Managing the Mental Load

If you are reading this, it’s because you’re interesting in ways to lighten the mental load. You are probably the primary parent to one or more children. You probably have a partner who, for one reason or another, isn’t currently contributing in a way you find particularly useful.

For full transparency, I have to tell you that I get it. I am a mom of three, happily married to the love of my life, and we have a few hiccups even in our personal life. For one, my husband works and travels much more than I do. This means that no matter what we do or how much we discuss the mental load, most of it will always fall to me. It’s not that he’s a bad partner. He’s an amazing father.

But this workbook helped me, all by myself, to organize our family’s needs and to-dos, do “all the things,” and feel less burdened by them.

Getting the load out of your mind and into a sustainable system is the key to freeing up mental space to tackle bigger and better things (like the moms I work with as a life coach!). It doesn’t matter what your resolutions were for the new year, you are more likely to accomplish them if you have the energy and capacity to breathe, think, and focus.

I’ve got a completely free tool for you to use to manage the mental load more efficiently this year. You can download it here.

Here’s the system that you can use in your own home, with your partner or without:

1)      You’re going to devote an hour or two to taking a complete inventory of the mental load in your own life. Everything from kids’ wardrobes to meal planning to who buys Christmas gifts.

2)      Once it is all on paper, take a look at

a. What can be eliminated totally. Is it necessary?

b.       What can be outsourced. Can you afford meal delivery a few nights a week? Laundry service? What chores are your kids old enough to be doing?

c.       Delegate. Who will be 100% responsible for the chore?

                 i.      By 100%, I mean 100%. No reminders. No nagging. No standing over their shoulder to see if they do it “right.” Whoever takes ownership takes full ownership, including the potential for making mistakes, forgetting the talk, and not doing it the same way you would.

                ii.      You need to be patient. Forgetting the task comes with natural consequences. As long as nobody gets hurt, allow others to make mistakes.

d.       Decide how frequently the chore or task must be done. Weekly? Quarterly? Annually?

3)      Take these tasks and input them into a system. If you already have a shared family calendar, this is probably a natural place for the chores to be input. If you don’t, are you a paper planner person? Do you need to create a family command center?

4)      Revisit your workbook or download a new one in six months. How is this working? Do you need to reassign tasks? Did you learn anything about your family dynamic? Were you surprised by how much even little helpers can contribute to running the house?

This is just one easy way to reduce the load you are carrying around in your brain all day. Get it out. Get it inventoried. Get organized so that you don’t have to think about it as often. It’s on the calendar in 6 months, and your system will remind you when the time comes.

If you think this would help you, download yours here! I promise that by sharing your email, you won’t have regrets about being on my list. No spam, once weekly emails full of parenting hot takes, tips, and my best gifs to accompany them.

And if you find the workbook helpful, come see what else is happening on the social side and follow along at instagram.com/letsmothertogether