Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
050: State of the administration
447 Plays3 years ago
Get up to speed with the good, bad and ugly state of Mia and Dinah's life admin.
Since Mia and Dinah have been writing their Life Admin Life Hacks book they have optimised their life admin processes even further. In this episode they bring you up to speed on their life admin systems with a focus on the foundational tools: password manager, cloud storage and dedicated email, scheduling, lists and budgeting.
A password manager is an essential foundation for life admin. Dinah has continued to use Last Pass Families and Mia uses Keeper. They recommend:
- if you don’t have a password manager you should start a free trial
- if you need some help setting up your password manager you can watch YouTube videos to step you through the process.
- installing a Chrome browser extension on your computer to make it much easier to access passwords on your PC or Mac and allow auto-filling of login details
- all important documents (eg copies of passports and Medicare Cards) are uploaded to your password manager, given its high security and encryption
- setting up a legacy contact in your password manager so that if you become incapicated or die your passwords can be accessed to manage your digital estate.
The second foundational life admin tool is having cloud storage and a dedicated life admin email. Mia and Dinah both continue to use Google Drive. They recommend:
- a separate dedicated email for life admin to keep life admin in a separate, defined space and to more easily share the load with your partner or coparent
- if you have had a cloud storage setup for some time it might be time for a digital declutter to get rid of anything no longer required.
- trying different mail apps on your phone to make it easier to save things into your cloud storage - Dinah uses the Gmail app to make it seamless to save files into her life admin Google Drive.
Another foundational life admin element is a shared digital calendar and scheduling. Mia and Dinah both use Google Calendar but Dinah uses the Outlook app on her phone to make it easier to view her work and family calendar together.
Mia loves lists! She uses:
- the iPhone Reminder app for her to-do lists
- the iPhone Notes app for reference Llsts including her meal plan and shopping list
- to-do lists that are categorised by the duration of the task: “Ten Minute Time Killer” tasks and “Hour of Power” for more complex tasks
Dinah also uses the Reminders app as she can easily share the lists with her husband and use Siri to easily add to the lists on the go.
Budgeting is the final element of the life admin system and is essential given its links to comparison shopping for household bills. Mia uses the Money Brilliant app while Dinah uses defined bank accounts to help live within her targeted savings goals.
There have been quite a number of changes to other areas of life since the various episodes were recorded. These include:
- Home loans - lowest interest rates since the 1970s - make sure you compare the rate you’re paying against the average interest rate on Moneysmart.gov.au. If your rate looks high at a minimum, call your bank and ask whether they can offer you something more competitive. If you want to invest more time and reap more savings then call a mortgage broker.
- Energy - always on comparison services are now possible such as Energy Umpire. Most con
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Life Admin Efficiency
00:00:00
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.
Meet the Hosts: Diana and Mia
00:00:13
Speaker
I'm Diana Roberts, an Operations Manager, and my Password Manager has changed my life.
00:00:19
Speaker
I'm Mia Northrop, a researcher and writer who loves a good before and after story that a life admin makeover is just as thrilling.
State of Life Admin and Listener Appreciation
00:00:28
Speaker
This episode will bring you up to speed with the state of our administration. Hello and welcome to Life Admin Life Hacks.
00:00:36
Speaker
This is episode 50, the last ep for season five, and we want to thank you for tuning in each fortnight. We really appreciate your time and loyalty and trust that you walk away with at least one little mug of gold that you can apply to your own life each episode.
00:00:51
Speaker
If you've enjoyed the show, we'd love it if you'd leave a review on Apple Podcasts or give us a shout out on the socials like Mimi, who shared on Facebook and said, this is a great podcast, super useful and practical, very listenable and enjoyable. Well, thank you, Mimi, and thank you to Courtney, our producer for her audio wizardry. She's the one that makes us very listenable. This podcast juggernaut is definitely a team effort.
Podcast Hiatus and Upcoming Book
00:01:17
Speaker
So we're going to be on hiatus for a few months after the end of this season. We're going to be prepping for season six. And we're also going to move through the next stages of editing and proofreading our life admin life hacks book, which is going to be published next year with HarperCollins. It's very exciting to be at this stage. This is going to be such a useful reference for listeners who want all those tips and tools in one place. I've actually used the draft manuscript.
00:01:45
Speaker
Since we've heard it, I've actually looked up things to check, like, what's the shortcut for this again? Essentially, it's useful for me. We're also kicking off one-on-one coaching on Life Admin and personal organization.
New Coaching Services and Contact Info
00:01:58
Speaker
We're trialing concierge services where we'll do comparison shopping for you. If you want to get in touch and get to know more about these things, ping us at hello at Life Admin Life Hacks.
00:02:11
Speaker
In the interim, while we're on hiatus, sign up to our monthly momentum newsletter at lifeadminlifehacks.com. This newsletter will give you little nudges about what you should be focusing for your to-do list each month, any new apps or resources that are going to help you optimize and minimize life admin, and it will also let you know how you can pre-order the book.
00:02:32
Speaker
We'll be back in your ears in November in time to get organised before Christmas and wrap this year in a state of control and calm. You laughed. You just laughed. We're in lockdown again. Control with calm indeed. Yes, we are.
Podcasting During Melbourne's Lockdown
00:02:47
Speaker
Well, we are recording this episode while Melbourne has gone, well, whole Victoria actually has gone back into lockdown for coronavirus. So you've got to laugh at what you can laugh at these days, I reckon, Mia. Yeah, we're both wearing hoodies. So there's a little insight into our mental state right now.
00:03:06
Speaker
So in this episode, we're going to talk a bit about where Mia and I have got to in our life admin journey. So since we've been writing the book, we've researched lots of changes in the markets. We've discovered new apps and websites. We've also been interviewing others about their perspectives and processes and working on our products of coaching and training. And so that's helped us optimize our processes even further.
Building Solid Life Admin Foundations
00:03:32
Speaker
Life admin systems need to flex to the rhythm of your house and better ways of doing things, so we're going to update you on where we're at, focusing on our life admin foundations. Yeah, and that's where we started the book. It's all about this idea that a foundation to a strong life admin game is essential. It's this structural basis that's going to support you. And just like a house has to be built on a strong foundation to avoid collapsing under stress,
00:03:58
Speaker
So does your life admin system. And this process of building a strong foundation reveals the source of many common problems that usually just think a part of life admin. You kind of think that sense of chaos or being on the hamster wheel, the never ending to-dos, the fact that tasks feel random or ad hoc made is coming at you from any direction. Some people think that's just normal and the way life is.
00:04:23
Speaker
But once you actually put these foundations into place, you realize that all of those things go away and it becomes quite methodical. So a lot of those problems are either prevented or they're eliminated. There are whole jobs in the workplace that are dedicated to process improvement and systems. And so it really is kind of baffling to think that when you think about how many life admin tasks we have to do over and over, sometimes
00:04:50
Speaker
year in, year out, or even every day in, day out, that we don't create a system to make the life admin easier, a system and a process. Yeah, and I can say, you know, you think about people having Six Sigma black belts. To be able to manage processes and tasks in a workplace, I feel like we are the Six Sigma black felt equivalent when it comes to life admin.
00:05:15
Speaker
You're definitely getting there. Maybe I don't know how the colours go. Maybe wear green belts or red belts. What does the colour ladder work out? I'm not sure. Let's just go with black belts, Diana. We're pretty good.
00:05:25
Speaker
And what are these foundations? They haven't changed. When we were writing the book, we had a look at them again and debated about what should be in those top groups. But these are the game changers. It's the password manager.
Essential Tools for Life Admin
00:05:37
Speaker
It's going paperless so that all your stuff is in cloud storage. It's having digital schedules and shared schedules with your family.
00:05:45
Speaker
lists to do lists, reference lists, checklists in some digital device and budgeting. And once you focus on these fundamentals, get them humming, it'll free you up to focus on other more fun things. And it will also really help with that sharing of the mental load. So these foundational systems have been the things that have really helped in it. In my family, making sure that I'm not carrying all the load anymore. So spending time with your partner, agreeing these foundations
00:06:14
Speaker
really does reduce the angst, snarky comments and fights in your household.
00:06:20
Speaker
Snarky comments, cute. Okay, so passwords, we originally talked about password managers in episode three. We looked at the latest reviews of the apps that are out there. LastPass, Keeper, 1Password, and Dashlane all still rate very well. You can start a free trial, you can watch YouTube videos to help set them up on your devices, and essentially it'll step you through the process.
00:06:46
Speaker
I think I say over and over again in these episodes that the password manager really has changed my life. I really can't even remember how I possibly functioned without it. So we have LastPass families and I really recommend getting onto it, particularly before your kids start high school, because then they start to get a whole raft of passwords as well. So really having the infrastructure to help them remember their passwords really makes life so much better.
00:07:14
Speaker
Yeah, and I guess I'm looking at my email inbox right now and there's a bunch of emails from the school teachers with all their passwords to facilitate home learning for the next week. So yeah, and I also have set up spriggy accounts for my kids. They have their own passwords. So they're managing their passwords is becoming a thing.
00:07:32
Speaker
I have Keeper across my phone and my home, MacBook Pro and my work PC. And yeah, it is something that I use all day, every day. And recently one of my providers was hacked and they had a cybersecurity incident and Keeper alerted me that I needed to update my password. So it has been essential. And the other thing that I find I use a lot is the fact that I've got my ID stored in there. So I've got photos of my license, my passport, my working with children check.
00:08:02
Speaker
like frequent flyer number, that kind of thing. I think we originally recommended that you would pick photos of these IDs and other membership numbers in your cloud storage, but it's more secure in your password manager. And I actually find it convenient because I can save it in the same record.
00:08:18
Speaker
as my login and password for that particular provider. So for example, I've got a record for big roads, it's got a photo of my license in there so I can refer to that or download that as if I need to do a 100.9D check. And it's also got my login and password from when I need to log in and pay for my red zone, things like that.
00:08:38
Speaker
Yeah, I think one of the other things that is really worth pointing out for password managers is it's not just an app on your phone. And most of these password managers have Chrome extensions. And if you don't know what a Chrome extension is, it's
00:08:53
Speaker
something that a little program you can install into your Chrome browser, and it actually adds to your browser's functionality. So in my case, I have the LastPass Chrome browser, and that means that whenever I go to a website that needs a password, my password manager extension can automatically fill in my login and password details for me.
00:09:15
Speaker
And that was really the massive game changer for my husband when I finally got that installed on his work computer. So if you haven't taken that next step and moved your password manager from your phone onto your computer, highly recommend investing a bit of time and getting that up and running.
00:09:31
Speaker
And what we covered off in our digital estate planning episode was also having a legacy contact in your password manager so that if you become incapacitated or, heaven forbid, pass away, then your legacy contact gets granted access to your passwords and they can manage, you know, all of your digital accounts help tie up. This ends very helpful.
00:09:53
Speaker
So the second foundational element of our life admin system is cloud storage. And I think, Mia, you and I both use Google Drive and Gmail. Have you got any updates on what you've done with your cloud storage?
Managing Life Admin Digitally
00:10:07
Speaker
Well, we tackled this very early on. This was episode two in the podcast where we had spent a weekend shredding paper and moving everything into Google Drive and setting up this separate Gmail email address.
00:10:20
Speaker
I haven't used to change the technology, but I've changed what I get sent to that Gmail email address. Now that I've separated from my husband, it's used for co-parenting and family related emails and calendar activities. So things will come through on that Google Calendar or through that Gmail email address that has to do with school communications, family events, after school care, kids bank accounts, all that kind of thing. And I've downloaded the Google Drive app to my phone.
00:10:50
Speaker
So I can scan and save hard copy things straight into it. I can save email attachments straight into it. It's still ridiculously useful. When we were writing our book and we were getting feedback from people, some people considered it a bit controversial and necessary to have a separate life admin email address. And I think we've done quite a bit of research on that. We want to share what we've sort of found and where we landed on the need to have a separate life admin email address.
00:11:19
Speaker
Yeah. Well, the initial recommendation came because we wanted to create a neutral space. If it sits in one person, if you're in a household or a couple partnership, whoever's getting the emails is often the person that has to act on it. So we want to move it into neutral territory so that both people could access this email address
00:11:37
Speaker
and share it more equitably. We've since read material from Scott Pape, who wrote The Barefoot Investor, and Cal Newport, who's written World Without Email, funnily enough, along with books around habits. Both of them recommend setting up distinct email addresses to organise separate realms of your life. How do you find it works, Diane? It's really helped give visibility to that
00:12:01
Speaker
all of the tasks that need to happen in our house and really help share that load. So it definitely has created that neutral territory. It's also meant that I can really keep away from my personal email, which still despite best intentions does tend to get filled up with kind of email subscriptions and bits and bobs because it's been an account I've had for such a long time. So it really means that when I open that life admin email address, I just get down to business. There's really no cleaning up or tidying. Everything in there either needs to be actioned or filed.
00:12:31
Speaker
And I guess this is a good time to think about, you know, if you've been using cloud storage for a while, you might be time to go and have a look at what you've saved in there and actually delete obsolete files. I think initially when we both went paperless, we tended to save more just out of, just risk aversion. And then we realized we've never used it. We've never looked at it. It's now out of date. It's part of life that's over. You probably log into a provider and get a copy of whatever it might be or find it on the internet.
00:13:01
Speaker
So feel free to go in there and delete, delete, delete. One of the things I have played around with is using different email apps on my phone because there's obviously the native app that comes within your iPhone. There's Gmail app. And I've also over time used like the Outlook email app because that was what I was using for work.
00:13:22
Speaker
But in terms of that life admin email address, I've really landed on using the Gmail app because it just means that's the only email I've got in that app. And it's super easy to save anything I do need to save straight from that Gmail app straight into Google Drive because of the functionality being so integrated with Google Drive. So, you know, playing around with the different apps to find one that works for you is definitely worth it. Good one. Okay. Another pillar of the foundation is around
00:13:51
Speaker
scheduling and having a digital calendar that's also shared. Data, this again is around bringing visibility but also the convenience of just knowing when you're available, where you have to be at any given time in the palm of your hand as opposed to having to look at five different calendars on fridges or walls or phones or computers.
00:14:13
Speaker
And I really think that the benefit of adding in those recurring activities is something that I probably hadn't done before. So before we really got into this, I probably didn't put things like basketball training that happen every week, but really having them in there, it's both a reminder so you don't accidentally schedule something on top of it. But again, brings that visibility so that both in the whole family know what's happening and where everyone's got to be on particular days.
00:14:40
Speaker
I just rely on that. I like my memory these days. If I just had to remember when things were happening, it'd be a disaster. I put it there now. I've got the menu planning in there. I used to have which days I was doing laundry because we had this sort of system of which uniform seemed to be ready for which sport or which extracurricular. So it was like, on this day, this is a laundry session because we need that uniform ready for this thing.
00:15:07
Speaker
So even those inevitable kind of things that crop up each week, schedule it in so that you know it happens, so that you know that you've got time to do it. And then obviously all the aspirational things like
00:15:19
Speaker
the fact that you wanna do yoga or meditate or read or garden or go for a bike ride, whatever it might be, block it out in your calendar, a much higher chance of happening. Yeah, so in terms of tech mail, what are you using for your shared calendar now? Are you using the native calendar app or are you using a different calendar app on your phone?
00:15:38
Speaker
I'm using Google calendars. So we have the shared Google calendar related to parenting stuff, family stuff, and then I have my own personal Google calendar for my personal life. And when I look on my phone, I use the native calendar app and I have those Google calendars synced in so I can see
00:16:00
Speaker
All my calendars in one spot and they just color coded if they're mine or if you know if the event is my thing or a family thing it's color coded. How about you? So that's where I actually do use the Outlook app on my phone because I found that that syncs much better with my work calendar and I like to be able to see my work calendar and my shared calendar in the same view on my phone just
00:16:24
Speaker
where I've got those things overlap. So I use the Outlook app to see both my work and home calendar together. And my husband does the same thing on his phone so he can see both his work calendar and our family calendar in the same view. And the Outlook app is much better if you're adding events, syncing back to Outlook, whereas the native iPhone calendar doesn't work so well with Outlook calendars.
00:16:47
Speaker
Yeah, you had quite a bit of experimentation there to get that combo right, didn't you? Yeah. Glad we got there in the end. Okay, my favorite thing, lists. Lists. Oh, gosh, I could get a t-shirt made that just had lists, exclamation mark, and just wear it with pride. Gosh, maybe we should get some merch happening, Dinah.
00:17:11
Speaker
Yeah, you do love a list. You are probably the person who I, who loves lists the most of anyone I know. So I definitely, maybe that's what I should organize for your birthday next year. What app have you changed optimized your lists? What's changed in your list world?
00:17:27
Speaker
My list world, I am using reminders on my iPhone for my 10 minute time killers. So that's been the biggest change. I just used to have a to-do list that was called my to-do list. I now have a 10 minute time killer list where all the short 10 minute time killers go. And then I have an hour of power list where I have
00:17:49
Speaker
the things that I know are going to take a little bit of concentration and I need to get some resources together. I still have my worries list, which is one of my reminders where I dump my worries and then I look at them two weeks later and I'm like, what was I worried about that for? Delete. It's very therapeutic. I highly recommend it. And then I still using notes for my checklists and long-term reference lists. So if I need a checklist for like how to, what I need to do to organize my kid's birthday,
00:18:18
Speaker
or, for example, my grocery list, my meal plan, all of those kinds of things. I'm using notes because notes now has those little, you can insert tables and you can insert little checklists in notes and you can share them. So I'm still loving those tools. What about you, Dinah?
00:18:36
Speaker
Well, I had a bit of a sad journey of my list because I loved Wunderlist so much. And then Wunderlist got like bought out by someone and I think it got turned into Microsoft and the list that they turned it into was terrible. And so then I did all this research and we tried to use Todoist, which everyone claims is the best Todoist app. But we kind of never really like loved it. I think it was just too complicated. So we've actually also moved to Reminders.
00:19:05
Speaker
Partly because I've really been perfecting using Siri to add to the list. And so it really means I'm one of those people who often thinks of things and being able to talk to Siri in the car or while I'm cooking the dinner and adding it to the
00:19:21
Speaker
The list has really been a game changer, so I'm loving Siri. Yeah, mostly when you're driving. Oh, hello Siri. Oh, I shouldn't say that. It's going to talk. And I've actually got my reference lists in reminders too, just because then it's easier. All my lists are in one spot, so I don't need to worry about switching apps. Any list, I go to the one place, really easy to share with my husband too. I love assigning him tasks. One of my most favorite things to do.
00:19:51
Speaker
Ah, okay. And then budgeting. And we had a bit of a debate whether budgeting was a foundation thing or not when we were writing the book. It definitely belongs as a foundation task. This isn't really an optional thing. This is something that you need to do. It does grease the wheels for a whole bunch of other comparison shopping because you know what you need to play around with, where you need to cut some
00:20:14
Speaker
fat off, or whether on the other side, whether you can outsource something because you've got some surplus money to play with. So it has this flow on effect of how you might impact your life admin. Yeah. So in terms of budgeting, I have toyed with some of the apps we recommended in our podcast episode, but they're really not for me. Although I think it does bring visibility to different things. I still have gone back to my old system, like a once a year, big check-in.
00:20:42
Speaker
setting a target and then we just put our money straight into bank accounts based on our targets. So really sort of automate it so that we have to live within our means, so to speak. And I think one of the silver linings of COVID has been basically no cash anymore. So actually just redoing our budget.
00:21:01
Speaker
complete visibility on everything we spend. You can't hide a dollar anymore. That's made it actually easier because I think in the past there was kind of this gap of cash, who knew what that was spent on. And now, you know, I know everything, even, you know, every one dollar seems to be spent on a card these days.
00:21:19
Speaker
Yeah, I'm just reflecting on the use of cash. The only times I have used cash I feel like in the last year is to put a dollar on a gold coin into a supermarket trolley to unlock it, or to give my kids like a gold coin donation for something that's going on at school. I can't think of any other occasion where I've actually got the cash out. So yeah, it's great that you got that visibility. I'm still using the money brilliant app. I'm liking its pings and dings to let me know how I'm tracking on things.
00:21:49
Speaker
So, that's how life admin foundations may probably the other area where we've really optimized and things have changed is in comparison shopping. Do you want to give us a bit of an update on approach to comparison shopping?
Comparison Shopping Strategies
00:22:03
Speaker
Yeah, sure. So, this is a big chunk of life admin is just keeping up to date with your plans and policies and making sure you're getting the best deal on whatever it might be. And in some markets, things have changed quite a little bit.
00:22:16
Speaker
So home loans, at the moment, when we first looked at this in episode 15, in Australia right now, we pretty much have the lowest interest rates since the 1970s. So you need to compare the rate you're paying against the average interest rate. Head to moneysmart.gov.au, have a look-see and a minimum, call your bank and ask whether they can offer you something more competitive. And if you want to invest more time and reap more savings,
00:22:40
Speaker
Call a mortgage breaker so you could ask some family or friends for recommendation and dime has been changed in the energy markets as well So we talked about energy in episode 14 But what we're really seeing now is open data being available. So always on comparison services are possible So I actually recently used one called
00:23:01
Speaker
energy umpire. Previously lots of providers were making you sign up to one or two year deals to get better prices but most contracts now no longer have exit fees and they're not locking you in. It's such a commodity so you really can continue to always look out for the better deal. Probably the thing that is increasingly emerging is green power
00:23:23
Speaker
being a good way to buy according to your values or sustainability. Yeah, there's also been lots of changes with internet plans. We looked at this in episode 13. Since then, the NBN rollout is complete. There are 35 internet service providers in Australia. At that time, contracts used to be about two years. Now they've come down to six months.
00:23:46
Speaker
And what you get for your average $69 per month has changed. Choice talked about the fact that most people stay with their ISP for about five years. If you haven't changed for five years, you are in for a great surprise because there's much better value out there. And mobile phones, they will come with considerable shifts here as well, weren't they, Diana? Yeah.
00:24:09
Speaker
5G is now rolling out. It's 44 phone carriers in Australia with more than 300 plans. So now more than ever, it's probably cheaper to shop around to buy a handset on sale rather than to buy a contract. Even if you do put it on a plan, you'll probably pay the same price. The one thing that I think is important to really think about is if because of COVID, you're working from home more,
00:24:36
Speaker
the data that you might have used to use on your commute or at work, you might be using quite a bit less data. So it's worth checking in to see whether you can reduce your data plan and really make some savings there. I certainly just did that. Yeah, me too. I'm paying $35 a month now because I'm either using the Wi-Fi at home or the Wi-Fi at work.
00:24:57
Speaker
and I'm just going to use this handset until it dies and then upgrade to something that could take on 5G. But the trade-ins also, now you can trade in your phone either to a telco or even people like JB or Apple. You can trade in your old handset. You might get some dollar off your plan or dollars off your new handset and then starting up to a SIM only contract as much more financially sensible. Who knew things had changed so much?
Season 5 Conclusion and Optimization Encouragement
00:25:26
Speaker
Yeah, so that's the state of the administration. So I think that wraps us up for today, Mian. Wraps us up for season five. Wow, season five, put it to bed. We hope that you've enjoyed season five and we hope the hacks from this episode will incentivise you to get started on your life admin foundations or to optimise them. Our top hacks are, if you only do one thing, get a password manager. It will change your life.
00:25:55
Speaker
If something isn't working, don't put up with it or even don't abandon it. Take the time to optimize it. Do a little research, watch some YouTube videos, or maybe even try some new tech. And finally, sign up for our monthly momentum newsletter at lifeadminlifehacks.com for monthly nudges on seasonal life admin tasks and other tips and inspiration. Thanks for listening. Show notes for this episode are available at lifeadminlifehacks.com.
00:26:25
Speaker
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.
00:26:48
Speaker
Hurry in now for great deals on the trucks that are built to serve. Right now, during RAM season, get 10% below MSRP on the purchase of a 2023 RAM 1500 Laramy. Not compatible with lease offers or with any other consumer incentive offers, contact dealer for details. Take retail delivery by 531-23.