The Admin of Life: What Goes on Outside of the Office
By Hadley Catalano
Effective businesses require, at every level, administrative organization, the daily managerial maintenance of paperwork, schedules, clients, and finances. Outside the office, however, while reprieve is sought from such clerical obligations, professional women often feel little relief from the additional personal administrative chores of life. The appointment making, bill paying, family planning, and particulars of “life admin” can cause stress, take attention away from job-related responsibilities, and challenge personal or family time.
Reduce & Reorganize
While there is no one best practice for handling the daily minutia, according to a Harvard Business School survey, making deliberate decisions (about work and life choices) and leading a deliberate life can engage a meaningful work/life balance for successful professionals. This strategy has been echoed by a variety of trained specialists, including Rashelle Isip, author and productivity consultant. In order to increase output at work while simultaneously creating more private time at home, women should look at simplifying daily chores and restructuring personal responsibilities.
“If you streamline your schedule at home, you may find you have one less thing worrying you when you’re out and about in the world or at the office,” explained Isip, founder of The Order Expert, who noted that she is most frequently asked questions about balancing responsibilities and time management. “My advice in dealing with these issues is for people to really take a long and hard look at themselves and their lifestyle and identify exactly what are the most important aspects of their home or personal life at the current moment. Once you identify what are the most important things to you in your life, you can make a plan to execute these items and take care of them in a controlled fashion. This way, the most important items will be taken care of and completed in a timely manner.”
Finances & Planning
It is the common household chores, Isip explained, the absolutely essential tasks that typically compromise the most time – including financial management and family or personal planning such as appointment scheduling, basic chores, etc.
“It is important to stay on top of finances and bills. Don’t ignore them or push them off. An easy way to get on top of your finances is to sit down and list out when all of your household bills are due within a calendar month, first week, second week, and so on, and to schedule regular bill paying sessions into your calendar. This way you can keep on top of bill payments and better manage your cash flow,” advised the chaos controller.
In terms of personal or family planning – the grocery shopping, meal preparations, laundry, appointment scheduling and errand running – is a job unto itself, Isip acknowledged. These odd jobs do not have to be handled alone. She explained that age-appropriate chores can be delegated to different family members, or if living alone, hiring a nearby student to run errands or a service to clean the house will help control the multitude of daily responsibilities.
“If you have a large family, you may want to consider having a master family calendar so you can keep tabs on where everyone is at any given point in time. You could use a tool such as Google Calendar or any other calendar app to share and consolidate calendars,” she said, noting that creating and saving a master task list – for all life admin – to a corresponding calendar is a time-saving and simplifying tip to help busy professionals restructure their obligations and schedule a completion date, in order to get chores done quickly and efficiently.
Name Change
Danielle Tate also knows about admin obligations for women. Likewise, she has based her profession on helping other women manage one of the most common admin life tasks; name-changing. According to the Journal of Marriage and Family, 88.6 percent of married women change their last name. While the percent is far less, the process also affects divorcees who are seeking to change their name back to their maiden name. Tate experienced the prolonged and difficult name-changing struggle – which requires the involvement of both state and federal agencies– after her marriage. The process spurred her to start her online name-change service, www.MissNowMrs.com, in 2006 to help brides cut down on time spent researching name-changing and to provide assistance with questions, paperwork, and processing.
“Women describe the name change process as tedious, time-consuming and confusing. The filing order and process for married name change varies from state to state, as do the name-change options that are legally available. The average bride spends over 13 hours accomplishing her legal transition from Miss to Mrs.”
Roughly 900,000 visitors visited the website in the last 12-months, curious about streamlining their name change and seeking answers to questions such as: “What type of last name is the right fit?” or “Is a last name change necessary?” For both professional and personal reasons, particular to age and situation, Tate’s latest forum helps women use key factors in their life to determine their ideal name change option or pairing.
“Professional women are concerned about whether name change will affect their business identity. We advise them to choose a name change option that incorporates their maiden name into their married name, such as taking two last names or hyphenating. The two last names without a hyphen is an option that allows a woman more flexibility in using her maiden name professionally and her married name socially,” said Tate.
Taking a page out of Isip’s book and utilizing resources such as Tate’s site can greatly reduce the amount of stress and time spent on the seemingly endless administrative tasks outside of work for women.
A Controlled Life
Regardless of the particulars of life, Isip encourages women to remember two fundamental guidelines. In order to maintain a streamlined and sustainable plan, tasks should be reasonable and realistic, and – most importantly – do not schedule every single free moment, as “home is meant for rest, relaxation, and personal time.”
