Life Admin Life Hacks

  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 bett...

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 Aust...

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. Th...

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 decorat...

This episode will help make planning and preparing for your holiday more efficient so you can get away smoothly and make the most of your time away While many of the listener survey respondents didn’t feel that booking holidays was life admin, Dinah and Mia firmly believe it qualifies, given all the research, comparing, booking, planning, communicating and organisation involved. This episode inclu...

This episode will help you set up your systems to make tax time as minimal as possible. People whose lives are otherwise in good shape can suffer a mental block when it comes to tax. This episode will give you tips to get motivated and preparing your tax return more efficient. Mia and Dinah discuss: motivations for doing your tax by the deadline the benefits of using an accountant or tax agent&nbs...

This episode will clarify the options you have to manage how you and your children use their screens. There are all kinds of connected devices in our homes: tablets, smartphones, laptops, televisions, gaming consoles and more. Dinah and Mia give you some tools and tips to help keep your children safer online and also help provide screen time limits. Mia and Dinah talk about resources like Common S...

Dinah and Mia discuss their adoption of meal planning and hacks to make grocery shopping more efficient. This episode features an interview with meal planning expert, Nicole Avery, from Planning With Kids and Planned and Present . Nicole gives some great tips about: developing a system to share the load (eg shopping) involving the family to suggest meal ideas taking into account your family’s sche...

Get the hacks to buy appropriate, thoughtful gifts that are within budget and in time for the occasion , efficiently. Mia and Dinah explore the joys and lows of giving gifts and how to make sure gifts are meaningful without overthinking it. The hacks covered for selecting gifts include: setting up wish lists for family members and close friends using your lists app simplifying decision making by u...

This episode is all about how to compare and switch home loans to save you money, and features an interview with a mortgage broker. There are thousands of home loans available on the market, so chances are at least one of them offers a lower interest rate lower fees more flexible repayment options or features like apps and internet banking that are better than your current mortgage. Depending on y...

This episode is all about finding the best offer for your electricity and gas in those states of Australia where you choose your energy retailer. There are more than 37 energy retailers vying for our business yet many of us never switch, even though prices have risen quite significantly in recent years. The key considerations for comparing energy providers are: Dual Fuel – do you want to consolida...

Mia and Dinah talk about switching broadband internet plans to save money and improve their service. There are more than 35 internet service providers in Australia, with an array of ever-changing offers and promotions. This, combined with advancements in internet technology such as the NBN and improved modems and routers, and the changing use of technology by households, means that most of us shou...

Mia and Dinah talk about principles for efficient comparison shopping and fast decision making, before getting into the process and tools specific to reviewing private health insurance. To avoid spending days researching better deals and ending up with analysis paralysis, there are several principles to embrace when comparing products or services: Keep the end in mind – Make sure you know what you...

Mia and Dinah interview Justin Hiew, a lawyer from McMahon Fearnly Lawyers , to get some expert input into the morbid but important topic of wills and powers of attorney. The information provided in this podcast constitutes general information only. It is not intended to nor does it constitute legal advice and it is not a substitute for professional legal advice. You should obtain professional adv...

In this episode Mia and Dinah talk about the challenges of managing digital photos including storing them so you can find them when you need them, backing them up and doing something with them to make you happy. Mia and Dinah share the current disorganised state of their digital photos. They’ve both failed to implement a consistent system to store, backup and use their photos. Mia interviews Sally...

Mia and Dinah explore how to find inspiration, get motivated and set goals to change your approach to life admin. Mia and Dinah talk about the difference between motivation and insinspiration and potential sources of both. They discuss how you might approaches behaviour and habit change, which are required to address your life admin system. They detail many different ways of setting goals and sugg...

In this episode Dinah and Mia focus on how to help others declutter, and Mia interviews Jo and Kristen from Springtime Services, professional organisers in Melbourne. Jo and Kristen describe how they support clients to declutter part or all of their homes. Their service draws on the advice of experts but they stress they avoid being prescriptive. Every client is different and their approach needs...

Mia and Dinah talk about their own decluttering journeys and give listeners their top tips. Mia and Dinah share their  family backgrounds and reflect how that often links to your approach to holding onto belongings. They talk about the process they have gone through for both: Reducing the inflow of stuff: being a better gatekeeper of what enters the house and buying less.  Working on the...

Mia and Dinah talk about the mindset and philosophies of various decluttering experts.

This episode covers another foundation for establishing a robust Life Admin system: scheduling. Mia and Dinah discuss how most people have no set time when they do their Life Admin tasks, which often means doing only the ‘urgent’ and not the ‘important’. The important tasks weigh on your mind, yet you never complete them. Mia and her partner refer to these tasks as ‘blockers’:  tasks you spen...

Mia and Dinah talk about the benefits of To Do Lists and the steps they followed to optimise their To Do List systems. This episode discusses how To Do Lists allow you to get clarity on what needs to be done and the pros of centralising your lists on one digital tool that can be shared with other family members. They outline the difference among: To Do Lists - are actionable, time-bound, contain v...

This episode covers two more important foundation elements for a life admin system: having a password manager and collating data frequently used when filling out forms. Mia and Dinah discuss how many passwords they need to manage life admin, and how difficult it is to have a fail-proof and secure system to store them all. They also consider how many forms they need to fill out with the same data o...

This episode talks about the second key foundation of an efficient life admin system:  going paperless. The hosts, Mia and Dinah , describe the five steps they went through to go paperless: Setting up a dedicated admin email address and cloud storage account for life admin. Setting up a password manager to remember and protect online accounts. Opting out of paper billing, statements and notif...

This episode introduces the first of several foundations to a great life admin system: a shared family calendar. Mia and Dinah discuss how they previously both used multiple calendars and that there was no single point of truth of what was happening. They describe how they went about setting up a shared family calendar available on all their devices, Mia using Apple iOS and Outlook and Dinah using...

This episode provides an introduction to the Life Admin Life Hacks podcast, a podcast that gives you techniques, tips and tools to tackle your life admin more efficiently to save you time, your money and improve your household harmony. This episode provides a definition of Life Admin including some data from a survey the podcast hosts, Mia and Dinah , conducted. Mia and Dinah discuss their motivat...