Life Admin Life Hacks

Latest Episodes:

030: Sorting out life insurance Apr 28, 2020

Show notes

Find out how much life insurance cover you need and what to do if you need to get some more.

This episode talks about how to find out how much cover you already have, how to estimate how much cover you need and how to get the best deal on insurance if you need to make some changes.

Mia and Dinah discuss:

four key types of insurance: Life Insurance, Total & Permanent Disability, Trauma Cover, and Income Protection Insurance
the importance of knowing how much insurance you have both inside and outside of your superannuation
the importance of updating your “Binding Nomination” regularly if you hold your Insurance inside your Superannuation policy
recent changes to legislation which could automatically cancel your insurance within superannuation
how to estimate how much insurance you need including where to find online calculators
when you might need to contact a FInancial Advisor for more advice.

LIFE ADMIN HIGH OF THE WEEK

Dinah talks about the benefits of using Paypal for online shopping to speed up the checkout process.

LIFE ADMIN LOW OF THE WEEK

Mia talks about how she has received letters relating to her superannuation that she doesn’t understand and the challenges in understanding the complex language
Dinah talks about how she a shared calendar faux pas.

RESOURCES

Life Insurance Calculator - Money Smart, Noble Oak

Please head to the Life Admin Life Hacks Facebook page to connect with listeners and share your thoughts, questions or suggestions.

029: Comparing mobile phone plans Apr 15, 2020

Show notes

This episode will help you understand your mobile phone bill and switch plans in under an hour!

This episode talks about the paradox of choice when it comes to choosing from the more than 300 mobile phone plans available.

Mia and Dinah talk about the things you need to consider including:

Network reliability
Network coverage
Value for money
Contracts or Pay as You Go
Phone included or Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
Data limits.

Dinah talks about the steps she went through to change plans including:

Looking at usage information for the past few months to assess what plan she needed
Assessing what networks she was willing to consider.
How she used comparison a site to quickly choose the best plan
Assessing if getting a new phone as part of a plan was good value for money.

LIFE ADMIN HIGHS OF THE WEEK

Mia talks about using the secure vault in her Password Manager to fill in Immigration and Customs forms while she was on the plane.

LIFE ADMIN LOW OF THE WEEK

Dinah talks about she needed to reinstall her Password Manager on her computer and that it made her realise how much she how relies on it.

POWER TOOL

Trip it - Travel itinerary app

RESOURCES

Open Signal - website providing information about network reliability

Whistle Out - website comparing mobile phone plans

Please head to the Life Admin Life Hacks Facebook page to connect with listeners and share your thoughts, questions or suggestions.

023: Organising your social life Apr 05, 2020

Show notes

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.

LIFE ADMIN LOW OF THE WEEK

Dinah talks about how she organised a group gift and that she is chasing payment from others.

POWER TOOL

Hurry Slowly Podcast - Episode on Errand Paralysis

RESOURCES

Doodle poll - to pick the best choice for a group of people

Whats App - to setup groups to making organising group events easier

Please head to the Life Admin Life Hacks Facebook page to connect with listeners and share your thoughts, questions or suggestions.

028: Comparing credit cards Mar 31, 2020

Show notes

Decide if you need a credit card and if so, choose the best one for your purchasing and payment habits.

There are over 200 credit cards on offer in Australia, and this episode talks about how you can get the right credit card for you. Things to consider include:

your spending habits
your ability to pay off the outstanding balance each month
your credit score
the types of credit cards and benefits available.

Mia and Dinah share their top tips including:

knowing yourself and your spending habits
considering how much effort it takes to maximise rewards and benefits
comparing the key features including annual fees, interest rates, sign on and ongoing benefits, and taking into account traps like capped monthly points
putting reminders in your calendar for the best time to review your credit card arrangements
calling your bank to see if you can get a better deal to avoid shopping around
using comparison sites to quickly compare and choose a new credit card that is better than your current one
setting up a direct debit to pay the statement amount automatically each month.

LIFE ADMIN HIGH OF THE WEEK

Dinah talks about how her Password Manager made it much simple to find her son’s lost school iPad
Mia talks about her daughter’s netball coach's website and WhatsApp groups he has set up to organise games and training like a pro.

LIFE ADMIN LOW OF THE WEEK

Dinah talks about a school app that duplicates content and has a really poor user experience.

POWER TOOL

Dinah talks about the Pineapple Project podcast, an ABC podcast hosted by Claire Hooper and in particular Series 3 - Tidy.

RESOURCES

MoneySmart.gov.au - criteria to help compare and choose

Credit Score - Ways to access your credit score for free

Credit Card Comparison Site - Canstar

Credit Card Comparisons - Frequent Flyer Rewards - Choice

Podcast - Pineapple Project - Series 3 - Tidy

Please head to the Life Admin Life Hacks Facebook page to connect with listeners and share your thoughts, questions or suggestions.

027: Taking on admin for family members Mar 18, 2020

Show notes

This episode will help you understand why you may need to help others with their life admin and some of the legal and practical considerations you need to consider if you take on that role.

We consider some of the things you need to think about when you need to help someone else with their life admin, including:

what the signs are or the events that may happen that trigger your need to assist someone with their life admin
the types of life admin you may need to help with
how to avoid family conflict and maintain family harmony.

Mia interviews Stephanie Rendell, a lawyer who works in elder care planning and talks about:

what life admin you can do informally and when you need to put formal documents like Powers of Attorney in place
things to consider when appointing a third-party financial administrator
considerations for reimbursement and remuneration in Power of Attorney activities
record keeping obligations if you take on someone’s Power of Attorney
services that Elder Care Lawyers can provide including Substitute decision-makers, Caring agreements, Advanced Care Directives, Wills and Elder Care abuse.

Mia and Dinah talk about some of the practical things you can do to make it easier to manage and share the work of taking on someone else’s life admin including:

Establishing a shared digital calendar for medical and other appointments
Establishing a shared email address for bills and statements, to create transparency among family members
Establishing shared password management systems
Establishing shared To Do Lists to allocate and track tasks
Setting up roster systems and
Scheduling monthly teleconferences to discuss the situation and share the activities.

LIFE ADMIN HIGH OF THE WEEK

Dinah talks about securing her favourite shopping list and meal planners to restore order to her fridge.
Mia talks about how easy it was to nominate the days she wanted to take as purchased annual leave by using her shared calendar and the relief of having all the childcare over the school holidays for the year sorted.

LIFE ADMIN LOW OF THE WEEK

Dinah talks about how she has still failed to manage to establish a system for the digital photos from a recent long trip.

POWER TOOL

Podcast - The One You Feed

RESOURCES

Stephanie Rendell, Associate - Head Of Wills And Estates, RNG Lawyers

Episode 1 - Shared Calendars

Episode 2 - Going paperless

Episode 3 - Managing passwords and form filling data

Episode 4 - Mastering To Do Lists

Please head to the Life Admin Life Hacks Facebook page to connect with listeners and share your thoughts, questions or suggestions.

026: Optimising kid admin Mar 04, 2020

Show notes

Deal with the admin generated by and organised for children, which starts as soon as you get pregnant and never seems to end.

This episode talks about how you can address the many admin tasks you need to sort when you have kids, including:

health
daycare, school and school holidays
social life including birthday parties
extracurricular activities
decluttering their stuff - clothes, toys, books, artworks, craft.

Mia and Dinah share their top tips including:

having a launchpad and visible weekly schedule
systems to deal with arts & craft and keepsake items
using a form filling app to make filling forms a breeze
using WhatsApp groups for school and team communication
scheduling out the school holidays using your shared calendar
using apps for sporting team management
using checklists for birthday party organisation.

LIFE ADMIN HIGH OF THE WEEK

Dinah talks about a scavenger hunt birthday party she has organised for her daughter which was fun admin
Mia talks about sorting out her superannuation at work

LIFE ADMIN LOW OF THE WEEK

Dinah talks about the challenge of organising visas for an upcoming trip

POWER TOOL

Mia talks about using the iOs shortcuts app to develop automated sequences on her phone and the Files App to scan documents to cloud storage.

RESOURCES

Episode 1 - Shared Calendars

Episode 2 - Going paperless

Episode 3 - Managing passwords and form filling data

Episode 4 - Mastering To Do Lists

Episodes 6,7 & 8 - Decluttering

School Holiday Program - online web directory

Team Stuff & Team App - sporting team apps

Please head to the Life Admin Life Hacks Facebook page to connect with listeners and share your thoughts, questions or suggestions.

025: Embracing budgeting Feb 20, 2020

Show notes

This episode will help you understand what sort of budget you need, get it done more efficiently and actually stick to it!

This episode talks about the reasons you need a budget, the tools you can use to prepare a budget, and how to monitor your budget once you have set it up.

Mia and Dinah talk about the range of reasons why preparing a budget is important and how it can help you make better decisions about other areas of your life admin.

Dinah talks about how it is important to understand you past expenditure in order to set a realistic budget going forward. They talk about the various options to easily get this information including trying out tools within internet banking and apps that automatically extract data from your bank accounts.

They explore how you can set-up a budget based on your expected expenditure and your goals. They also talk about the reality of sticking to a budget and some of the hacks to make it easier to stay on track.

LIFE ADMIN LOW OF THE WEEK

Mia talks about how she needs to visit her bank to sort out access to one online banking for one of her bank accounts.

LIFE ADMIN HIGH OF THE WEEK

Dinah talks about how she has created a spreadsheet of Christmas presents and already bought most of them using online shopping.

RESOURCES

Pocketbook - budgeting app

Money Brilliant - budget app that also recommends product changes

The Barefoot Investor - popular money guide

Please head to the Life Admin Life Hacks Facebook page to connect with listeners and share your thoughts, questions or suggestions.

024: Administering to your health Dec 04, 2019

Show notes

Get your regular health checks on track and your health records sorted so you can find them when you need them.

This episode provides some practical tips to save you time and give you peace of mind when it comes to:

Booking health appointments
Getting health checks sorted for your age and stage
Filing health records – what to store and how you should store them.

Mia and Dinah talk about:

The Australian My Health Record and what you can use it for
Using your cloud storage to store your health records
The value of finding a great GP, dentist and pharmacy
Getting your children comfortable with communicating with health professionals
Being aware of what health checks you should have based on your stage of life
Hacks for making appointments and minimising wait times
Helpful phone numbers to keep in your phone.

LIFE ADMIN HIGHS OF THE WEEK

Mia talks about updating the contact information for her children’s extra-curricular activities to her shared email address so her partner can have greater transparency and share the job of making payments.

LIFE ADMIN LOW OF THE WEEK

Dinah talks about the pain caused by using her work card incorrectly to pay for her Uber Eats.

POWER TOOL

Find penguins app – travel journal app that can help you make a photobook on the go

Please head to the Life Admin Life Hacks Facebook page to connect with listeners and share your thoughts, questions or suggestions.

022: Outsourcing personal and household tasks Nov 05, 2019

Show notes

This episode will help decide what you should outsource and how to do it so that it actually saves you time and improves your household harmony

Mia and Dinah talk about some of the reasons you may want to outsource some of your life admin including:

lack of expertise or skill
tasks not getting done due to lack of time
relationship friction caused by workload imbalance or tasks not getting done.

They outline ten steps to help you decide if you should outsource some of your life admin including both the emotional and logical considerations.

They also explain where you can look to find outsourcing providers including:

task request websites
franchise services/agencies; and
word-of-mouth recommendations.

LIFE ADMIN HIGHS OF THE WEEK

Mia talks about resubscribing to newsletters in advance of Christmas to make sure she can access sale information but has put in place email filters so they don’t clutter up her Inbox
Dinah talks about embracing the digital wallet on her phone

LIFE ADMIN LOW OF THE WEEK

Mia talks about how she has been procrastinating assembling some furniture and she knows she should outsource the task

RESOURCES

James Clear, Value of Time

Laura Vanderkam - Free Time Makeover

Task request websites:

Fillable PDF template for Outsourced Suppliers, Services and Trades contact details

Use the following sample message to send an email to those whose recommendations you trust to help you source a network of useful contacts.

Subject: Your recommendations, please.

Hi everyone,

I'm making a list of suppliers, tradespeople and service providers to help out with some household and personal tasks. If you're happy to recommend somebody who has provided you with great service in the past, I'd really appreciate it. I'm looking for your trusted:

Cleaner
Accountant
Gardener
Dog walker....

Thanks for helping me out.

Cheers, [Name]

Please head to the Life Admin Life Hacks Facebook page to connect with listeners and share your thoughts, questions or suggestions.

021: Preparing for Christmas Oct 23, 2019

Show notes

This episode will help make planning your Christmas an ode to joy!

There are a lot of life admin life hacks that can maximise your peace of mind, save money and save time around the festive season. In this episode Mia and Dinah talk about:

establishing and remembering Christmas traditions using Reference lists and To Do Lists
nurturing traditions such as reading Christmas books, buying and decorating a tree, advent calendars, Christmas music playlists, carols by candlelight, gingerbread house making, and sending Santa letters.
drawing on your established life admin tools and techniques such as Scheduling, Decluttering and Shared Calendars
using Gift Giving hacks to make planning, shopping and wrapping enjoyable rather than hectic
planning your festive meal and getting others to help, to make hosting less stressful
planning earlier in the year to make the joy last longer.

LIFE ADMIN HIGHS OF THE WEEK

Dinah talks about how she effortlessly switched her private hospital cover using the admin hacks she’d previously followed to determine what product features were important to her family.