

00:32:46.080 activities. You kind of really need to factor your meal plan around your schedule. And then in terms

00:32:51.500 of what to put on it, I think you can sort of waste a lot of mental space trying to think about,

00:32:56.860 oh my God, what are we going to have this Tuesday? So one of the things that we suggest is maybe

00:33:01.140 thinking about having themes for certain nights, because it can just give you one less decision

00:33:05.440 to make. I know a lot of people like to embrace Taco Tuesday, but you might want to also think about,

00:33:11.040 you know, like Monday night might be Italian and Wednesday night might be chicken and Thursday night

00:33:15.440 might be pasta. And then it just means, okay, well, I've got a repertoire within that category.

00:33:21.020 And it's just, you know, I can easily think of something if I've got a category,

00:33:25.080 it really reduces the sort of mental load of thinking what to cook.

00:33:28.720 And then, yeah, you'll have that on the schedule and your kids will never have to ask you,

00:33:32.560 what's for dinner tonight?

00:33:33.880 Yeah. Well, they can have a look for themselves. And on our meal plan, we also have who's cooking.

00:33:38.440 And so we've divided it up amongst the four of us and each of the teens gets a night to cook as

00:33:42.940 well. And so that really shares the load of that. And so I've definitely embraced handing more of the

00:33:48.840 household chores to them, the older that they've got.

00:33:51.860 So with the grocery shopping, that's just like, you just set aside a day for that,

00:33:55.200 that you just try to do it all in one day for the week.

00:33:58.360 Yeah. So in our house, we do our meal plan on a Saturday morning, and then I do my grocery

00:34:04.020 shopping online immediately after that. And the groceries arrive the next day. And so that means I can

00:34:09.620 do it on a Saturday when the teens are at home and I can say, what do you want to cook on your night?

00:34:13.840 So that means that, you know, they're contributing in terms of that. And we do an online shop. I've got

00:34:19.400 a, you know, saved shopping list in my online app. So I can literally get, you know, my groceries done

00:34:24.480 in five, 10 minutes. So the whole thing can be over in 15 minutes and we're set up for the week.

00:34:29.320 We all know what we're doing. Meal plans displayed on the fridge. And it really just reduces any of that

00:34:33.880 friction around thinking, oh my God, what are we going to have for dinner tonight?

00:34:36.900 It's a 15 minute a week task that really just reduces my mental load considerably.

00:34:42.860 Yeah. I like the idea of having team nights. That just reduces a lot of having to think about

00:34:46.920 things. We're going to have to do that. So we talked about kids, how it can increase your life

00:34:51.480 admin significantly. You know, when they're born, there's life admin, but I feel like I've something

00:34:56.000 that my wife and I have been noticing as our kids have gotten older, the life admin has just gotten

00:35:00.840 more and more with them because they're signing up for sports. They're doing camps. There's all this

00:35:05.120 stuff at school. Anything that you found useful there in managing your kids' life admin?

00:35:12.980 Interesting. I think we've already talked about a few of them. So definitely the visible weekly

00:35:17.160 schedule. So depending on how old your kids are, whether that's, you know, analog, as you said,

00:35:21.620 like the weekly planner on the wall. So everyone knows where they need to be and can start to like

00:35:26.200 get themselves organized as they get older. And the forms, oh my God, the forms of children.

00:35:32.260 So really thinking about not only, you know, getting all that information set up so that

00:35:36.920 they're easy to complete, but also maybe dividing up the form burden between you in terms of,

00:35:43.380 you know, you do soccer and your wife might do ballet or whatever it is so that, you know,

00:35:47.960 you know who's responsible for what in terms of those things. Another thing that I think you can find

00:35:54.980 is with kids comes a lot of stuff. So really thinking about how you're going to deal with

00:36:01.160 like keepsakes. So items like art or other certificates and prizes. So thinking about

00:36:07.660 setting up some sort of system of how you're going to keep those in an orderly fashion and whether that

00:36:13.960 be keeping the physical item or for some people have been just taking a photo of it so that they can

00:36:18.220 remember it and let it go. I think that can be a huge thing. And I guess related to that is really

00:36:24.660 thinking about having a regular rhythm of decluttering. So when you think about the, you know,

00:36:31.460 they grow out of their clothes, they grow out of their toys. So how are you going to start to have

00:36:37.060 a rhythm of, is it every season we go through the wardrobe or, or, you know, every Christmas we go

00:36:42.800 through the toys so that you can really make sure that you don't get inundated with all of the stuff

00:36:47.780 and that you share it with people and hand it on to others who can use it rather than, you know,

00:36:53.360 your house piling up. And, you know, this is in the gray area. Is that a chore or is it life admin?

00:36:59.440 There's quite a bit of life admin involved in potentially selling things or figuring out where

00:37:04.300 to donate it to. So I do think that decluttering is one of those ones that falls in the gray area of

00:37:10.120 whether it's life admin or a chore. Yeah. I've done that with the kids art. So, you know,

00:37:14.240 when your kids are little, they're always bringing home art and you hang it up on the wall. There

00:37:18.740 just comes a point where it's just like, okay, I got to take this down because it's just gotten too

00:37:21.520 much. Yeah. I took pictures of them before I threw them in the trash can. So I still got it,

00:37:27.000 which is nice. Yeah. I mean, you can't keep them all. So you really got to embrace that reasonably

00:37:31.960 early on because, you know, you can't keep the first piece of hair, the first pair of shoes,

00:37:35.940 the first, you know, and so you've got to decide how much is important to keep and what

00:37:40.100 you are going to keep, what's your system so that you can easily add to it over time.

00:37:44.220 You said your kids are teenagers? Yeah. At what point did you start offloading

00:37:48.500 their life admin to them? Like, hey, you got to fill out this form now. I'm not filling out this

00:37:54.000 form. Yeah. So I think that you can give them the sort of what I call the junior version of the

00:37:59.620 game, if that makes sense. So you can kind of adjust it as they go through. So if you do happen

00:38:04.520 to have a paper form, you can get them to fill in what they can if their handwriting's good enough

00:38:09.220 or if it's a digital form, same thing. You can say, I have got this school form here for you.

00:38:13.740 Can you start doing part of it? Because really that's just helping them, you know, teaching them

00:38:18.860 what it means to be part of that. I already mentioned, you know, we've got the kids contributing

00:38:23.720 both to deciding what they want to cook and then, you know, cooking one meal a week. And now that my

00:38:29.360 kids are a bit older, certainly the digital calendar, if they want to go somewhere, they're responsible for

00:38:33.620 checking the calendar, making sure it can work, adding it in so that therefore they're responsible

00:38:39.100 for making that happen. And if they can see that there's a clash, so in particular, my daughter,

00:38:45.320 she's got a bit of an active social life and extracurricular. She'll go, oh, I really want to

00:38:50.000 go to this party. I can see mum and dad are going out. I'll be responsible for finding a ride. So she

00:38:55.620 will contact her friends and organise a ride. And then she'll note that in the calendar that she's going

00:38:59.640 to so-and-so's place and she's organised this ride. So that just means it's one less thing for

00:39:04.700 us to organise. And it's really helping her learn like the realities of life and how to organise

00:39:09.400 yourself. You have a section about the life admin that comes when you're doing comparison shopping

00:39:15.680 for various products and services like a new car, insurance, cell phone service. This is really

00:39:22.740 interesting because your book is geared towards an Australian audience. So I learned a lot about

00:39:26.600 how the Australian insurance industry works. And that was really interesting. I had no clue

00:39:33.080 about that. But what is some general advice? Because I know when we're thinking about buying

00:39:37.420 a new product, you get sucked down this rabbit hole. I was like, well, should I get this one

00:39:43.060 or that one? And I read all the reviews and you spend two days trying to decide on a vacuum

00:39:49.780 cleaner. Any advice there to streamline that? Yeah. So I think the first thing is really thinking

00:39:57.540 about what's your criteria. So thinking about establishing that criteria before you kind of

00:40:03.320 dig too much into the comparison shopping. Because, you know, to make a decision, it's much easier if you

00:40:09.660 know what good looks like. So if you think about, okay, what is going to be my criteria upon which I'm going

00:40:15.680 to decide? And then I actually think you absolutely have to write it down. So get yourself out a piece

00:40:20.780 of paper or, you know, a spreadsheet and put the criteria down the left. So set yourself up a comparison

00:40:26.440 table because that really helps you be able to pick the best offer or the best option rather than going

00:40:33.360 through each option one at a time and you can get really confused. So I think that's probably tip

00:40:37.840 number one. And I think the second one is really to think about limiting yourself to how many you're going

00:40:44.940 to compare. Because in lots of things, there are, you know, infinite possible options. You start to

00:40:52.100 go down this rabbit hole of comparing absolutely every product out there. So really try and think

00:40:57.620 about using some sort of search to find the sort of three that you're going to compare and then just,

00:41:03.980 you know, picking three options. Because the research shows that the more options you compare,

00:41:09.700 the more confused and dissatisfied you'll actually be. And often when you compare a lot,

00:41:14.940 you actually might not make any choice. So really try and limit yourself to how many you're going to

00:41:20.500 compare. And then, you know, particularly if it's not a high stakes decision, compare three,

00:41:25.200 move on, and that will stand you in good stead.

00:41:28.900 Yeah. Something I'll do too is I'll, when it's like a big consumer purchase, like an appliance,

00:41:34.320 I go to consumerreports.org. I don't know if this works. Does this work in Australia?

00:41:38.280 Yeah. So we have something called choice, which is the same kind of thing. So yeah,

00:41:42.740 very similar to that.

00:41:43.680 Yeah. I like that. Cause it's, you know, it's, it's a nonprofit, it's independent.

00:41:47.960 I feel like if you Google like best pillow, you know, you're going to be sent to some website,

00:41:53.180 like good housekeeping. And it's going to be a bunch of affiliate links. They're just going to

00:41:57.080 try to sell you an expensive pillow so they can make some money. So with consumer reports,

00:42:01.400 I can trust it a little bit more. So I've, I've used that to narrow my, my options significantly.

00:42:06.240 I think that's been helpful. So I like that. Yeah. Get three. And then you got to be a

00:42:09.580 satisficer, like what's good enough. And then just go with that.

00:42:13.360 Yeah, definitely. Don't try and find that elusive optimal solution because you might still be here

00:42:18.740 next year. So we've got some friends that have a saying, having fun is a lot of work. And the idea

00:42:26.180 is that if you want to make memories with vacations and outings, there's a lot of admin you have to do

00:42:31.000 to make that happen. So what are some tactics people can use to take the tedium out of our vacation

00:42:36.920 planning? Yeah. So I think when it comes to holidays, like talking to an expert here,

00:42:41.980 it's kind of like my quest in life is to travel as much as possible. So for me, you know, my personal

00:42:47.860 advice is this kind of real merit in taking a year long view on your holiday or vacation plans,

00:42:53.700 because the people, you know, who are always off doing something fabulous are probably the people

00:42:59.160 who made that plan a year ago. So planning for the sort of rolling year ahead lets you sort of do the

00:43:05.400 groundwork early, you get better choices, you get better prices, and also it gives you something

00:43:10.820 to look forward to. So I like to always book my next holiday the minute I get back from one.

00:43:18.080 So as soon as I get back, it's kind of like the next weekend, my hour of power is dedicated to

00:43:23.060 booking my next holiday, even if that's a year out. Because actually the research shows that

00:43:28.000 anticipating those happy moments or those holidays is actually gives you more good feelings and

00:43:33.940 actually thinking about past happiness. And so I love to have the anticipation of the next trip

00:43:39.900 coming up. So I think that's probably my number one tip. And I think secondly, it's really like

00:43:45.360 share the load. So divide the tasks between you because it can be a lot of tasks. So I book the

00:43:51.840 flights, my husband will book the accommodation. And if that feels overwhelming, as we sort of mentioned

00:43:57.020 before, there are still travel agents out there. There's like specialist travel agents. We used one when

00:44:01.740 we came to Disney. It was a huge win. They knew exactly what to do. They helped us with all the

00:44:06.300 hacks. So think about using a specialist travel agent or a travel agent to just, you know, you 1.00

00:44:12.020 might pay a little bit more, but this is where you've kind of got to decide what's the most important to

00:44:16.300 you in your season of life. Is it, you know, spending a bit more money or saving a bit more time?

00:44:21.920 And if saving time is really what's, you know, find a good travel agent and they'll look after you and

00:44:26.700 they can book your holidays for you.

00:44:28.160 What about planning social events with friends? That's another thing that can be tedious.

00:44:33.840 Oh yeah. And I mean, you know, when you're the life admin expert, everyone expects you to be the

00:44:39.360 one who's organizing all of the things. So for me, I really, I try and batch the planning. So,

00:44:46.540 you know, if I'm going to be the one organizing it, I'm really thinking about, okay, what suits me?

00:44:51.100 What really works for my calendar? And then I'm looking ahead, you know, maybe a month,

00:44:55.180 two months ahead, and I'm firing off a bunch of emails, texts, you know, WhatsApp messages

00:45:00.020 to my various groups of friends. I'm being really specific with the date and time and venue that

00:45:06.280 suits me. And I'm really saying, this is what's happening. Are you in or you're not in? And kind

00:45:12.160 of letting go of the idea that you have to find, particularly when you're thinking about group

00:45:16.260 events that you just don't have to find a date that suits everyone. There'll always be another time.

00:45:21.000 And if you've batched it and sent out a whole bunch of things, all in like your one hour of

00:45:26.580 power, that means that if a few things don't come off, then, you know, you're not going to be

00:45:30.580 disappointed. So, you know, if your calendar's feeling a bit empty or it's kind of not working

00:45:35.600 for you in terms of the sorts of things you're being invited to, that's where you should take

00:45:39.600 control in terms of batching out those invitations. And I guess going back to what we talked about

00:45:45.420 before, thinking about having a reference list of maybe people you want to catch up with or,

00:45:51.000 you know, things you want to do. And that can help you kind of really think, okay,

00:45:54.960 if you've thought about it in advance, you can start to really think, you know, I've spent some

00:45:59.180 time thinking about what's going to really enrich me. And I'll use that reference list to design my

00:46:04.540 social life rather than just let my social life happen to me.

00:46:07.880 My wife and I, we host a Christmas party or it could be a New Year's party. We've done New Year's too,

00:46:11.960 but we've done it so many times that we've established some check, like having the checklist of,

00:46:15.100 we know we've got to do these things. And then also a reference list of the supplies that we have

00:46:20.780 has come in handy as well. Yeah, that's a great tip. And certainly,

00:46:25.140 I think one of those things is I love having those like regular social events that happen

00:46:29.980 every year in and out, those kind of traditions. We actually in Australia have what we call Christmas

00:46:35.460 in July, because obviously it's hot for Christmas in us in December. And so if you want to have kind of

00:46:41.960 that like, you know, open fire kind of cold Christmas feeling, we have it in July. And we

00:46:47.560 host a Christmas in July every year with the same bunch of friends. And it's a great tradition,

00:46:51.620 just kind of happens on autopilot. So yeah, I really love that too.

00:46:56.660 Well, Dinah, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about your work?

00:47:00.780 You can find us on our website at lifeadminlifehacks.com. And you can also find us at the

00:47:06.640 same handle for Instagram and Facebook. Fantastic. Well, Dinah Rowe Roberts,

00:47:10.980 thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.

00:47:14.860 My guest today was Dinah Rowe Roberts. You can find more information about our work at our website,

00:47:18.060 lifeadminlifehacks.com. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash lifeadmin,

00:47:22.740 where you can find links to resources where you delve deeper into this topic.

00:47:32.780 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Make sure to check out our website,

00:47:36.640 artofmanlyhacks.com, where you find our podcast archives, as well as thousands of articles that

00:47:40.420 we've written over the years about pretty much anything you think of. And if you haven't done

00:47:43.700 so already, I'd appreciate it if you take one minute to give us a review on the podcast or

00:47:46.400 Spotify. It helps out a lot. And if you've done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing

00:47:50.080 the show with a friend or family member who you think reads something out of it. As always,

00:47:53.700 thank you for the continued support. Until next time, it's Brett McKay reminding you to

00:47:56.860 listen to the AOM podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

00:48:06.640 you

The Art of Manliness - July 15, 2024

Stop Drowning in Tedious Tasks by Taming Your Life Admin

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