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100: Ask Us Anything life admin
3k Plays1 month ago
In this milestone 100th episode, Mia and Dinah tackle listeners' questions, including how to get out of overwhelm and just start, environmental design, digital overload and meal planning. They also talk about their favourite episodes and highilghts over the last 5 years.
For the full show notes, head to Life Admin Life Hacks.
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Transcript
Introduction to Life Admin Life Hacks
00:00:01
Speaker
This is Life Admin Life Hacks, a podcast that gives you techniques, tips and tools to tackle your life admin more efficiently, to save your time, your money and improve your household harmony. I'm Diana Roberts, an operations manager who loves answering questions about life.
00:00:19
Speaker
I'm Mia Northrop, a researcher and writer who has said that introduction one hundred times. and We could have recorded it it once and just, you know, played it at each time, but we do it live every episode listeners and it never gets old.
Listener Questions: Where to Start with Life Admin?
00:00:34
Speaker
So in this episode, we're answering questions, submitted by listeners, ranging from where to start to recommendations on our favorite apps. Hello and welcome to Life Admin Life Hacks.
00:00:46
Speaker
This is our 100th episode. And we want to thank the listeners who reach out to us like Kiara. You send us a message on LinkedIn. I'm a big fan of your podcast and your book. Thank you for sharing all your tips and for having a platform that I can share your knowledge with others, such as my husband, ha ha ha. We get it, we get it. If you are loving our episodes, please leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or socials or Spotify or wherever you're finding us.
00:01:14
Speaker
It is helpful for others to learn about the podcast and you'll spread the love to level up life admin.
100th Episode Celebration
00:01:21
Speaker
So we are beyond excited today because this isn't just our first Ask Us Anything. This is our 100th episode. It's taken us more than five years. Do not do the maths. Yes, we have finally reached this major milestone.
00:01:36
Speaker
And over the past 100 episodes, we've covered everything. I feel like we've literally covered every angle of life avenue from taming your to-do list to sharing the mental load at home to, like, well, Diana, what's your, what are your favorite episodes? Hmm. So I think some of the interviews have been fabulous and in particular, the ones that we did around kind of sharing stuff at home with Dr. Morgan Cutlip and even with Tracy Spicer kind of really inspired me to change things up at home. But also probably some of the early episodes were really good. We're like, we're working through our own life admin foundations like the password managers and cloud storage, you know, the things that have really made a big difference in my life. Yeah. What about you, man? Yeah, I do. I do love all those early episodes where we were in full guinea pig mode and we were trying out everything and just trying to crack it for ourselves. And then I feel like we got, we got up to the other side and we're like, whoo. But I, my favorite episodes, I love talking to Casper to Kyla about rituals. I loved the money personality stuff with Nicole Alicia. It's like all that money story money. but You know, I love that. And it was such a significant shift for me in terms of my relationship with money and how I look after my finances. And I still laugh about that car maintenance. Literally every time I go and fill up my car and don't check my oil, I think about it and I laugh.
00:03:04
Speaker
So thank you, all our families, listeners. We are dedicating this app to answering as many of the questions as possible that have been sent in. Where are we starting, Dinah?
Tackling Pain Points in Life Admin
00:03:15
Speaker
OK, so I think the best place to start is we had one question from a listener saying, look, I'm still really overwhelmed and I'm just not getting started with sorting and any of this out. What should I do first? And it's actually a very common question that we get asked. Yeah.
00:03:32
Speaker
And actually on our website, life admin, life hacks.com. If you go to the operation optimize masterclass series, we have a, we have some sessions that are specifically on like the psychology youre getting done and a lot of it is around getting started. And I guess the first thing we talk about is starting with the biggest payoff based on what is important to you.
00:03:54
Speaker
So think about what is the biggest pain point and just focus there. Don't try and do everything. Focus on one thing. Set aside one hour each week and just work your way through that one thing. So there's a couple of things going on there. One is to just prioritize and not multitask and just choose one thing to work on.
00:04:13
Speaker
One is having dedicated time in your week to work on it. So if we talk about our hour of power, that is your current slot in your calendar where you just do life admin. The third thing is to make it really small. You make the smallest little chip away at it.
00:04:29
Speaker
you chunk it down to the smallest component and you just do a little bit at the time, little by little, a little becomes a lot. And is it the fourth thing, the fifth thing of what's count already is to know whether you need an accountability partner. If you're someone who needs some of that external that external gaze for you to to be responsible, then maybe enlist a friend and do it together. That's why we have co-working sessions every now and then. When you do stuff together with other people, it can make it easier.
00:05:00
Speaker
yeah And I mean, that's really part of how we got our admin sorted was kind of keeping ourselves accountable, having to record this podcast, you know, every week, every fortnight, every month, however often it happened. That's really how it really kept us motivated to keep on at it, keep improving, keep experimenting and keep trialing. So.
00:05:22
Speaker
I definitely think that it's worth thinking about you know what we call those life admin foundations because we do know that if you get those really nailed, you know they make all other life admin easier. So those areas are like having a password manager, sorting out your cloud storage, really optimizing the way you manage your to-do lists.
00:05:45
Speaker
thinking about understanding your financial position. And I'm sure I've missed one, Mia. What is it? Well under having it. Yes, of course, scheduling, which you'd already talked about. Yeah. Yeah. Start there. Start with those five things. I'll literally go back to the first episode of this book and just follow it. Basically, we put it. Those first whatever 20 episodes are in a specific order for a purpose. Like we designed it away.
00:06:12
Speaker
it It does make that sequence does help. All right. Another question. So next question is around how can I imagine manage this digital information
Managing Digital Overload
00:06:24
Speaker
overload? I get score notifications, bills, newsletters, insurance renewals, marketing emails, all the things I just can't work out what to keep and what to delete. It feels like an avalanche. I'm never on top of it. I'm feeling overwhelmed. Yeah.
00:06:39
Speaker
This is from Jamie. Thank you so much, Jamie, for sending in this question. All right. The digital information overload is real. We get sent so much communication from organizations, the government, all of our providers. If we have kids, their schools, their daycare centers, all the places that they do the extracurricular stuff with, it is incessant. So where do they begin, Diane?
00:07:05
Speaker
So I think, you know, the thing that we suggest, particularly when it's trying to like manage the electronic communication that's to do with life admin. So the first thing to think about is having this dedicated life admin email address. So you keep all of that kind of separate from any of the other kind of noise and that really can help kind of compartmentalize the life admin part of the email. Yeah.
00:07:30
Speaker
And then there's a whole bunch of things you can do around managing your email. So one is unsubscribe from all the stuff that you do not want to be getting anymore. We often just delete stuff and really we should be unsubscribing. So take the 11 extra seconds. Actually, it's not even that more. It's probably four extra seconds to scroll to the bottom and hit unsubscribe, or sometimes in Gmail now at the top, there's an unsubscribe button, just unsubscribe. Or you might want to use filter rules. So you can set up rules or filters to automatically move your emails into certain folders or label groups to spending, depending on whether you're using Gmail or Outlook, it comes out of your main inbox, it's tucked off to the side. And then when you have time, you can sit down and look at what's in those folders.
00:08:26
Speaker
So I had them set up for ah things like messages that come from like investment platforms and like banking stuff because that stuff is often not urgent. I don't need to look at it. Once a month I will sit down during an hour of power and I'll go through any of that stuff and act on whatever whatever is useful but I definitely filter some of that stuff out of my main inbox straight away. And if there's things like you know you've got newsletters that are just for personal interest or there's marketing you know sales things for shops that aren't urgent, they aren't specific, filter them across so you can go and have a look at it when you have the time, but it's not taking up your headspace and just making your inbox super quiet. I think another really important thing is to kind of turn off your notifications so that you're not getting pinged all day around new email or arriving in the inbox.
00:09:18
Speaker
And think about setting aside a time, maybe once or twice a day to look at your email, or you know depending on you know what stage of life you're in and what's coming into your inbox. But have this particular time when you've gone they've got the habit of looking at it and make sure that when you're doing that, you've actually got time to do the things if they're like the two minute too easy task.
Email Management Strategies
00:09:40
Speaker
So don't look at your email in a 30 second glance between meetings or something, because the reality is then it just becomes overwhelming because as you see all these things and you haven't got time to do anything about it. So think about, you know, is it on your commute on your way in? Is that when waiting for, you know, your coffee at the coffee shop, whatever it is, but think about using that time when you actually then if there's two minutes to AC tasks, you can action them. You can delete emails that need to be deleted.
00:10:08
Speaker
and you've got time to add to your to-do list any of those longer 10 minute time kill or hour of power tasks that might have hit your inbox. Yeah, I'm in a big favour of of turning off notifications. Well, actually, I talked about this the other day in ah in a session of the membership. I turn off notifications for my life admin email address because I know there's usually nothing in there that's particularly urgent, but I keep on my phone my little badge notification for my personal email address.
00:10:37
Speaker
because it has to get to a certain number before I'll bother to look in there. that makes So there's like four, I'm like, four, whatever. I'll look at it at the end of the day. If there was like 31 and something's clearly blowing up, then I know to go and have a look at it. And so having that badge there prevents me from just checking all the time, is that am I missing something? Am I missing something? Because if I say there's four or seven, I'm like, everything's fine. Carry on, carry on. One of the things I think when you have a lot of things coming into your email inbox is that you can get into the habit of using that as a to-do list.
00:11:16
Speaker
So you leave the emails in there because, you know, you have to take some kind of action. And really, if it's more than a two minute too easy that you can do straight away, as you said, because you're only looking at your email when you have time to act on your email. If it's something that does belong in the 10 minute time killer or the hour of power category, then make a note of it on your to do list and park it in a folder that is like, you know, to do like an action.
00:11:44
Speaker
So again, you're getting it out of that main inbox thing. So there is the four D's, there's delete. If you worry about needing it later, archive it. So in your email tool, you can choose whether when you hit delete, it actually deletes it or whether it archives it. So you can search for it later if you if you're a bit worried. I've always just hit delete. I'm like, if it's really important, and it'll come back. Or I can just, you know, there'll be a way. So there's delete, delegate, do.
00:12:13
Speaker
so this is if you need to respond to it or action it if it's a two minutes to an easy kind of thing or defer. So you defer as if it is the 10 minute time killer or an hour of power and you might want to have a little folder set up that is your action folder. So if you set up filters to sort some of that incoming email you might have some sub folders that's your action folder you might have a waiting for folder if you're waiting for someone to respond or you have to chase something up There could be a to be read. So you're parking things that are going to take a chunk of time. Or if you have like at a certain project, like you're going on holiday and you're saving emails for your trip, or you've, you know, you're getting quotes in because you ducked it gas heating, it's broken down. Oh my God, I'm freezing. You might have these kinds of things set up.
00:12:59
Speaker
You can use things like unroll me or clean email to mass unsubscribe. So there are a couple of tools that help you mass unsubscribe for things. if You've got like hundreds of emails. You can snooze your emails. Sometimes things hit your inbox and you're like, I don't have a headspace for this now. You can hit snooze and it'll resend it to you in like three days. I do like that. And then there's also like priority inbox. So there's settings in your, in your email tools to Reorganize the way your inbox looks so it's clearer what is a priority and you can, is there's quite specific settings you can use so you don't get overwhelmed. I'm also looking at that list from Jamie, like things like bills. I'm hoping that most of your bills are on direct debit, so there's the automatic payment going through and all you need to do is glance at it and make sure it's not outrageous and then save of it to cloud storage. Statements for things.
00:13:56
Speaker
I try and opt out as much of many statements as possible. Sometimes I'm going into the my account, if I need to download them, otherwise it's like just mass, mass delete. I definitely think that the main thing for me is to not be looking at it all the time because that's when it gives you the sense of overwhelm. So I really think if you can try to resist that urge to be constantly checking your email or looking at notifications, that can reduce a lot of that feeling of overwhelm. So yeah maybe you have that a try.
00:14:24
Speaker
yeah OK, the next question is a really great one. So it comes from Kelly, who is in our adulting
Environment Design Hacks
00:14:32
Speaker
membership. And she asks us about our ideas and hacks around the concept of environment design. And in particular, in relation to the mental load and time management, she gives some really great examples to us around how she's set up her environment around the house to really try and make things easier and make it easy to do the right thing. And I guess It really reminded me of the James Clear saying that environment is the invisible hand that shapes human behavior. And he also says, reducing the friction associated with good behaviors and when the friction is low habits are easy. So huge fan of James Clear. And so i really love this question around how can we set up our environment to make it easy to make it easy for ourselves? Yeah. And Kelly gives the example of how
00:15:22
Speaker
There was certain dishwashing habits going on in the household that were driving her bananas, like people never knowing. whether the dishwasher was clean or dirty and putting it up like, oh, we've all been there, we've all been there. And someone asking you whether it's clean or dirty, you're like, I'm sorry, do you have eyes? Could you not tell? What the hell? And then she went and bought one of those little magnets that just, you stick on the dishwasher and it has two, but it's clean or dirty and you just move it across. And it was a game changer and it saved her life.
00:15:54
Speaker
So, you know, there are little examples of that of tweaks you can make around your house that just make things easy. And she was asking, what are some more?
00:16:06
Speaker
So I guess my first one that made a big difference for me was thinking about setting up my phone, right? So that it was like my life admin superpower rather than my social media superpower. So really putting the life admin apps on my home screen, umm using those kind of widget functionality kind of really um changed the game for me in terms of like when I pick up my phone, the first thing I see is my to do lists. And I see my photos, I see a beautiful photo of my family. So that also makes me happy. But I don't see Instagram, I don't see Facebook, I don't see those things that might get me distracted. So I'm much more likely to, you know, dive into a 10 minute time killer than I am to like spend 10 minutes scrolling on Instagram. Yeah, that's a great example of just setting up little shortcuts for yourself everywhere you go. Bookmarks on your computer screen, like
00:16:58
Speaker
Yeah, I love it. Another one is around paper clutter hotspots. So people will talk about how there'll be these corners of dining tables or desks or kitchen benches that seem to have a magnet and just attract big piles of crap or piles of paper or whatever it might be. One of the things you can do to prevent that from happening is to put something else there like a pot plant or a vase or something that just prevents people from actually using that spot forcing you to put it you know where it actually belongs and making sure there is a ah natural home for that kind of stuff. I can make all the difference. I think about this you know in terms of thinking, what can I do to tweak my house? You just don't need to recognize where where are the sort of the tolerations happening? Where are the things in your house where you're like putting up with something and then just giving some time to think about
00:17:51
Speaker
Well, what can I have? What can I put there? I recently bought a coat stand for my haul, which, you know, these are common things. but what the fast hack I'd never had one. And every single day I go to walk the dog. I'm going to like four different places in my house to get her leash, to get the poo bags, to get the, you know, at the treats. I'm getting my coat, I'm getting my hat, I get my little walking shoes on. I'm like, Oh my God.
00:18:21
Speaker
I'm getting a coat stand, I'm putting it all in one spot. And I, I've been thinking about for about two years. It's changed my mornings, like it's just efficient. It is this perfect environment design of a simple little tool that's making that tar, all those tasks, so much easier, easier to get my hand back there, I can get out in the morning. So yeah, this is another example of of environment design. And it really reminds me of something we recommend in the book, and I think we talked about in one of the podcast EPs, which was having kind of this launch pad, particularly if you've got school-aged children and thinking about, or even, you know, younger. But if you've got kids and you've got to get out of the house on a regular basis with the same kind of stuff,
00:19:05
Speaker
Set yourself up a launch pad, give it you know add a visual timetable about the rhythm of the week, make it easy for them to put their stuff away so that things don't get lost in the house, library books, you know yeah sporting equipment, all of that kind of stuff. That makes a huge difference in the logistics of a stress-free morning. yeah And it's funny, another recent example is if I've got a smartwatch and I used to have the charger next to my computer because that's where all the cables are and that' that's where all the charges live. And I basically been going to bed, I'd have a shower, I'd take off my watch and I couldn't be bothered walking down the stairs and bringing it to the charger. So it was just constantly running out of batteries.
00:19:45
Speaker
So I moved the charger to the bathroom and now I, you know, get ready for the shower. I take my watch off. I put it right there and I get up in the morning. I go pee, put my watch on. It's right there. So there's these moments where you just think about if this were easy, what would be here? What would I be using or doing? And then just move it. It's the simplest little things, but again, it's a game changer. Yeah. Another one that's made a big difference for me is really taking that time to set up my online shopping lists. So I think I changed the name of the list recently to the usual suspects based on something Carly Jacobs said. You know, just having that list and keeping it up to date with the things that we buy all the time really just makes such a difference in terms of optimizing that grocery shopping every week. It can really make it be a five minute task because most of the things are things we buy on the regular. So.
00:20:41
Speaker
That kind of environment design really makes your life that much easier. Yeah, I do enjoy that kind of thing. So people listening, if you do some tweaking and optimizing, and it can be really little, it can be moving something from one side of your desk to the other side of your desk, because that's naturally where you go for it. It can be the smallest thing. Let us know. We'd love to hear. OK, next question. Meal planning. How do you even decide I need to streamline this?
Meal Planning Tips
00:21:10
Speaker
Yeah, this was really an interesting one. Like step by step, the book needs it broken down a bit more. So I think this is really interesting about where people, like different people get stuck in different places when it comes to meal planning. The first thing with meal planning is just to schedule a time when you do it. So you usually you want to do it before you're going to do your big shop, whether it's online or in an actual store. So have a regular time of the week where you're checking in. and you're deciding what is it that I need to buy. And then you need to think about how many meals you're planning for. So for me, I have like when I have a non kid week and the kids are with their dad, I've got my specific shopping list. It's called
00:21:53
Speaker
me wait And there's certain things I buy and that I eat when the kids aren't here. So all the things that go in the lunch boxes, none of that's on that list. And then I have a separate list. It's kid week and it has all the fun stuff on it. And I'm generally planning for six nights because there's always going to be a bit of a takeaway or a gobbing out. But I'm planning for six nights and I'm thinking about Which nights have soccer training? Which nights am I coming back from the office? Which nights, you know, are there things on? So things need to be fast or light or bulk or whatever. So that is the first step. How many meals are you making and what kind of, you know, cooking timeframe and meal prep are we talking about? What's happening in the schedule? And then one of the things that makes it much easier is to think about using categories because it really simplifies your choices. So,
00:22:46
Speaker
embrace things like taco Tuesday or meat free Monday or think about every Wednesday we have Italian or whatever it is. If you're really struggling to figure out what to decide, you know, what to cook, then just put some categories around it because that kind of simplifies the decision making and makes it that much easier. Yeah, thinking of categories was the game changer for me. So it went from sort of having to sit there and just sort of think of six meals, things six dinners.
00:23:16
Speaker
you know, protein and vegetables and whatever, I'd be like, all right, I just have to think of one meat and three veg, one Mexican, you know, something that's going to involve chicken. Like I just, I just changed the, the level of detail I needed to think in. And I love that it hasn't really changed the categories. have Five years, pretty much, because there's enough variation in each of them to choose from. And they're kind of things that align with health habits and stuff that I just want to stick with.
00:23:46
Speaker
And I think where things do get tricky is like, all right, and then how am I picking the actual meals, the actual recipes that I'm going to cook? How do you do it, Diane? Increasingly, I get everyone to choose because I'm getting everyone to cook something. So we're at the moment, we do two or three nights of the kind of Marley spoon or HelloFresh, and then the rest of the nights I'm asking people to nominate what they'll be cooking for that night. And that makes it much easier because it's less for me to decide and it's less for me to cook.
00:24:15
Speaker
And what I do find is a lot of it's kind of super simple and my son just repeatedly cooks the same two or three meals. But you know what? If it's one less thing for me to have to decide and worry about and if people are going to eat it and it's a reasonably nutritionally based, I have let go the need for complicated weeknight dinners and love to cook up a storm on the weekend. And that's when I get to choose. But other than that, I have, you know, really don't have a complicated is kind of my advice. Stick with the basics.
00:24:45
Speaker
and what people like. And if you if either the other members of your household are less than satisfied about what you've chosen, ask them to suggest some meals for the following week. Yeah. I basically have one cookbook that I'm looking at these days. It's the Recipe 10 Eats.
00:25:03
Speaker
her name Denali, she's huge. I got given it and it is fantastic. It is yummy and they're pretty easy recipes. And then I have a whole stack of old HelloFresh recipe cards from yeah various bouts of HelloFresh over the years. And the ones that were like a favorite that we all liked, I just kept them. And so when I'm actually trying to choose meals, that is what I'm looking at. I'm not looking at the whole of the internet and Instagram and a million cookbooks and you know taste and all recipes and delicious and there's so much out there that's where it can get overwhelming. I look at two sauces and one day I'll get sick of that cookbook and I'll get sick of that stack and I'll find some new sauces but I don't try and boil the ocean when it comes to you know where's the inspo coming from. So if you have like a favorite website or a favorite cookbook just scan that for ideas or if you're like talented people out there who could just
00:25:58
Speaker
surprise chef something up out of the pantry. I am not that person but I'm very enviable for people who can. And I think, and I think it's just, yeah, do it on that a weekly time horizon. So you're not trying to do a whole month. You're not trying to get super elaborate. Just pick something and then make your gross movies based on that and go buy it. Okay. Let's move on. Next question. as I loved this question because it reminded me of your recent trip.
The Importance of Cloud Backups
00:26:24
Speaker
How do I safeguard my info if I lose my phone? Oh, thank you Claire for this one.
00:26:32
Speaker
So, yes, several months ago, traveling overseas, he got in a taxi. They had a very convenient charging cable in the taxi. I plugged my phone in and I said to my family, don't let me forget my phone. And I did. I got out and I never saw it again. That was day one of the holiday. So, lesson learned, man. What did you learn from that experience here too? So what things did you have and what would you have liked to have had? OK.
00:27:00
Speaker
So I was in the pretty good wicket in that there was probably a couple of weeks worth of photos on the phone, but everything else I had downloaded to a hard drive. So I only lost a couple of weeks worth of photos. Well, I wasn't too devastated about that.
00:27:18
Speaker
Everything else is pretty much on the cloud. So there wasn't info on the phone that I lost. All my contacts, my calendar, like everything was, is cloud-based. When I got a new phone, I could log in and everything was there. All the apps, all the info. What was really hard was the fact that for the period that I didn't have a phone,
00:27:44
Speaker
I couldn't multi-factor authentication. me yeah and so I was in a different country, so every time I tried to log in to things that don't even usually use multi-factor authentication, they're like, hang on, someone from Japan is trying to log in, is this really me? up Oh, and I entered the third circle of hell. And then I just had like a digital detox holiday because it got too hard. So that was the lesson for me in that because of the multifactor that authentication was kicking in, sometimes I could say, okay, don't try and text me, send me an email, but
00:28:23
Speaker
because I didn't have my phone, I didn't have my password manager, and I couldn't multi-authenticate to get into my password manager online, and I didn't know any of my email addresses, passwords off by heart. yeah So that is the lesson for me. I needed to know my, at least all my email addresses.
00:28:45
Speaker
passwords off by heart. And they all had really, you know, complicated, strong passwords that were indecipherable strings of characters. And I've since moved to pass phrases, which is apparently the next, you know, wave of cyber security. So Instead of just having a gobbledygook letters and numbers and symbols, you can use a passphrase, which is basically a bunch of words strung together that you can remember that make no sense. That's not like your full name or anything that makes sense to anybody, but you can at least remember. That was my lesson. One of my children lost their phone and I was quite concerned about the fact that there they had a kind of older phone and it didn't have face ID on it. And so there,
00:29:32
Speaker
password to get into their phone was quite simple and could have been guessed if it had been someone at their school for example who had taken their phone. So luckily I had like the find my iphone kind of thing set up and I could lock the device and then when it never turned up we actually could remotely erase everything from the device and I think you can do that both on iPhone and Android. So make sure that you've set that functionality up, I guess is my top tip. Yeah. Just remind me, I was able to do that with my phone and you're able to publish a little message. Yes. I was like, please call this number if you find this phone. So yeah, definitely have that functionality set up. One of the other things that's helpful is
00:30:16
Speaker
If you've got a good password manager, I have shared most of my important passwords with my husband. So therefore he can use his multi-factor authentication to get into all of those things. So hopefully that makes my life a little bit easier.
00:30:34
Speaker
Should my phone be lost? Not all of them, but certainly most of my passwords he has. And he also had, and so those I've also like shared with him, like the account numbers of, you know, of the carrier and all of that kind of stuff. So, and because we have the shared cloud storage, that means that he can access anything like, so, you know, to be able to ring the actual mobile phone provider and say that the phone's been lost and to cancel the SIM and all of those sorts of things.
00:31:00
Speaker
But yeah, backing up the data is also really important. So either do it regularly to a hard drive, if you've got you know photos like me suggested, or I just have mine backing up automatically to iCloud all the time. So I won't lose anything. And you know what, when it happened, what I was mostly concerned about was losing things like my to-do lists and my notes, or reference lists. like You know, all the podcasts and books. I was like, oh my God, I haven't lost them, have I? I knew the apps I'd be able to read and load stuff. It was all there, thank God. Okay. So in the same vein, the next question is, what are the best ways of storing your ID and credit card details on your phone that aren't vulnerable to hacking?
Secure Storage for ID and Credit Cards
00:31:45
Speaker
Yes. This just comes down to your password manager. So this is a paid password manager. This isn't the
00:31:52
Speaker
the password manager that works inside Google Chrome or your like your key chain in the Apple world. This is a paid password manager that you can have installed on your phone, on your tablet, on your computer, on your browser. So it might be Keyper, it might be Dashlane. There's a few out there. Is that NordPass I see? Yeah. There's great reviews of, you know, what is the latest and greatest it's worth keeping an eye on. What are the latest and greatest password managers?
00:32:21
Speaker
but they have multifactor authentication. They're very secure. And this is the place to keep that sensitive information because it does have a higher level of encryption and it's hard to get in. So that is where you could have a copy of your license or your passport or your credit card details so that you can access them when you're out and about. OK, good one. OK, next question, also about an app. I desperately need an app to keep track of subscriptions. What would you recommend?
00:32:52
Speaker
What kinds of subscriptions will be talking here? just so I think all of the you know millions of subscriptions and what dates and how many you've got, and et cetera, et cetera. I did a little bit of research on this one. is this Is this basically so you can stop your money leaks and you know what you've got going? Yeah, I think so. so There's no not a much context. and I had a bit of research. There is an app called Subby. Of course there is.
00:33:15
Speaker
that kind of does the job. But actually, when I looked at it, I was like, why would you need a separate app for this? I really think that my recommendation would be to just use another list in your either reference list or in your to-do list app. Because you know particularly most to-do lists, you can set up like as a recurring if you wanted it to be reminded you know when the next date is,
00:33:38
Speaker
And I personally think it's way easier to keep things in one place rather than having lots of different apps to try and keep a track of and keep an eye on. I don't know about you, Mia, but what do you reckon? I just hear, oh, I need to subscribe to Subby to keep a track of my subscriptions. It's like, oh, I'm never ending. Yeah. You know, there can be very specific apps for this kind of thing, for all sorts of things, but just stick with the the ones you've already got going on. If you want to use notes or reminders and just list your subscriptions in there as you subscribe to things or as you get a bill, yeah, pop it in there. Everything in one place. Yeah. OK, next one. What about an app to analyze my spending that integrates with my bank?
App Recommendations for Financial Tracking
00:34:21
Speaker
Yeah, this is a great tool for everybody to have. It's an easy way to keep on top of your money and understand what your expenses are, because this will help signal you know where you could possibly cut expenses, cost a living crisis, anyone.
00:34:38
Speaker
and see where where your money is actually going. And if it integrates with your bank, it means the data is automatically updated. All the transactions that you're making are automatically pulled into this app and automatically categorized. You don't have to do anything manual, unless you like diet or love spreadsheet.
00:34:56
Speaker
So there are great apps out there. that's follow There's there's YNAB, which stands for you need a budget. There's WeMoney. And I guess those apps are great if you have multiple banks, credit cards. So you're using you've got money happening in different institutions. If all of your money is with one bank and your credit card is with that same bank, then hopefully you'll have a good internet banking app from that place and it will categorize everything for you and give you that consolidated view. What do you use, Owen? What are you doing these days?
00:35:29
Speaker
Yeah, so I have increasingly been using the internet banking just to kind of keep an eye on it, but I still do my once a year spreadsheet extravaganza to kind of check in on what we spent last year and to make a plan for the going forward. But the you know the internet banking does a pretty good job now of just like reminding me if we're sort of broadly on track. And I don't really need, I had did used to have Frollo, but I don't really need it it because most of my banking is all with the one bank and it's pretty good, the internet banking experience.
00:35:59
Speaker
Yeah, excellent. All right. Well, try those apps. Try Frollo, YNAB or WeMoney. If you do have different accounts and credit cards or whatever across multiple institutions. And yeah, plug and play. Super convenient. All right. The next question.
Clothing Organization Tips from Stylists
00:36:14
Speaker
I would love a plan for wardrobe organization.
00:36:18
Speaker
Oh, I think the name Lisa Stockman's about to get mentioned. So we did a specific episode on wardrobe management with Lisa, who is a stylist. And what did she recommend, Diane? So she recommends organizing by type of item and then by color. Yeah. So by type, it's like, so all the pants are together, all the dresses are together, all the shirts. And there was a length component, wasn't it? Was there a length thing? It depends how your wardrobe is configured.
00:36:48
Speaker
She's generally saying, you know, you go from shortest to longest. But I think one of the, you know, the the thing that really stuck with me from that podcast episode was like really thinking about treating my wardrobe like a fashion collection. Like I kind of had this mindset change around thinking about having less, but having really things that I loved and really thinking about when I buy, investing in really good basics and making sure that when I buy things I've always got three other things I can wear it with. And then I think organize wardrobe organization becomes less of a thing because I actually don't have that much to organize and therefore it doesn't feel like a drama to organize it. I don't know about you, Mia. Yeah, I feel the same way. If you've if it's like heaving with stuff,
00:37:35
Speaker
it's hard to keep it organized and you do feel like you need systems because it's just it feels chaotic and can't find anything so the first thing is just have less stuff in the first place. What I also remember from that episode and you know what I've played around with it goes a bit to the environmental design of where you put things so the things that you're going to be wearing every single day that you want to grab easily and I'm talking like underwear bras you know you just you want them in your eye line at the easiest height and accessibility. And then you kind of move away from that center range to things that you wear less frequently. So if there's something that you wear once a year that it's in the back of the cupboard or it's off to the side or it's in the bottom drawer, things that you're using most frequently have them central. That saves you heaps of time. It has both right there. Okay. Awesome. Only got time for one more final question. So may I love this one? What is your first life admin hack?
Smartphone as an Organizational Tool
00:38:41
Speaker
If I just take one thing, what would it be? We did do a hundred episodes, but I'll just give you the one thing. I guess what I do say to people is treat your smartphone like the supercomputer that it is and lean on it.
00:38:59
Speaker
instead of having your brain try to remember things. Lean on the phone. Let that do the remembering for you. Put the lists in there. Put the 10-minute time killers, the hour of power things in there. Use the schedule. Use the diary. Use the password manager. Use all the notifications. These are powerful little machines that we are walking around with all day, every day. And you just need to dump your organization into it. Learn how to use it.
00:39:27
Speaker
put the app so that they're convenient, the ones that you want to support, good behaviors, new habits, getting things done, put them on the front screen, hide everything else, and just use it. Use it intentionally. It'll make the hugest difference to your life. Diana, what about you? What's your, do you have a favorite hack?
00:39:47
Speaker
Well, I'm going to cheat, I think, because I think, you know, as we've sort of said before, you you know, I think another James Clear quote, you do not rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. I love that. That's just a little... I can have all of James Cleese, that's my favourite. So get your Life Admin Foundation sorted, because if you've got those things really sorted, if you've got those systems in place,
00:40:15
Speaker
if you've shared them with the other members of your household and everyone knows how to do it and how to, you know, you make it easy for yourself. It makes all other life admin easier. So yeah invest the time, make sure you use tools that you're really confident in and you know how to use them and make the most of them. Beautiful, darling. Well, thank you. Thank you to all our listeners. Thank you to our guests that we've had over the years. Thank you to our reviewers. Thank you to our readers who've bought life admin life hacks or got it from the library or listened to it. Thank you all. It's been a brilliant ride.
00:40:54
Speaker
We have learned so much. We have foraged in the recesses of life admin and learned so much and really benefited. But ultimately what's been gratifying about this is helping other people and knowing that we've we've been serving all the other people out there who feel frazzled and were looking for answers. It's so lovely to hear from people who are like,
00:41:16
Speaker
I was wondering whether anyone else had been thinking about this or whether it was just me. And we're so glad that we could do some of that thinking and exploring and researching and just share the goods with you to make your lives easier. It's been really rewarding. And Diana and I are regularly really touched by stories we get from people about how we've helped them out. So this has made this whole caper very worthwhile. It's been really fun. That's what I've done. It's been awesome. And an extra special thanks to the people who submitted questions for today's EPP. It really helped guide a great conversation. And thank you, Courtney, our wonderful producer, who's been with us from the start, where we had zero idea what we were doing. After I was clumsily producing our first couple of episodes, we couldn't have done it without you. So thank you as well.
00:42:09
Speaker
Thanks for listening. Show notes for this episode are available at lifeadminlifehacks.com. And if you're a fan, please subscribe and share the love and tell a friend or review us in your podcasting app. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.