Life Admin
by Elizabeth Emens
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Pages: 288
Format: eARC
Buy the Book: Amazon
Goodreads: Every day an unseen form of labor creeps into our lives—stealing precious moments of free time, placing a strain on our schedules and our relationships, and earning neither appreciation nor compensation in return. This labor is life admin: the kind of secretarial and managerial work necessary to run a life and a household.
Elizabeth Emens was a working mother with two young children, swamped like so many of us, when she realized that this invisible labor was consuming her. Desperate to survive and to help others along the way, she conducted interviews and focus groups to gather favorite tips and tricks, admin confessions, and the secrets of admin-happy households.
Life Admin tackles the problem of admin in all its forms, from everyday tasks like scheduling doctors appointments and paying bills, to life-cycle events like planning a wedding, a birth, a funeral. Emens explores how this labor is created, how it affects our lives, and how we might avoid, reduce, and redistribute admin whenever possible—as individuals and as a society.
Kritters Thoughts: What seemed like a little book that I picked up at the end of 2018 to get me thinking about new years resolutions and things that I wanted to change going into 2019 made a big impact on how I view what I do professionally and what I have to do personally.
I am an Executive Assistant for my full time job. Rarely does a book cross over and affect my work life. The fiction I read is entertaining but doesn't impact my day to day professional life. This title struck me because of my job and then reading the description it made me think about what I do for my home and my family. Sometimes I wish that I had an assistant for my home life who could do what the author describes as life admin. After reading this book and thinking about the tips and tricks, I have a few things I want to implement that could affect both my personal life and my professional life.
I want to purchase a physical copy of this book and reread it every so often to be reminded of how life is full of admin and things go well when you take into consideration that some of the choices you make may create a little bit of admin!
Rating: definitely a good read, but can't read two in a row
Ebook 2018 Challenge: 96 out of 100
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one copy of this book free of charge from Netgalley. I was not required to write a positive review in exchange for receipt of the book; rather, the opinions expressed in this review are my own.
It made me look at my own work (no office only home but plenty of it) in a different way.
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