Life Admin Life Hacks

This episode covers two more important foundation elements for a life admin system: having a password manager and collating data frequently used when filling out forms.

Mia and Dinah discuss how many passwords they need to manage life admin, and how difficult it is to have a fail-proof and secure system to store them all. They also consider how many forms they need to fill out with the same data over and over again. Mia admits to having a password book which put her at risk of identity theft.

They talk about the benefits of password managers, which can generate strong passwords for new accounts, store passwords securely, and autofill login forms with one master password. They operate on your computer as a browser extension and an app on your smart phone.

They go through how they approached choosing and setting up a password manager. They also outline how valuable the secure document storage and form filling functions of the apps are.

The benefits of a password manager include:

• Ability to generate and store strong passwords
• Eliminating the need to remember passwords
• Allowing you to easily access account passwords to allow you to complete your life admin wherever you are
• Ability to store form filling data, including credit card details, making online form filling much faster and simpler.

 LIFE ADMIN HIGHS OF THE WEEK 

• Dinah talks about how easy it was to buy tennis tickets quickly and easily with convenient access to her shared calendar and passwords on her phone – allowing a purchase of the tickets to happen within 5 minutes during a train ride.
• Mia talks about how she cleared out the deep clutter of her recipe folder, removing all useless and distracting things so can enjoy using the useful recipes that remain.

 LIFE ADMIN LOW OF THE WEEK 

• Dinah talks about how she had changed credit cards to maximise her frequent flyer points but has found that the online app is so cumbersome that it makes managing the account too difficult and not worth the extra points.

 POWER TOOL 

•  Gretchin Rubin’s quiz on The Four Tendencies – Helps give you better insight into how to change and maintain new habits, by understanding how you respond to the inner and outer expectations placed on you.

 RESOURCES 

Last Pass password manager

Keeper password manager

Nicole Avery’s family productivity and organisation blog - Planning with Kids

 Gretchin Rubin’s book on The Four Tendencies

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This episode talks about the second key foundation of an efficient life admin system:  going paperless.

The hosts, Mia and Dinah, describe the five steps they went through to go paperless:

1. Setting up a dedicated admin email address and cloud storage account for life admin.
2. Setting up a password manager to remember and protect online accounts.
3. Opting out of paper billing, statements and notifications.
4. Throwing out existing paper they no longer needed.
5. Scanning the remaining papers and uploading them to the cloud storage drive.

They talk about the criteria they used to decide what to keep, including tax records.

The benefits of going paperless include:

• reducing clutter
• minimising the need and effort to do filing or recycling
• providing remote access to key documents to allow you to share information or do life admin tasks whenever are wherever you like
• reducing paper consumption to support environmental sustainability.

 LIFE ADMIN HIGH OF THE WEEK 

• Dinah talks about the joy of visiting the orthodontist and scanning and filing the contract in Google Drive while still at the office, eliminating the need to bring more paper into her home.
• Mia talks about the peace of mind of removing of the paper clutter from her home and the extra space and focus that emerged.

 LIFE ADMIN LOW OF THE WEEK 

Dinah talks about the firehose of paper that's still coming into her house relating to her children’s school and extracurricular activities.

 POWER TOOL 

Dinah talks about how Brian Tracy's book  Eat That Frog directs readers to focus on critical tasks and not get bogged down in the less important, quicker tasks.

 RESOURCES 

• Tidying expert Marie Kondo: 
  • The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up - Book
  • Tidy up your home: The KonMari Method - Online Training Course

   

• Happier with Gretchen Rubin podcast  episode 172:  Toss Unnecessary Papers
• Brian Tracy's book on procrastinating and prioritising: Eat That Frog

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This episode introduces the first of several foundations to a great life admin system: a shared family calendar.

Mia and Dinah discuss how they previously both used multiple calendars and that there was no single point of truth of what was happening. They describe how they went about setting up a shared family calendar available on all their devices, Mia using Apple iOS and Outlook and Dinah using Google Calendar. They include all family activities and recurring household tasks in this one calendar and share it with their partners, creating a single view of all family events.

The benefits of a shared calendar include:

• creating a single point of truth of what's happening when
• sharing the responsibility of all family activities without separate complicated instructions for your partner or children
• allowing both adults in the household to easily arrange their own social life and events.

 LIFE ADMIN HIGHS OF THE WEEK 

• Dinah talks about setting rules for her calendar to reinforce the use of it in her family.
• Mia talks about how she efficiently managed the photos from her son’s 5th birthday party to produce a photobook effortlessly within days of the event.

 LIFE ADMIN LOW OF THE WEEK 

Mia talks about meeting with her financial planner and the difficulty of preparing a budget based on all the scattered and incomplete information sources for their expenses.

 POWER TOOL 

Dinah talks about her new printer/scanner which allows documents to be scanned directly to a cloud storage drive and how this is making a transition to a paperless house so much easier.

 RESOURCES 

Gretchen Rubin's book on habit formation:  Better Than Before

David Allen's book on productivity: Getting Things Done

Barry Schwartz's book on decision making: The Paradox of Choice: Why more is less

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This episode provides an introduction to the Life Admin Life Hacks podcast, a podcast that gives you techniques, tips and tools to tackle your life admin more efficiently to save you time, your money and improve your household harmony.

This episode provides a definition of Life Admin including some data from a survey the podcast hosts, Mia and Dinah, conducted.

Mia and Dinah discuss their motivation to start this project: that as their lives have got more complex and technology has moved on their old systems are no longer meeting the demands of Life Admin for a modern family.

They're driven to use their expertise in user experience design and finance to develop a new Life Admin system, which can help save time, money, improve your peace of mind and provide more household harmony.

The Mental Load - You should have asked, Emma, 2017

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