On this week’s episode The Divorce and Separation podcast, I had the pleasure of chatting with Mia Northrop, podcaster and co-author of ‘Life Admin Hacks’, the step-by-step guide to saving time and money, reducing the mental load and streamlining your life.
You have no idea what’s for dinner tonight. You need a gift for that party next week. You still haven’t consolidated your super. You’re out of contract on your phone and paying who knows what. Those cupboards won’t declutter themselves. The kids need a plan for the next school holidays. It’s time to get the gutters cleaned. You still haven’t made a will.
Sound familiar? Then this is the life admin guide you’ve been waiting for.
Life admin can’t be eliminated but it can be minimised, automated and better shared within families.
This no-nonsense book:
- Outlines a clear system to transform your life admin into managed order
- Helps you share the mental load with others
- Gives you game-changing tools and small practical steps to follow
- Breaks down life admin into Two Minutes Too Easy, Ten Minute Time Killer or Hour of Power tasks
- Shows you the fastest ways to shop around for new providers
- Lets you focus on your major pain points or do a complete life admin makeover
Together with Dinah Rowe-Roberts, working parents Mia and Dinah have marshalled their professional expertise in innovation, finance, design thinking and operations to research best practices, trial the tech and craft the most efficient processes to optimise their own life admin.
The result?
No more overwhelm, way more spare time and thousands of dollars saved.
After all, what can be more overwhelming than a divorce and separation? However, as a lover of a good list, Mia shares the tools and techniques on how divorce prep can neatly end a marriage.
After settling both her children into a steady high-school regime, Mia and her ex-husband leant into their separation by consciously and kindly uncoupling.
By amicably ending their marriage, Mia and her husband opted for the ‘2-2-5-5’ custody schedule, where a child would spend two days with one parent and two days with the other, then five days with one parent and five days with the other. Mia was nailing divorce admin prep! She created a joint mailbox with her husband, crafted the perfect cloud filing system, applied for a ‘children only credit card’, and spent 6 months navigating how to remove two names from the household bills.
So, how did Mia maintain stability in ending her marriage?
“Maintaining the children’s routine was our first step. I created a digital calendar and shared an email address for all family-related information. Continuity was everything! Going through a separation is so consuming, so we created ‘automatic pilot methods’ to declutter and fix the house. I needed to reduce daily stress, to prepare and give space for the emotional aftermath to come.
In many ways, I wanted to prepare for the grief and adjustment phase that I knew was going to come sooner or later. For years, we prepared for the separation, to avoid a crisis in our family.”
Even as an organisational expert, decision fatigue hit Mia months after the split.
“There were too many decisions when I eventually moved into my new place! What towels do I need? What do I need to buy for a new place? How do I fund my new life? After years of being the most organised soon-ex-wife-to-be, It took me 3 months to buy a new fridge.”
Once again, Mia returned to her sturdy theory, that life-lists are key.
After working in the Family Law System for 25 years, we would always say “the most organised client was our favourite client”. The Family Law Court is known as the ‘paper court’, for good reason.
Feeling organised can feel empowering. Knowing the ins and outs of your assets, car rego, bank statements and paperless billing will allow for the hard stuff to breathe.
Oh, and schedule self-love.
Give love a tag, folder, pin or spreadsheet, because being prepared can be the difference between thriving or surviving. You will get through this.
I’m here.
Nikki x