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023: Organising your social life
508 Plays5 years ago
Prioritise and plan your social life.
This episode talks about some of the things you need to think about when you are organising your social life including:
- the value of social connection
- consciously organsing your social life
- prioritising how to spend your time to nurture your important friendships
- people priority vs event priority
- tools to help make organising your social life less of an admin burden.
Mia talks about the evidence on the value of social connection and research around the number of real friendships.
Dinah talks about the framework she uses to organise her social life with reference lists and her shared calendar at the core.
Mia talks about how to get ideas for what to do and where to go and her strategy to having regular and traditional events to keep her social life on track.
LIFE ADMIN HIGH OF THE WEEK- Mia talks about using Airtasker to outsource some of her admin.
- Dinah talks about how she organised a group gift and that she is chasing payment from others.
Hurry Slowly Podcast - Episode on Errand Paralysis
RESOURCESDoodle poll - to pick the best choice for a group of people
Whats App - to setup groups to making organising group events easier
SHAREPlease head to the Life Admin Life Hacks Facebook page to connect with listeners and share your thoughts, questions or suggestions.
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Transcript
Introduction to Fleming Law and Life Admin Life Hacks
00:00:00
Speaker
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00:00:30
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 Dinara Roberts, an operations manager who really values connections with friends. And I'm Mia Northrop, a researcher and writer and keeping socially connected is key to my happiness. This app will help you prioritise and plan your social life.
00:01:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Life Admin Life Hacks.
Organizing Social Life with Shared Tools
00:01:04
Speaker
If you have a busy life, it can be very easy to let your social life slip through your fingers and either not have one or not have one that you really enjoy. This is where consciously organizing it comes in. Yeah, having a shared calendar has been a real game changer for me in being able to organize our social life as a family, as a couple, but also as an individual. And all of those different parts of my social life are really important to me.
00:01:28
Speaker
Yeah I think when I started researching this I was thinking really oh maybe we'll spend time most of the time talking about the tools that you can use to you know get right dates across multiple people or finding out what to do out there but then when
00:01:45
Speaker
dug a bit further I realized a lot of it comes to really thinking about what your priorities are and how you want to spend time, who you want to spend it with and as you said you know the things that you do one-on-one with someone as an individual are quite different to the things you want to do as a couple and as a family. So organizing your life so you're spending the right amount of time with the right people doing the right thing you know it takes a bit of thinking.
00:02:10
Speaker
It does. And I also think that shared calendar for me also created the ability to be more spontaneous in a way. I think sometimes people like to make fun of me and my calendar and how organized I am. But when you actually have scheduled time away for all the things that you need to do, then you when you do have those empty spaces, it's much easier to be spontaneous and do something.
00:02:31
Speaker
either with someone else or just as a family. Yeah. And why do you think the shared calendar specifically has been the game changer? Because your partner now organizes things or you just have visibility.
00:02:42
Speaker
It's more the visibility. I do think that he organizes things, but it also means that we can organize without almost having to ask permission. Yes. Because we can both at a glance see what's on for a particular weekend, not just in terms of social life, but other things that we schedule in. So we can see whether it's going to be too much to also add a social life, you know, some sort of social thing to that time.
Importance of Social Connections and Dunbar's Theory
00:03:05
Speaker
And does social life sort of fit with your definition of life admin? Like when we would, you know, in early days when we were discussing life admin and its boundaries, did social life automatically pop into it for you? Definitely did for me and I think that's probably because I do quite a lot of organizing for lots of our friends as well. I am probably one of the people who would be organizing the group dinner or... You're the Nicole. I am the Nicole, yes. I do love that Geraldine Hickey video.
00:03:34
Speaker
So yeah I do think it can sometimes feel like admin and so I think making it as easy as possible so that you can spend more time having the fun part of the social life rather than the you know sometimes tricky part of organizing it is really important. Yeah. For me it's such like social connection I've come to realize especially as it becomes harder
00:03:54
Speaker
when you are doing more work or you've got kids and it's not just, you know, when you're in your 20s and your 30s, it's just fun all the time. You actually have to really think about it when you're older. It doesn't just sort of happen all around you. And I realized that I have to put more effort into organizing things because it's really important to me. If I don't meet up with people, I
00:04:19
Speaker
I just, I get unhappy, essentially. I just sort of miss hanging out with people and the laughs and the sharing ideas and talking about events or, you know, whatever it is we're doing. Yeah. And getting that right balance is important too. Cause you also don't want to feel like you're going out so much that you're exhausted and you kind of get burnt out. So really thinking about getting the balance right between, you know, some alone time as well as meeting up with the people who are really important to you. Yeah.
00:04:45
Speaker
So research has shown that friendships and relationships can be medicine essentially social connection is one of those true foundations of happiness and I did stumble across this research from Robin Dunbar who's an anthropologist who did research around you know how many people can you actually have been full contact with and it's five five people in your life who really
00:05:09
Speaker
can properly know you and you can be close to at any one time. And then the next layer out, if you think of it as sort of these rings, the next layer out is about 10 people and then 35 people and then 100. And these are sort of different levels of intimacy and closeness, I guess. So yeah, this was a professor who decided that you can really know about 150 people and sort of trace it back to
00:05:38
Speaker
people and tribes and what you see with animals. But yeah, fire friendships at any given time.
00:05:46
Speaker
It's really interesting, isn't it? Particularly when you think about on social media and how many friends you might have on Facebook or Instagram and you know, you have hundreds of them, but actually it's so meaningless. And I guess it really, there's a lot of research now that's talking about loneliness being one of the biggest challenges of our society. And so this is where the admin, you know, getting past the burden of the admin so that you actually do have a social life is really important to your wellbeing. Absolutely.
00:06:14
Speaker
and as you know and part of that loneliness can come from your world kind of shrinking you can either shrink around your partner or it can shrink around your family and you realize oh we're kind of living it in each other's pockets and things have become a bit insular and it can be quite easy to neglect friendships but those friendships and relationships really do need nurturing to survive and there was some other research I found that was around the fact that it's about frequency of seeing people it's not the
00:06:43
Speaker
length of time you might spend with someone. You know, if you see people for 30 minutes once a week, that is a better way to nurture a friendship than going on a weekend away once a year kind of deal. That was an interesting insight. I hadn't really heard that kind of theory before. Yeah, that's really interesting. You know, when you can think about your social life too, because it doesn't actually have to be seeing someone face to face. You can actually
00:07:11
Speaker
have a phone call with someone, which I think is kind of a dying art. The phone calls so many people text. And I know you've talked about before you can schedule in phone calls, like organize a date with someone when you're actually going to talk to them on the phone. So they actually are both free at the same time or find a time that you're likely to connect with someone. I really have a friend in Sydney that I do that with. And it's, yeah, we've been able to maintain a really close connection, but we hardly ever see each other.
00:07:37
Speaker
Well, two of the people that would be in my five, one's in Israel and one's in New Zealand and we had us on WhatsApp with each other all the time either messaging or calling or leaving voice messages.
00:07:50
Speaker
that's yeah it's been a handy tool. So we're going to talk about some of the nuts and bolts of actually organizing your social life. I would think
Frameworks for Effective Social Engagements
00:08:00
Speaker
before we talk about the challenges and techniques for some of the that planning and scheduling I think you need to acknowledge that organizing your social life probably has more to do with prioritizing how you spend your time than making time because I think most of us
00:08:14
Speaker
have the time. We're probably already hanging out with people, but we're not necessarily hanging out with people doing things we like, or perhaps we'd rather be hanging out with different people. Well, I think particularly if you don't organize it yourself actively and you're being responsive to others, you're much more likely to be at others sort of back and core rather than doing things that are driven by your own motivations or own purpose. So what do you do, Dawn? What's your framework? Do you have a framework? I do have a framework.
00:08:44
Speaker
And I've always had a list in my to-do list, a reference list of people that I want to catch up with. And I kind of look at it, you know, every couple of months and sort of run through the list and add people or, you know, take people off who we've managed to catch up with. And then once I look at the list, every couple of months I sit down and look at the calendar and look what
00:09:05
Speaker
The next few months look like and basically batch it out like send out a whole bunch of Messages to organize either group to get togethers or individual or whatever. So that's kind of a Process. Yeah, but I mean that sounds wise because the otherwise you like thinking all the time Oh, I really should catch up with so-and-so. Oh, I haven't seen so-and-so for ages But if I write down it just you know, it's one of those thoughts that comes it goes and then two months later You're having the same thought and nothing's happened
00:09:35
Speaker
Yep. So what else do you do? And I also have a whole bunch of regular events that have happened every year on a cycle, like have Christmas in July with a bunch of people. We have a movie night that we organize through the year. We always buy tickets to the Australian Open and we always take someone with us when we go. I have a couple of friends that I go once or twice a season to a football game with and a few other events like trying to get to the Moonlight Cinema or
00:10:02
Speaker
those sorts of things and often it's with the same people every time and sort of traditionally for some reason those people can't come we'll always just use that as an event that we really like and do it with others rather than just do it on our own yeah so that's another sort of way to approach things you could have like you know
00:10:19
Speaker
People priority side to your social life. We're like I really want to hang out with these people And what's the best way of doing that? Do I want to see this person once a month and have? Long lunches where we talk about everything or am I happy to just grab a movie with this person or what that is?
00:10:37
Speaker
socializing actually looks like versus there's a whole bunch of events that I want to go to. Like I really want to go to the zoo, Twilight's and see a performance, or I really want to go and see something at IMAX. Who do I think will want to come? Who can I invite along? So you kind of balance it out between, you know, thinking around ideas for the stuff that you want to do, the activities you want to do, and then generating ideas for the people you want to see and what might be the best way to connect.
00:11:05
Speaker
And I do think I'm probably the one who organizes, I'd say that 70 to 80% of the stuff that's in my calendar is organized by me. And I have gone through stages of being a bit resentful of that. But I think as I've got older, I've started to let go of that resentment of people who don't invite us back or that I have to organize all the time. And I've sort of realized that if I start to feel resentful, then maybe actually I don't really want to hang with that person enough anymore.
00:11:32
Speaker
because the effort's no longer worth it. So if you really struggle, it might be time to sort of let that person go in your life and maybe come back to it later if you decide you actually really miss them enough to want to do the admin. Yeah, it's true. Sometimes it's like, oh, maybe I'll just catch up with them as a group if something just evolves naturally. And it can be sort of a sobering kind of thought pattern to have to follow when you
00:12:00
Speaker
look at these friendships and analyze them and it can sort of sound a bit cold or neurotic but I think we all think these things, we all kind of analyze our friendships and work out. Does it feel reciprocated? And I think also it's interesting to know
00:12:18
Speaker
When you look at your friends, sort of who are the fair-weather friends, who are the people you know can all be to rule the night upon to come to something fun and have a party with versus friends who are going to, you know, text you when you're having a rough time and check in with you or who leans on you and who you can lean on to have that sort of mix of friends and acquaintances and work out how frequently you want to see them. The idea is to align it so you don't feel disappointed. Yep.
00:12:44
Speaker
Yeah so where do you get your ideas for going out? So I do also have reference lists for you know some of those things of things I want to do so I do have a reference list of you know like restaurants and cafes that I want to go to that then I can use if we're you know planning to go out for dinner with someone and I can actually suggest hey I wanted to try this restaurant so I can sort of you know kill two birds with one stone kind of thing
00:13:06
Speaker
But I also, you know, it doesn't always have to be about spending, you know, lots of money or lots of time, actually, just like you said, the 30 minute catch up can just be enough. So particularly when it comes to catching up with other families, really, then it's more of a people priority for me. So it's.
00:13:23
Speaker
You know, maybe even just suggesting we go and meet in the same park and let the kids play or go for a walk together or come over to our house, but I'm not going to cook dinner. Well, let's just order in pizza and making it super easy rather than making it, you know, feel too hard. Yeah. You don't want it to be a production. Yep. It doesn't always have to be a production. I, I subscribed to a few newsletters, so I subscribed to time out.
00:13:49
Speaker
And I subscribed to Broadsheet for a while to get ideas about restaurants and bars and just stay somewhat across what theatre's happening or movies. There's also like a few kiddie versions of those so there's a tot, hot or not email newsletter that I subscribe to and they'll often suggest new playgrounds or just activities for kids and I might invite other families along to join in some of those things with us.
00:14:15
Speaker
I also like to organize catch-ups one-on-one often for breakfast or lunch during the work week because I can easily be slipped in without really disrupting the family. And so I have a few friends that I catch up with for lunch, say once a month or once a quarter and a couple that I have breakfast with. So really nice to go to a cafe, have breakfast before I start work, hasn't really impinged on the complexity of kids. So I really recommend that as a time that you can slip
00:14:43
Speaker
something in to catch up with people. And do you go to the same place? No, we go to lots of different places. Yeah, it's really nice. So I have a few, I think I have like a staple set of activities that I do that keep me on train. So with work, similar thing, on Friday, lunch times, I sort of had this rotating roster of people who work near me, but I'll catch up with them for Friday lunch. And it's the one day that I don't actually take my lunch, actually take my lunch to work.
00:15:13
Speaker
but it seems like such a treat to just go out and buy something. Even if it's like an $8 sandwich, it's just nice not to be schlepping in my usual thing. So that's always nice. I have, yeah, we have our movie night. We were doing pretty regular hiking, which is slow down this year, but that was, I liked that, the fact that we were doing that every six weeks or two months or so.
00:15:34
Speaker
Oh, for a while there, we, my partner and I would have monthly people over just on a weekend, something cheap and cheerful. It was the barbecue or even the afternoon tea. And that was always fun. And then we have a Christmas party. I like the idea of having those traditional events where you're like every year before school wraps up, we have some local families over in the backyard and just sit around and talk about how we've survived another year.
00:16:02
Speaker
But it can be fun to just know, yeah, this is a fixture in the calendar and it'll be something to look forward to. So how do you go about it when there's multiple families involved, particularly if you're happy with suggesting what you're going to do? Usually finding the date is the tricky one. What do you think are the best ways of
Efficient Coordination of Group Activities
00:16:20
Speaker
approaching that man? Well, I'm still in love with Doodle Pole.
00:16:23
Speaker
which is that little free online tool. I think it's an app as well where you can put in the dates that are available and you send it around and everyone votes and you can see what other people are responding to. It's way better than spreadsheets or trying to email around and just having ridiculous email trails. That's the thing I use and it's been ideal. What about you?
00:16:48
Speaker
Yeah, so I use Doodle, but I also think that having WhatsApp groups for groups of friends that you catch up with as a collective often are really great because it does allow you to kind of have a bit of banter about things that might be coming up that people might be interested in.
00:17:04
Speaker
it takes away that email, the lost in the email challenge, which I think you can sometimes have if someone sends you an email and you receive it on a busy day, it can sort of get lost. So the WhatsApp group, I think, because then, you know, you get the notifications of the different people responding. I think it's much easier. Yeah. I've got a WhatsApp group for some local moms that I catch up with for brunch once a term. And we always, yeah, it's a little bit of contained conversation. It all happens in there.
00:17:34
Speaker
And similarly, we have an annual bake-off. It's been going for 15 years. Wow, that's a long time. Seven couples. We get together for a weekend. We have a baking competition. The stakes are very high. There's a copper pot as a trophy.
00:17:51
Speaker
Now we now use a WhatsApp group to contain all that discussion because, as you can imagine, trying to get seven couples in the same place at the same time for a whole weekend could be tricky. But yeah, we use Doodle Paul and at least have the conversation all happens in one place. And I do think as I've got older, I'm less inclined to find a date that works for everyone. Oh, yeah.
00:18:14
Speaker
Because it's just really, or it's virtually impossible, particularly once you get beyond, you know, a couple of people. And so I think just accepting that you can't find the perfect date and just picking the most popular date and living with it is something you really have to be here. It's like setting some of those boundaries around.
00:18:31
Speaker
the decision making so that you say, I'm going to organize it. I'm going to suggest three dates as long as more than half of the people can come. We'll do it rather than. I'm getting also less tolerant of when you have fought to find a date and then approaching it. Someone will be like, I can't make it. And then someone else will chime in and say, Oh, shall we reschedule then? And I just want to scream.
00:18:55
Speaker
Because we'll never find another date. And if we do, someone else won't be able to come at the last minute. So it's pointless. Let's just go ahead. There'll be other times. Just let go of the resentment, man. Let go of the resentment. Oh, man. I think some of these things can be so annoying to organize. You can be huffing and puffing as you're slamming out emails or WhatsApp messages. But it's always worth it.
Proactive Social Planning
00:19:24
Speaker
Do you say catching up with friends is medicine worth it? I think if you realise that your social life is mostly made up of you reacting to suggestions and invitations from other people. It's time to be proactive. You can't always wait for other people to initiate. The elders people will always appreciate it if you suggest. And it doesn't have to be the most exciting, awesome, glamorous, fabulous thing ever.
00:19:52
Speaker
Then you come over and let's sit in the backyard and get some pizza. The joy is in connecting and hanging out. Yeah, and I think it can even be just inviting people to things you're already doing, like exercise. Like if you go for a walk or go for a run or you go to a yoga class or you go for a swim, why not invite someone else to go with you and have a five minute chat before or after. And then it's just that moment of social connection.
00:20:20
Speaker
often people are really grateful to have been asked. So I think it's worth the effort. Absolutely. So when do you do this? You've talked about some of these regular things that you do like on an annual basis. When do you tend to do your social admin? Do you do it in your hour of power or just
00:20:35
Speaker
Yeah, I do tend to batch it, I guess, as I mentioned before, like when I sort of noticed that the calendar doesn't have too much in it in the next few months, then I think actually we should sit down and, you know, often we'll do it a Sunday night where we're sitting down looking ahead and planning out, looking at the calendar and saying, hey, who, you know, who off the list do we want to prioritize? And let's, you know, send out some messages and, or, you know, set up a poll or whatever and try and lock a few things in.
00:21:03
Speaker
I tend to do it at the start of the year.
00:21:06
Speaker
I've sort of set dates for a monthly movie night and for our hiking dates. So they're just there and everybody knows. And then I tend to like during the school holidays, I'll look at the term ahead and similarly to sort of just send some emails off or sprinkled some, some events, go and have a look at what's out there, what's coming and pop some things in way, way years ago. And I had a babysitter that was fantastic. And I organized the whole year of babysitting dates just once a month.
00:21:35
Speaker
We agreed on a date for each month so that she knew when she was coming, I knew what she'd be available. We could plan things, we could book restaurants that were hard to get into months ahead or book tickets for things months ahead because we knew that the babysitter would be there.
00:21:52
Speaker
That was awesome. That's a great idea. And for the friends that I catch up with for breakfast and lunch, we always make the next date before we leave. So we're like, Oh, that was great breakfast. Let's agree when the next breakfast is going to be. And we both, you know, get out our calendars and lock it in right then and there. So we don't have to deal with trying to sort it out later. And so we're approaching that tail end of the year though, when things can get quite hectic.
00:22:18
Speaker
Everyone's trying to squeeze in catch-ups before the end of the year. How do you manage this time of year? So it's probably the time where I'm hesitant to start organizing things because I know that things will come.
00:22:30
Speaker
flying at me. So I kind of wait a little bit to see what other things are going to pop up with other, we do have an annual Christmas dinner with friends. So I was sort of waiting for that date to get locked in and a few other things to get locked in. And then I'll try and organize around that if there are some other people that I really want to try and catch up. So probably a bit hesitant just knowing what it's been like in previous years with, you know, there's usually some sort of school concert and, you know, work Christmas parties and those sorts of things. And so,
00:23:00
Speaker
probably holding off so that we don't over commit ourselves and so that we can really enjoy that festive season rather than feeling overwhelmed. What about you? Yeah, similar. I guess there's all those performances and end of year concerts that seem to crop up for the kids' lives. And then there are some serial offenders, I'll call them. Friends I know will be like, I haven't seen you all year. Let's catch up. That always happens.
00:23:27
Speaker
which I, you know, will look forward to. So yeah, I tend not to plan too much at this stage, especially midweek. I just don't have the energy.
00:23:38
Speaker
And listeners, I will add that Dinah and I are both recording this episode with shocking hangovers today, which, you know, our social life is alive.
Behind the Scenes: Hosts' Experiences and Tools
00:23:49
Speaker
It's kicking. Yes, for this. The tone is probably a little bit more down than usual. There's only so much cups of tea you can do. A bit of Baraka. All right, Dinah.
00:24:02
Speaker
Should we talk about some life admin highs and lows? Yeah, it's great. I think, Mia, have you got a high this week? Well, I do. I have fully embraced Air Tasker after our chats around outsourcing. So I've actually started using Air Tasker to outsource some activities associated with the podcast, Diana and I.
00:24:19
Speaker
We both talked about where we were spending our time and the fact that I've gone full time at work now. We thought, all right, let's just delegate some of this to others who we know can do an amazing job. So we have a new audio editor and producer. Hello, Courtney. Thank you. And someone doing our social media graphics. But I've also decided to use A to ask her to organize, help organize some presents that are coming up, some significant birthdays in the family.
00:24:47
Speaker
to get something special done and also to put together some furniture that's been sitting around here waiting to get assembled and we've got visitors coming soon and I just need to get these bits of furniture done so someone is coming over to assemble
00:25:03
Speaker
So my cute furniture, I'm so excited. It would have taken me nights. I would have possibly cried. I would be swearing. I would hate the bed that I would have made. Every time I looked at it, it would just trigger all sorts of unpleasant feelings. So someone's going to come over and knock it over in an hour. I'm like, you, did you have a life? I didn't even know. I did. No.
00:25:25
Speaker
I recently organized a group gift for someone and I think I didn't follow my own advice. Advice I gave in the gift giving episode was collect the money first and then once you know how much money you've got, then buy the gift. But instead I chose the gift.
00:25:41
Speaker
We agreed the amount but now I'm chasing the money from others and it just feels a bit frustrating after having gone to the effort of doing all of that that in addition I have to chase the money up so I need to follow my own advice. It's a little awkward isn't it sometimes asking but having to nudge people to get paid. It is yep. Oh well hopefully they pay you soon. But how about a
00:26:05
Speaker
little power tool or a book review. What have we got? Well, I was actually listening to a podcast earlier this week. It's called Hurry Slowly. And it's, I've only listened to two episodes, but I think that the general theme around the podcast is slowing down to speed up. So I think, you know, a lot of it is thinking about doing less, but doing what you enjoy and doing it more productively.
00:26:28
Speaker
But there was an episode which the title of the episode just really resonated with me. It was called Errand Paralysis. And she talks about these items on your to do this that never happen, like digital photos for both of us. And the fact that they're often multi-step tasks.
00:26:48
Speaker
And that when you're kind of burnt out from your life, those tasks can just feel really overwhelming. So really interesting podcasts that I'm hoping that I'll listen to and get some more tips about how I can get over my errand paralysis. So those are called hurry slowly. Hurry slowly. Okay. Oh, and that's my stitcher. I need some new podcast suggestions. Great.
00:27:09
Speaker
Alright, well we hope these hacks will make organizing your social life more seamless. Our top hacks are have reference lists with who you want to see and ideas of places you want to go. Combine your social life with other things you want to do, exercise, book clubs, restaurants, concerts, whatever it might be. Use an hour of power to look through your calendar, decide who you want to catch up with and batch out some messages to get those social events locked in.
00:27:36
Speaker
If you'd like to join us on our Life Admin journey, please head to our Facebook page, Life Admin Life Hacks, to follow us and share your thoughts on what we're doing. And feel free to post any comments or certainly post suggestions that we might be able to use. We hope to see you there. Thanks for listening. Show notes for this episode are available at lifeadminlifehacks.com. If you're a fan, please subscribe and share the love and tell a friend or review us in your podcasting app.