What exactly is the Life Admin System?

Occasionally people write to me confused that our pre-built Life Admin System doesn't include a place for literally everything in their life. So here's what it is and, just as importantly, what it isn't.

What it is

It's called the Life Admin System (LAS) for a reason: it contains a space for all of your life admin.

When we designed it, we aimed to cover 90% of the stuff that 90% of us might do. That's the definition of life admin: being alive and proving it; staying healthy in body and mind; having a family and pets; living somewhere and maintaining that place; owning and renting vehicles; growing and cooking; being a member of the community; planning and managing money in, out, saved, and owed; dealing with the computers and devices; and finally – eventually – having a bit of fun: seeing a show; booking a trip.

You probably don't do all of that. I don't. But you can see how that's a pretty broad sweep across all of the stuff that you might plausibly do.

The Life Admin System is a meticulously planned system that covers it all. It has an ID for everything. It's consistent and unambiguous. Where there are questions – should it go here or there? – we offer examples and suggestions.

Just get on with it

The goal of this system is to give you a place to put all this stuff. Is it perfect for every human? Obviously not. But unless you happen to love spending hours organising your life, agonising over the perfect location, making it just so – a love you would not share with me, for the record – what's much more important is that you just get on with it.

Pick the best ID from the limited options we've given you, and then go outside. Play with your kids or the chickens or work on the boat or dig a hole or write your book.

Life admin is a chore. The goal of this system is for you to spend as little time on it as possible.

What it isn't

People are sometimes disapointed that LAS doesn't contain a place for literally everything in their life.

But think about what that would mean. An exhaustive categorisation system for everything that any human might plausibly do. That's going to be … big. Let's look at a scattering of the categories we'd include.

138 Physiognomy
293 Norse mythology
385 Railroad transportation
429 Old English
532 Fluid mechanics
638 Bee culture and sericulture
713 Scenic byways and garden walks
847 French wit and humour
952 History of Japan

Hopefully some of those things are your hobby. No? Ah. That's a shame.

This, of course, is Dewey. We already have a near-exhaustive list of categories of all the things humans do, and it might be helpful to you. LibraryThing's MDS is a wonderful resource.

But I wouldn't recommend importing them all into your system. And these categories aren't designed to hold your things. They're designed as a system for books. That's why Johnny.Decimal isn't just Dewey Decimal. They're different things, with different design goals.

You need to design your own

Once we stray from the commonality of life admin, you need to design your own categories. This is why the LAS is a single area, 10-19 Life admin. We deliberately left the areas 20-29 through 90-99 for your own stuff. Maybe you're a 20-29 Marriage celebrant. Perhaps you have a popular 30-39 Science podcast or are the 40-49 Treasurer for your local tennis club.

Whatever it is, this is stuff that's unique to you. We can't design it, because we're not you.

But the LAS should guide you. Use it as design inspiration: we thought about its patterns for months. Look at what we did. Think how those patterns apply to your 50-59 Magic: The Gathering collection. And build your own system, for your own life.