10 Essential Rules for Life Admin

Every Monday you'll learn to compassionately manage your time, wisely, self-problems, and kindly live in your season.

“I'm your host, Kindred Achi, and I'm so glad you're here.”

Today is episode 485.

10 essential rules for life admin.

Life admin is a bear. There's healthcare insurance, doctor's appointments, renewing registrations, and inspections for cars. Changing the smoke alarm batteries, trimming trees in the yard, saving retirement, paying taxes, organizing all the papers to pay the taxes, managing your kids' sports, and social calendars, digital things, like figuring out parental controls on devices, remembering passwords, creating a will, because adults are supposed to have those, I guess.

And those are just the general categories you guys, healthcare, home care, auto care, child care, money care, taxes care. It doesn't even include regular daily things, like meals and chores, and doing your job, and taking a shower, and going to sleep, like I'm already sweating. Life admin feels so huge, sometimes unbearably so, and it's even harder if you have a chronic illness, or you live with someone who does. If you have a really tight budget, and have to be super thoughtful about how you allocate money, for like your FSA, HSA, if you live in an older home that needs updating more regularly, a million other scenarios.

Even when it's a lighter load, life admin is really hard, so if you have a heavier load of life admin, it's extra hard. The biggest thing that I want you to leave with today is a sense of peace, that you are not some loan ranger out here who does not know what she is doing. Life admin is hard for everyone. I do not have family members with chronic illness, or anything that requires like a lot of extra healthcare energy. I no longer do my own taxes because I cried too many times when I did it myself, so I hired someone to do it.

We live in a 70 year old home, but with a lot of renovations in the last 15 years, so the list and home care is shorter than it could be. I have a partner who helps and makes his own haircut and doctor's appointments, like we even see different doctors and dentists from one another. On the difficulty spectrum of life admin, I am on the easier side of it for sure. Now, I do run a business and a home, and I have three children and lots of responsibilities and commitments, but for the most part, I have it easy compared to many, and it is still so hard and so much.

And when I am particularly overwhelmed by my season, or by life admin tasks staring me in the face, I have to work real hard not to crumble under the pressure, because it is a lot of pressure.

So ultimately, you are not alone.

You are not some outlier who doesn't know how to manage all of this while everyone else seems to know what they're doing. Like we're all good at different things, managing what we can, some of which we do well, and some of which we do on a wing and a prayer. All of that is fine. All of that is quite normal, actually. So if all you need today is a reminder that life admin is hard for everybody, and that makes you feel better on his own, like you could stop listening.

I'm so happy about that. But I do have more to share.

“Namely, ten essential rules for life admin.”

I don't think these are the rules that you are expecting, but we'll see. Rule number one, be kind to yourself. Mm-hmm, see, I'm already throwing you a bit of a curveball, but dad gummit, if this is not wildly important. Life admin, as we have established, is so huge and also really personal. And because it's so huge and so personal, it is so easy for us to become a comparison focused and stressed out and frustrated, because we feel like we should know what we're doing or we start comparing our situation to other people.

Or we are resentful that other people aren't really helping us. You have got so much to keep track of. It feels like you're the only one doing it. So when a handful of life admin tasks suddenly falls on your shoulders, you might very easily become hardened towards them. You might be unkind towards yourself that you were not more prepared to choose a doctor in network before you called to make an appointment.

It's just so easy to be unkind to yourself and stress as high and when tasks are undone.

And that's the first essential rule, like it's not to get more done, but it's actually to perform the fact that you have not.

To perform the fact that this is a lot and that you're one person. It begins by being kind to yourself. That's what we're starting here.

“When you have to get on the phone with your insurance agent, because you've filled in our form wrong and now it feels like your whole morning is taken by this task.”

It's a better experience when you start with kindness towards yourself. Even though you made a mistake. Be kind to yourself.

Be kind to yourself even though you have so many questions. Be kind to yourself even though you've only successfully managed one out of ten life admin categories. Be kind to yourself about the one. One is more helpful than zero and you have found a way to navigate that one. Another will eventually come, but stop.

Be rating yourself for being behind in everything. Befriend the chaos of life admin. You don't have to get in, give into it. Because I do know you want to have a better handle on it.

“But that doesn't mean you have to like tame it, like some wallet animal or something.”

I just need you to take a breath, stay soft, be kind, and do one thing at a time. That posture alone will make your relationship with life admin better, automatically guaranteed.

And until you actually give a little energy to this first essential rule,

the others will not go down as easily. Like this is where it starts. You gotta be kind to yourself. Rule number two. Start small.

You know I was gonna say it, and you might be mad that I am. And I'm okay with that. It still works. It always well. Small steps are easier to do.

And easy steps are more sustainable over time. So if you listen to this episode and you want a huge system for every category of life admin that I listed at the start, we will be here for seven days. There's just no way. Systems really cannot be built anyway, not for regular people in regular life.

You have to start small with one thing. Do it for a while until it becomes easier and more natural. And then add another thing. This is how people do more with less effort. It is not that they have some elaborate system that they built all at once.

It's that they did small things one at a time. Over time. And eventually a system grew out of it. That's true in daily chores, in routines, and in life admin. You got to start small.

It works better. And it works for longer even. Even though it doesn't feel like it's really working yet. Now I do get it. It is appealing to take like an entire day and put everything in a big binder with labels and tabs and create calendar alerts and all the things.

And then essentially like set it and forget it. That's kind of what we want is we want to put it all in this place and then set it and forget it. And it all just sort of like takes care of itself. But what happens is you start getting alerts for everything at once without having any risk.

Without having any rhythms around the essential things.

And so you start to ignore the alerts. You forget where the binder is. You let all of these things build up again. Even though they are organized in a big binder and even though you have alerts set up. Having your life admin organized is not the key.

“Starting small and continuing those small steps is the key to actually getting the stuff done.”

Now if you're overwhelmed by what feels like everything. But today you got to build in the mail for your car insurance. Just start with your car insurance. Pay the bill and be done. Or realize that the stress is having the paper bill.

And maybe you go and you try and log into your account. But then you're like, oh no, you have to go through, you forgot the password and you have to reset it.

Go through that whole Rick and Roller whatever because you never remit your password.

And then you're distracted that whole time by children or dogs or doorbells or whatever. And like you're like, I'm just trying to pay my insurance. Like which your current insurance could also be high compared to last time. And it makes you go, man, that's like that's high. Should I change insurance companies and then you start down that road?

What I'm saying here, you got to back up and start small, just pay the bill. Just pay the bill. You can make a note of all those other things if you want. But right now, just pay the bill. And if you want while you're in there, maybe you can even see if there's an automatic payment option.

And you can set it so you don't have to worry about it next time. And it just pays itself.

“But don't let the car insurance stress be like a cruel catalyst reminding of all the other things you should be doing.”

Just start small, do the one thing, be kind to yourself about it and then be done. Start small. Okay, rule number three. Something is better than all or nothing. Something is better than all or nothing.

I know you people, y'all are all or nothing people. I am too, like we are a club, but all or nothing is a problem. Because if we wait for all of the life admin to happen before we're like, and we did it. Good job, are you kidding me? Nothing will ever get on, ever.

It's too much. So in many ways, this is an extension of stark small, but really I just want you to do something.

It doesn't matter if it's like some archaic approach.

“It doesn't matter if you have a good rhythm in one area of life admin and then like no rhythm at all in all the others.”

Having this all work as one big machine is not of a goal. Your approach does not have to be perfect or even complete. Just do something. Just do something. It doesn't matter what.

Do something that helps. Like whatever feels the most stressful right now. You don't have to make it complicated or overrought or even something you can repeat. Just pick one live admin task or a small category and do something to make a little easier. Like done.

Let go of all or nothing and be content with something. Okay, role number four, nowhere things are. This is such a practical role and immensely, immensely helpful. Just nowhere things are. And by things, I mean paperwork.

Maybe batteries and air filters, you know. But with whatever life admin tasks you have, like just nowhere things are. One of the easiest ways to do this is putting everything in one place. So, for example, paperwork, put all the papers in the same desk or the same filing cabinet. Like you could file them, you could file the papers.

But honestly, that is not essential.

It'll take you a little longer to find what you need. But the point is really just knowing where stuff is and it's easier to do that. If it's easier to do your tasks, if you know that every single piece of important life admin paper is in here. You know, is in this drawers in this file cabinet. Like you can sit through it and you can find it.

But at least you know that you will find what you're looking for because the papers are not scattered around your home. This same goes for home stuff and yard stuff and car stuff. Like just nowhere things are. And the easiest way to do that is by putting all those things together. Put everything that's connected to home care in one closet or on one utility shelf in your garage.

Or under one person's bed in those like shallow storage containers. Batteries, airfield service, the names of your paint colors.

“For the car, it's like, you know, car wash staff and motor oil and like the new set of windshield wiper blades you need to replace.”

Like just nowhere things are. It's easier to do your tasks if you know where things are. Now, if you live somewhere with storage challenges and limited space where things just kind of have to go like where they go. You could, you, I mean, listen, you could certainly declutter. But that's like listen, no, that's a big old project.

We're not doing that. Instead, just make a note in your phone of where things are. Like when you buy the air filters because they were on sale at Costco, but it's not time to replace them yet. Or you actually don't know when that time is. But at least you have the air filters.

Put a note on your phone that says air filters size 12 by 12 in my bedroom behind the dresser. Like sometimes you just got to store things behind a dresser. But you might not ever find it again. So wherever you keep things, just know where they are. Where they are doesn't have to be some ideal location.

Perfectly organized or color coded. Group to according to type.

Not if that is essential.

“What is essential is just knowing where things are.”

So whether you do group similar things together because you have space for that. Whether you keep all the papers in one place no matter what they are or whether you have a long note in your phone. With a random list of where things are as you buy them or as they come in the mail or whatever. Do it just know where things are. Auswertung von Verkaufs zahlen wichtig sind zum Beispiel von Lager beständen findet man direkt im dashboard.

Start a yetse dein kostenlosen test auf Shoppy5.com. All right so far we have Be kind to yourself. Start small. Something is better than all or nothing. There are no where things are.

Rule number five is decide once wherever it's easy. You don't need to decide once about everything nor should you please. But automate your decisions anytime it is easy to do so. For example, let's look at making doctor's appointments. You have your own like annual checkups.

Maybe with a couple of different doctors. You have dentist appointments. And if you kids like so do that. They have all those things. I have sat in many a waiting room and heard the receptionist ask a patient as they are leaving.

Would you like to go ahead and schedule your next appointment in the answer is so often.

No I'll just call later. Which sometimes is necessary. But you guys this is your chance. Because what happens is you don't call later or you call too late or you're forced to take an appointment at a very inconvenient time.

Now I know I know that there's a risk. It feels like it's a risk scheduling an appointment that might not work down the road.

“Like I don't know my life is like in six months.”

I know I know but here's the thing.

If it doesn't work just call and reschedule. You're going to have to call anyway. The reminder is built in. The reminder to call anyway and reschedule is built in because you can see the scheduled appointment already on your calendar. And realize oh that's actually not going to work.

And then you're going to make a note to call and find another time. But most of the time you guys that schedule appointment even if it's far in advance it's going to work. You work around it. It's on your calendar so you work around it. It has a place already. That's why if you're able a great decide once is to make the next appointment at your last one.

You're already in doctor's office mode. Just go ahead and like lock the next one in if you can. Or you might decide once that you will make all the appointments on Mondays and Thursdays. Because those days work better with your general weekly rhythm. So anytime you have to make an appointment for anything and they're like, "When are you available?"

And you can say Mondays and Thursdays are the best day. Like just have that as your choice.

Or for your kids you can decide once that you will always take the early morning appointment.

Or that you will only get your kid out of school during lunch or close to regular pickup time. None of this like middle of the morning nonsense. You can have an automated decision for when unappointment happens when it's time to make a new one. Other life admin things that you can automate. Automatic pill pay, of course.

Annual pest control that just shows up on their schedule and not yours. You always make all your hair appointments for the year online and January.

“I do that for my boys and it is the best thing ever because it's just like,”

And there we go with a year's worth of appointments. But you can also automate life admin by like batching certain things together. Right? When you're making your hair appointment, make one for your kids at the same time. Even if they're different barbers or salons.

You're just like in in hair cut appointment zone. So just go ahead and make the next one for your kids. Or you know change the air filters when you change the smoke alarm batteries. Lay pine straw and clean the gutters the first Saturday of March. Those kinds of things.

Now of course, you don't have to decide once or batch or automate everything. Again, please do not do that because you won't remember any of it. If you have to write it down, you probably have too many things. But if you choose just one or two things, it will make life easier than it is now. Like not completely easy, but easier.

Which is always our goal.

Let's figure out how we can stay a person and be kind and get our stuff done. Not by becoming a robot, but by making life a little easier. Or one decision at a time, solving one small problem at a time. Okay, so that was rule number five. Decide once whenever it works too.

Rule number six, live in your season. If you are in a season of dealing with a really hard healthcare issue, that includes things like more doctor's appointments and navigating a complicated insurance system, trying to get support for a kid with special needs, those kinds of things. But that is going to become a priority, of course it is, of course.

And part of living in that season is letting go of other things.

“Is it okay if your yard looks a bit haggard this year?”

Yes. Is it okay if you eat repetitive, easy meals most days of the week? Things like eggs and cereal, hot dogs, sandwiches, spaghetti? Yes. Is it okay if your house is bare bones cleaned and tidied?

While you navigate appointments and paperwork? Yes. Okay, if you stop being involved with a beloved committee or something, a group or something, just for this year while you focus on this health challenge? Yes.

Is it okay to stop going to the workout classes during the day because all of your appointments are during the day now? And it's said you just take night, night walks when you can? Yes. Season of life often bring tough decisions.

And I'm not saying that making them is easy. But part of dealing with life admin, especially very challenging seasons of it, means letting go of other things that simply cannot matter as much right now. Yes, they matter, but they cannot matter as much. You cannot hold it all.

So please stop trying. Now on the flip side, some seasons of life admin are a lot, but they're also kind of fun. Like I think about that with having two high schoolers and dealing with like all the new weird life admin stuff of like driver's license and car insurance and parental controls with new phones and figuring out college visits.

It's a lot of stuff to decide and keep track of. And sometimes it is a drag, but mostly it's like it's kind of fun. It's kind of exciting.

But boys are growing up dealing with all the things to get them in a family car

and watching them drive off to school together is wild and also delightful because I did not have to do it. Sam and I have had a really great time narrowing down schools for his college search. You guys, we have four favorite picks before schools to start our visits with. Like we've done so much work to get to these four schools and it's very exciting. But like overall, even though it's been so much work, it's like a really sweet season

that I want to enjoy. And it's hard to do that when I'm resenting the life admin that is involved.

“Like I said earlier in the episode, you have to befriend this part of life.”

If you hate it and resent it and dread it only, then you will only have negative associations and bad attitudes. Befriend your administrative chores.

They're never going away. They're never going away.

It doesn't matter how many binders and animations you make. They're never going away. So be as kind about them as you can, especially when you are in a hard season. All right, rule number seven is one of my favorites. Make it easier next time. Make it easier next time.

Whenever you finish a life admin task, take a quick second and ask yourself, how can I make it easier next time? You just use the magic question. This is the magic question.

“What can I do now to make this easier later?”

I love the magic question so much. I can hardly stand it. So what can I do now to make this easier later? Put a sticky note on the stack of paperwork that includes like the other documents you need and you had to search for the next time you fill out this form or maybe the password for the account. Put a file folder in your mail drawer, clearly labeled taxes, and put everything related to your taxes that comes from your job

and donations, all the things in the mail, all the forums. They go in that folder. So that next year you don't have to spend four hours sifting around all your papers to try to find what you need. After you change the smoke alarm batteries and the air filters and the water filters, go set up some kind of like product subscription where batteries and air filters and water filters arrive at your house every six months, including six months from now. Like go ahead and know the right sizes. You just did it. You probably just used to have the wrapping on the counter of your air filters.

Pick up like figure out the right sizes and automate it, order them. And then the next time they arrive, that is your queue to do that task. You can make a note in your phone, like a recent lazy genius of the week did, where you keep track of seasonal tasks as they happen. So you remember them next time.

“So like right now, you'd pop over there and you'd write down all the things that you need to remember to do next August”

when the school year starts, things like check the state of lunchboxes and backpacks and shoes. You know, it's the same energy as making your next doctor's appointment before you leave the doctor today. You're sort of already in the headspace of doing the thing and you have fresh eyes on what you need. So make it easier next time by making some kind of note or reminder or keeping what you need together in one label place while you already have it out from doing the chore right now.

This is one of my favorite ways to make life admin tasks so much easier. Rule number eight, let people in, let people in, the every hates this one, but you got to get over it. There are so many paths here.

Okay, so first you can let friends in.

My favorite thing here is some kind of like life admin collective, you know, maybe one of you. You have a group of friends and maybe one of you is great at making phone calls or just doesn't mind it so much. Another can like whip out a spreadsheet like it's nothing. Another's really good at processing scheduling details or, you know, you just have like one person who can help you think through what's hard and help you focus on what really matters in the season as you figure out all of the different life admin things that you have got to do.

Just talk it out, you know, let your friends in, enter into their life admin challenges and let them enter into yours. Or you could just body double, just do things side by side. I do this with my friend, there's a friend of mine that like on a need to basis, we will just be like, we got to, we got to do this at the same time. You want to go to a coffee shop and do this. Or if there are friends who are going through really, really difficult things, then like we will just sort of rally and be like, what can we do to take off some life admin pressure on you right now.

And that's more on a need to basis, but I am becoming more and more intrigued by like doing it regularly as a thing to count on like having like a life admin day. Once a month or something with people and just doing it, we'll see. But regardless of how, please let your friends in, please let them in.

Do you know how many times I've cried over Texas, I said this before, do you know how many times so many times, so many times have also cried over budgets and retirement.

“There was a long stretch where cause and I were like so cash poor.”

Oh my goodness, we were like we were both in school and a lot of our, so when you're in school, so we're hard to, you know, work full time. Some people do it, props to you guys, and a lot of our savings, well, I say our his savings. A lot of his savings went to buying me out of a contracted scholarship for a program I couldn't complete because of a family emergency. Like, we just, we had so little money and I cried about it so many times. I was scared and green, I didn't understand all the money words, I didn't think we'd ever have anything extra to save or was saving for retirement even meant.

Like, it was also overwhelming and complicated and it felt too grown up and also I just want to like live well and be generous where I can and like, we don't have to have everything like it just was so, it was so overwhelming and I did not know what to do or read it again.

But I'll tell you what, the first year I hired an accountant and I only had to pay $150 to her to file my taxes, I gave her a stack of papers and a check for $150.

Are you kidding me? I cried again, but here's the happiness, that's all it took. I mean, $150 is no joke, but I also thought it would be way more than that. Now, probably is now because that was like 20 years ago, but still still, or when we hired a financial planner, even though we had no money.

“Like, I remember telling her, hey, we have no money, like we have no money. I don't even know how this works, we had no money.”

And she was like, let me take care of that, I get paid when you start making money. We've actually worked with both of these women for years and years. And life was easier and still is because we let professionals into what we could not do very well on our own. We could kind of do it, but not very well and so stressful. Now, I know you can't outsource everything you do to a professional, nor do you want to. But you can outsource one thing, can you outsource one thing, or maybe just one thing more than you currently do?

What is something that you might be able to hire someone to help you with that will actually take such a load off of this life admin pressure. Now, you can let in friends, you can let in professionals, you can also let in a partner. If you have a partner and you currently carry like the bulk of the life admin load. Have a conversation and start to share the load more evenly. Most of the weight of life admin is the invisible stuff. It's the remembering. It's the mental details that are just hanging out your brain or you only know where they are.

“That's why it's good to hand over full categories to your partner, not just the execution piece of whatever it is.”

Eve Rodski is the author of Fair Play. She talks about this a lot and in that book, it's not just that your husband picks up a kid from football practice. He actually oversees all the details related to football practice. Things about them, decides them, gets the alerts, navigates things when plans need to change. So if you feel overwhelmed by some particular category of life admin, don't just ask your partner for help doing the task. Thinking about the task is almost harder. So ask your partner to take the whole thing.

This happened when we needed a third family car. I did not want to be part of that process at all. Like I didn't want to search for a car or pick I didn't want to pick a car.

I didn't want to figure out the finances of said car or work out the insurance of the car. I just wanted to like wake up one morning and there was a third car in front of our house that the kids could drive legally and is properly insured and registered. That's all I wanted. So I asked cause to take the whole dagum thing. Now did he and he did he did he pick something different than I would have a different car. Yes, he did. Did he wait later to do something compared to when I would have done it? Yes, he did.

But none of that matters because it was his to do he oversaw it and he got it done like praise be. If it matters enough to you to do it, then you got to do it, but if you're like it didn't matter enough or I would rather have this off my plate, you got to let the other person do it the way they're going to do it. A good way to think about this is like if you've ever been on like a PTA board or booster club or any organization with a board anything at all.

The president's job is to remember everything basically like they don't do everything, but they make sure everything gets done, you know they steer the ship.

So when I stopped being the booster club president for the middle school band, I didn't have a president lined up yet.

And I asked our VP who when she came on his VP to be fair, she was like, I never want to be president, but we thought we would have someone lined up and we didn't.

“There was nobody there and so I asked her I was like, hi, would you consider taking this role?”

And she honestly and kindly said no because of that very mental load, that very thing. She was like, I can support you and I can execute all day, but I just cannot be the person that remembers all the things. And I was so glad she was honest about that and she's absolutely right. So think about that in your own life. You don't have to be the president of every part unless you are the only adult.

Then you kind of do. But if you have a partner, don't be the president all the time.

Be the VP, support and help execute if needed, but some things need to exist in the other person's head fully and completely. So number eight is to let people in whether it's friends professionals or a better partnership with equally shared labor with all this stuff. All right, rule number nine, befriend the alerts, befriend the alerts. This is a short one but very practical. If you set yourself up for success right now, with like some kind of alert or reminder and then in three months, your calendar pings you with that reminder, please don't be grudge the ping.

Don't roll your eyes and be a pill, at least not for very long. That alert is kindness. Like you have given yourself a kindness by creating a reminder so that this thing, you know, paying the insurance or whatever, it does not get forgotten.

“The friend, the fact that life is full of admin tasks and this one happened to tap you on the shoulder today.”

If you like shrug it off like a main girl or you battered away like it's a mosquito, you are not going to have any sort of energy to do the thing at all. Much less like batch it with another similar task or how to make it easier next time. Like none of that will be will happen and none of it will be enjoyable because you're whiny. Ask me how I know your girl can get real whiny. So the friend the alerts, but friend the reminders, but friend the small steps you have taken, see them as a kindness, not as an annoyance.

And then finally rule number 10, schedule rest, not just routine. Yes, this needs to happen in life admin tasks too. You have a schedule rest, you have to do it.

Here's what that looks like. There will always be something to do always forever and ever until you die. So you have to choose to rest. You have to choose to stop.

What I don't want you to do is create some kind of life admin routine where you do like a few minutes every day, where you work on something or you have like a theme day for life admin like it's a meal matrix, you know, where I'm going to work on, you know, where house things on Mondays and car things on Tuesdays and you know, whatever, or maybe you choose Sunday to do life admin things in bulk. Because when else are you going to do it? I don't want. I don't want you to do any of that. I don't want you to do any of that. I mean, you could.

“But I think it's desperately important that you schedule rest in your life from life admin.”

It doesn't have to be a whole day like a whole day's tough and not available for everyone. But if you work Monday through Friday, you spend Saturday doing chores and meal prep and helping with homework and going to soccer games and all the things. And then on Sunday, maybe go to church or you see family and then you come home ready to prepare for the week. You're not resting anywhere. And now you want to throw in some sort of like two-hour life admin session for all the extra things like nowhere in there is a break from life productivity.

Now you might think, well, yeah, Kendra, that's a point. There isn't any time. There isn't any time to rest. That's only because you haven't made it. You haven't made time. I will die on this hill y'all. I will die on this hill. I don't care how busy your life is. How many responsibilities you have, how many people you're caring for, how alone you are and doing it all. I mean, I actually do care. I care a lot. I actually care a lot, which is why I make this podcast and write books because I do care about all of that so much.

But when it comes to your rest, I don't care. You can keep talking to me about it. You can keep trying to convince me that I'm wrong and that you don't have time and I will listen to you, but I will not change my mind. There is time. You just have to schedule it. You have to schedule rest. There is time. There is space. You can stop. You just have to choose to do it.

I want you to schedule rest and I'm going to be specific with you right now. I usually don't give you specific things. This one's going to be specific. I want you to schedule three sequential hours a week.

Where you do not do anything productive. Three hours back to back. You can enjoy family time during this three hours. You can hang out with a friend or go for a walk.

Whatever. You don't have to just sit there. But for three straight hours a week, minimum. I want you to choose to not be productive to not deal with life admin. I want you to rest from that on a regular basis. You think you don't have time. But you do. Do you know how I know you do? Because you easily spend three hours on Instagram. Or three hours over planning on Sunday nights to get control of your life. Or three hours going behind your family after they have done chores imperfectly. But like fine enough, but you're in a resentful half because you want it done a certain way.

Or you've spent three hours picking up the pieces of someone else's drop balls because you're a nice person and you don't want to say no. I have a short list of things that I will I will like come hard for you on. One of them is husbands who complain about not having enough variety at dinner time, but don't help cook. Don't get me started. And another is you saying you don't have time to rest. Maybe that's the list actually. You are not the exception. We're not made to constantly spend. Then you've just got to stop believing that you don't have the option to stop.

“That's why you're so pissy at me right now. Because you think I'm wrong, but you also maybe know that I'm right. And slowing down is scary when the scurry is all you know.”

Rest is a learned skill. It is. But then when you start doing it. It's like a whole world. It's like we're tagging Jasmine. We're at around a magic carpet or Dorothy entering us. It's like everything changes. Rest is a key y'all. I mean, I could give you some kind of binder system to catch all of life admin. And there are people out there who will sell it to you. Go buy it. I'm great with that. But if you go buy it, or you try to make it on your own without any effort towards this singular thing towards

schedule rest every single week from the craziness of life administration, no binder will save you. It does not matter how good it is. How thorough. How color coordinated. How complete. You'll just be a well organized robot on her way to burn out.

“Ladies, because guys mostly already do this. Okay, you have to choose to stop choose once a week for three sequential hours. If you have to change the exact time week to week. That's fine.”

Some seasons are like that. You know, it's like your three hours have to go on different days. But I want you to make it your goal to set aside the same three hours every week to not do any life admin of any kind. Actively make the choice. And if you are skeptical of me for my bold claims, that's fine. Just give it a try. Take three hours a week for six weeks and see if it doesn't make you an even more productive person when you're not resting. And also like quite happier.

Don't bet me on it though, because you will lose. Again, I'm gonna die on this hill. I will die on the hill.

Right, so in lieu of binders and systems, which are too big to begin anyway, here are my 10 essential rules for life admin.

Half of them are lazy genius principles anyway. One, be kind to yourself. Two, start small. Three, something is better than all or nothing. Four, nowhere things are. Five, decide once when it's easy. Six, live in your season. Seven, make it easier next time. Eight, let people in. Nine, defend the alerts and ten schedule rest.

“Like for real, that's, I think that's eight lazy genius principles in that list of ten.”

Like those principles are working real hard today. I love it.

And those are the ten essential rules for life admin.

Now, after the break, we'll have many office hours with a question about how to lazy genius tipping. And we'll celebrate the lazy genius of the week with a great idea for sharing the life admin load with friends. We'll be right back. All right, it's time for this week's mini office hours. Our question is from Rachel in Iowa. Something I've been struggling with lately is tipping. I often panic and feel obligated to give anywhere there is a tip jar, which is everywhere.

I feel like this has gotten out of hand and I need a way to lazy genius it so I only need to decide once how I'm going to tip.

“Well, Rachel, this is definitely my advice and it is to decide once, however you can.”

And even if you change your mind, even if you get there and the decide once like doesn't quite fit the situation, at least you started with a decision rather than like floating and in decisive land. But listen, tipping is really tricky. Like a lot of people, they make their money from tips.

Some people don't always do the kind of job that feels like it deserves a generous tip.

We're always given the option to tip everywhere now, like you said, and so it does feel pretty constant. Fun story, one of my kids in the early days of having his own green light debit card, he went to get ice cream at a local place with some friends and some of his other friends work there. And so he got his ice cream, which cost like, I don't know, you know, like four or five dollars. And then he, he tip 20 bucks and that child tip 20 bucks because he was like, you know, they worked hard and I wanted to tell them thank you.

I was like, dude, like three dollars would have been like a super generous tip on one ice cream code, not like 20 good gravy. It was so funny. It's become like a fan, it's a family joke now for sure. But it's not just the numbers. Like a lot of us really want to take care of people and be generous when we can, but we can't every single where we go.

“It's like, it's hard, it's really hard. And because there are a lot of different kinds of categories where tipping decisions happen, I don't know that there is a single decide once that covers it all, right?”

So my suggestion is to think about the tipping scenario that comes up the most often, or maybe causes the most distress and figure something out there. So maybe it is food establishments that aren't like typical tipping scenarios. Like tipping it is sit down restaurant, it makes sense. Like we know what to do there. That's less stressful. You know, the math might not be fun, but the decision itself is not the issue. But a coffee shop, an ice cream parlor, like take out, like you said, like those are trickier.

And for the record, there's not one answer here, right? Like everybody gets to decide. Everybody has different budgets. I mean, bless my kids heart, but I cannot be tipping $20 every time I get a ice cream cone. I would love to, that that does not fit into our family budget very well. So just start small, just like we're talking today with, you know, with life admin, like you don't have to figure it all out, or have a rule about every single tipping scenario, just start with one that comes up often.

So you might decide once that you will tip a dollar at local coffee shops, bakeries, ice cream parlors, etc. You know, tips are appreciated, but they're not, you know, as required. And so maybe you will do that there. Or maybe you like the idea of supporting local places. Maybe that's like you're decide once. Or as if you go to a chain coffee shop or a chain fast food restaurant to get some kind of like frozen treat, you're probably not going to tip. If you do, and if you do, that's great. This is like, remember, all neutral and hypothetical, but maybe it matters to you to support local places, and you want them to stick around longer.

So you're going to decide once that you're always going to tip a couple bucks whenever you go to one of those places.

Or you could decide once that you will tip 10% on takeout orders, instead of the 20 or more that you might tip if you're sitting down at the restaurant. Or, you know, this question might even make you realize that you want to be a generous tip or as often as possible. And you're like, oh man, that actually really matters to me. So I'm actually going to decide once that I'm not going to get as many coffee shop coffees at the chain places. I'm going to make it at home most of the time so that I can save some of that money so that I can enjoy the local place and also tip when I go there, you know, like it's all personal, it's all up to you.

“So choose the thing that makes tipping feel most aligned with what matters to you and/or what is the most stressful or common.”

One decision there that simplifies that you don't have to do it all, please don't just start with one. And once you get into a rhythm of that, you could add another.

So like I have a personal decide once that I always, like I always tip it's not really a tip, but like I always round up a good well, like every single time.

They're like, would you like to round up for a program like, yes, I would every time. I don't think about it. Then it really does make it easy to just like nothing about it. That also have another personal decide once that I will always tip well at local restaurants. And I will always tip more if I stay at the table, like for obviously like a fairly long time, you know. I remember when Koss and I were dating, he was a single guy with a job with a decent job, but he usually ate saltines as dinner. So like he did have a little more disposable income, but like not much more than I did.

And you know, we didn't order much, like the ticket was like way less than $20, like it might have even been like 10 or 15.

“And I pulled out the pen to start doing like the very particular tip math, because I grew up poor, now also grew up with some some stingy, some stingy men and charge of our our money.”

And so it was like, well, this has to be to the penny, right? So I'm doing, I'm doing all of this. I also did not have a lot of money when I was dating Koss and even into our marriage, like I said, we were both students, very tight budget. All of those things mattered, all of those things went into it that I was sitting at that table working so hard to calculate this tip to the penny. And he said, hey, I'm paying, I'll take care of it. And he wrote like, I don't know, like seven bucks on this bill that was like somewhere in the 15 dollar range.

And I was like, dude, that's like a 50% tip, because to me, the rule, it wasn't really so much the money, the rule was at the time 15%. I've changed my rule. My rule is now like a 20% minimum, because it's hard out there. But like 50% I know where my kid got his $20 ice cream parlor tip generosity from. But I reacted to Koss writing that number in the diner. And I remember he was like, you know, like, it's just a couple, a couple extra dollars. And that doesn't make a lot of difference to us, but for her it probably does.

And I looked at the waitress who was my mom's age and had probably worked so hard her whole life. And realized how right he was.

Like generosity doesn't always mean some grand elaborate number, like $7 or $7 or $7, but it also put tipping into perspective for me.

Like I've never forgotten that moment that that what it feels like on my end as like very little could end up being a lot on theirs, not just the amount, but also like just the generosity of somebody giving you a big tip. I was a waitress for a summer at Applebee's.

“Man, I did not get left a lot of big tips, but when I did it was like the best thing ever felt so good inside.”

So that's just like some context for what we've always prioritized as a family and a couple even in very lean seasons. We tip well at local places, especially once with meals that don't cost so much, like it's really hard to live on tips at a place where the 20% even and not everybody tips 20% like where that's still not a lot. You know, so we always tip more at places even when our bill is really small. So those are a lot of long stories about tips, but I also just want to normalize like the layers and many scenarios and limitations.

I don't have a sense of experience, but also how when you pay attention to what actually matters to you.

And then you create one to side once around it like tipping a lot at a diner. It really does simplify things. It's great and it feels good. It's it lines with what matters. So thank you for the question Rachel, I hope it was helpful.

If you would like to submit your question, if you're listening for a many office hours or for just an upcoming office hours episode. I'd like to ask the audience to hello at the lazy genius collective.com. All right, it's time for the lazy genius of the week. This week we have Anika and Ika writes my latest lazy genius epiphany is to swap admin tasks with someone. Anika, do not know we were doing this episode.

And Ika's doing it already. That car appointment I've been meaning to make the research for the best workout shoes. Those tasks used to sit, those tasks used to sit on my list and collect dust because I just couldn't master up the need to do them for myself. But for someone I care about,

I will have them at the top of my list and probably don't have the time. And the people in my life feel the same about my tasks. A great way to move through those medium and poor tasks that just sit below other priorities is to trade them with someone else who cares about you. It's also a great way to feel cared about and show others I care about them. I really love this.

I love this a lot. If you have a sibling or a friend who does not mind researching things, especially for you, like swap them. Text your friend and try it one time. Be like, hey, I am dragging my feet on figuring out what shoe to buy for running. I'm so overwhelmed.

“Do you have something similarly overwhelming and add many on your end and we can swap?”

I think we do a better for each other than we would do it for ourselves. I just like try it once and see how it goes. It might not go great. But it also might be awesome. You could eventually find yourself in like a like almost like a babysitter's club situation.

But for life admin, you know, life admin club like get together with your laptop and your plan or your phone. And everybody just starts making calls and like body doubling and drinking lattes. It one of you made just like get it done. I love letting people into things in my life that are hard because it makes those things easier.

So this is a really great idea and I kind of thank you for sharing and congratulations on being the lazy genus of the week.

“In the next podcast recap email, I'm going to share my two favorite ways to enjoy life admin.”

So if you would like to get that email, you can sign up at the lazy genuscollective.com/recap.

It goes out every other Thursday.

“If this episode was helpful to you, share it with someone you know or you can leave a review on Apple podcasts.”

Both are small ways to support the show, but hugely helpful to us.

So thank you for your support.

“This podcast is part of the Odyssey family and the Office Ladies Network.”

This episode is hosted by me, Kendra Adachi, Produced by Leah Jarvis and Executive Produced by Kendra Adachi, Jennifer Sure and Angelicancy. Thanks y'all for listening and until next time, be a genius about things that matter. And lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra and I will see you next week.