What's on your 'to-do' list? 6 Minute English

Neil: Hello and welcome to 6 Minute

English, I'm Neil. And joining me it's Rob.

Rob: Hello.

Neil: Now Rob, would you say you're

someone who is quite organised?

Rob: I'd like to think so.

Neil: What's the best way to organise everything?

Rob: You need a 'to-do' list - a list of all

the jobs you need to do that you can work

your way through.

Neil: That's a good idea and something

we can include in today's

discussion about life

admin. Admin is short for administration -

that describes the activities

and tasks you have

to do to make a business or organisation

run smoothly - but life admin

is administration you have to do

to make your day-to-day life run smoothly

- like doing housework, or paying

a bill. And the first thing on my 'to-do'

list is to ask you and the listeners,

a question.

Rob: Yes, you wouldn't want to forget that.

Neil: So, the website Hotels.com

commissioned some research about

how much time young adults

- that's millennials - spend doing

life admin. Do you know what

proportion of their free

time they spend doing life admin tasks?

Is it... a) a quarter of a day, b) a third of

a day, c) half a day?

Rob: Based on my personal experience,

I would say about a quarter of a day.

Neil: Well, we'll see if you're

the same as other people at

the end of the programme.

But as we all know, life admin

is necessary but it can be a bit of

a chore - a boring,

ordinary task you do regularly.

Rob: Experts have studied the subject

and looked at how we do it and

how we can make

it less boring. One of them is

Elizabeth Emens, Professor of Law

at Columbia University and

author of The Art of Life Admin.

Neil: She's been speaking to the

BBC Radio 4 programme, Woman's Hour,

and described what

she thought life admin is...

Elizabeth Emens: Life admin is the office

work of life, it's the invisible layer of

work that is the kind of thing that

managers and secretaries,

aka admins, do for pay in

the office but that everyone does in their

own lives for free.

Rob: She calls life admin the invisible

layer of work - so it's work, tasks

or chores we

carry out that people don't notice

we're doing - or don't realise we have

to do them it's

extra work in our life.

Neil: And we don't get paid for it - unless

we're at work when it is

the role of someone

to do it - such as secretaries or aka

admins - aka is short for 'also known as' -

so secretaries might also

be known as admins - that is short

for people who do administration.

Rob: Right, so we know life admin

is boring and we don't get paid for it -

and also, trying

to renew your house insurance or trying to

query a bill with a utility company can be

frustrating and feels like a waste of time.

A utility company by the way, is one that

supplies something such as electricity,

gas, or water to the public.

Neil: My problem is I never get round to

doing my life admin - there are

better things to do - so you

could say I procrastinate - I delay doing

things until later, probably because

I don't want to do them.

Rob: You are what Elizabeth classifies as

an 'admin avoider'. So this is

where my to-do list comes in handy, Neil.

You have a written record of tasks

that can be quite satisfying

to cross off as you do them. But this is

something Elizabeth Emen has found

to work, at least for some people.

Let's hear from her again. What type of

people did she find get most

satisfaction from completing a to-do list?

Elizabeth Emens: If you've ever made

a list and put things on it

you've already done,

just to cross them out, then you know the

kind of 'done it' pleasure that goes with

that. But actually I interviewed people,

especially the super-doers that

I interviewed, actually

can find real pleasure in the actual doing

of it - so trying to understand how we can

get to that when we have to do it - how we

can make it so that there is

some meaning in it

and some texture and there're ways

of doing it that please us.

Neil: So she was describing the

super-doers - these are the people

who love admin and would

spend an evening putting their book

collection into alphabetical order!

Rob: Elizabeth mentioned that we should

learn from the super-doers

and get some 'done it'

pleasure in doing our life admin. We need

to find a meaning for doing it - in other

words, what is represents - so we can see

the benefit of completing our to-do list.

Neil: How we find pleasure from doing life

admin is different for different people - so

personally, I think I'll stick with being

an 'admin avoider' - but that might explain

why I just got charged extra for not paying

my credit card bill on time!

Rob: Well please don't avoid giving us

the answer to the quiz question

you asked us earlier.

Neil: Yes. Earlier I asked, researchers,

commissioned by Hotels.com, polled

2,000 young professionals about their

lives. How much of their free time

do they spend doing life admin? Is it...

a) quarter of a day, b) a third of a day,

c) half a day?

Rob: And I said a) a quarter of a day.

Neil: Yes, they spend a quarter of their

days carrying out tasks like

doctor's appointments,

waiting in for packages to be delivered

and doing household chores. Boring!

Rob: Unlike this programme Neil, which

is not a chore - one of

the words we discussed today.

Neil: Yes, our vocabulary today included

chore - a boring, ordinary task

you do regularly.

Rob: We also mentioned admin, short

for administration - the activities

and tasks you have to do

make a business, organisation or

just your life, run smoothly.

Neil: We heard aka - meaning 'also known

as' - so for example, Rob aka

The master of 6 Minute English!

Rob: Thanks very much, Neil.

Next we heard utility company.

That's a company that supplies

something such as electricity, gas,

or water to the public. And we also

heard how Neil

likes to procrastinate - that's delay

doing things until later, probably

because he doesn't

want to do them.

Neil: Finally, we mentioned super-doers -

an informal term to describe

people who get satisfaction

out of doing life admin and do lots of it.

Rob: Like me.

Neil: Well, it's time to go now but there's

plenty more to discover on our website at

bbclearningenglish.com.

Goodbye for now.

Rob: Bye bye.