I probably say it most days.
Now admittedly, I have drama queen tendencies...but most of the time, I feel that my stress is actually pretty justified.
Between running my own business, being the breadwinner in the family, keeping on top of household bills and budgeting, being a mother to 3 children under the age of 6, plus managing everything else that life throws at me...it feels as though there is always a LOT to think about. And that...unsurprisingly...results in a feeling of overwhelm.
But I'm certainly not alone in this. In fact I'd hazard a guess that the majority of people in my age group, or those with children still at home, are likely to find life a little bit overwhelming at times.
As a parent you often find yourself responsible not only for keeping on top of your own appointments and social engagements, but also for those of your children too - with some people also taking on responsibility for their own aging parents.
Then there's the running of the household to think about -when bills are due to be paid, when the car is due to have its MOT, when the insurance is due for renewal.
Life is busy for most people, most of the time and trying to keep on top of the treadmill of "life admin" adds a whole extra layer of stress.
There's always so much to think about, so much to remember to do.
We all have our own methods of trying to stay on top of it all, don't we? Everyone I've spoken to tries to manage their life admin in a whole heap of different ways. Personally, I have tried using budgeting apps, storage apps, reminders on my phone, and I've even taken photographs of important documents to store on my phone (which seems like such a great idea at the time, until it's the day of my hospital appointment, I've thrown away the letter and I need to check where I'm supposed to go...but I've taken 4,000 new photos since then and I can't find the snap I took among them!).
But no matter how hard I tried, I've never got to a place where I feel like I'm on top of it all...if anything, having to keep on top of a million different apps to "help" was starting to feel a lot like more life admin!
But recently...that has changed.
I discovered Lifefyle...an online tool that allows users to manage all aspects of life from one place!
User-friendly and intuitive, Lifefyle allows you to get all of those niggling "to do" tasks out of your head and manages them for you at the click of a button. Plus, when you set yourself a task (like renewing an insurance premium or remembering an appointment), you can link it to the original document so you won’t have to spend hours digging through a pile of paperwork (or thousands of photo’s!) to find the details you need – making it easy to do what needs to be done while carrying on with life.
The basic version is completely free to use and has been a lifesaver for me in terms of reducing the number of things I need to remember, store and organise.
It's split into sections so - much like the traditional family wall calendars we all know and love - every member of the family can have their own section, which makes things like remembering playdates and keeping up with extra curricular activities a breeze. You can set reminders as well as assigning tasks to certain things too - one way I like to use this feature is to set a reminder for when I need to pay for my sons Tae Kwon Do sessions each month, something I always struggled to remember!
Lifefyle allows you to upload and store important documents, and it's incredibly smart as it doesn't just store the documents but reads them too - pulling out important details like dates and times for you, and assisting you with setting reminders.
We all have those piles of appointment letters, birthday party invites and bills sitting somewhere don't we? (Ours is on the kitchen counter, piling up in front of the radio!) Well Lifefyle makes the need for that pile a thing of the past....now instead of adding documents and letters to that ever-growing pile, I simply take a photo of it, upload it to Lifefyle, assign any necessary tasks and reminders, and bin it!
With the premium version you can even assign a task to other family members too, so no more nagging the other half to remember when the car needs its MOT - Lifefyle will pop up and remind you!
To give it a try yourself, just visit http://www.lifefyle.com and remember - there's a free version which is fantastic, so what do you have to lose? (except maybe a little bit of that stressed out feeling)?
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