Do you ever have the experience when someone (someone who shares you home and family) says to you “How can I help you?”. And you know they’re trying to help, but all you want to do is scream at them “You’re not ‘helping’ me, you’re contributing to the running of the house and the family of which you are a part, and why the hell should I tell you what to do to help when you could look around and figure it out for yourself! How the heck do you think I realise what needs doing…?”. And then you need to take a deep breath before answering them…

That.

You know the last things you think about at night and the first things you think about in the morning, and the things that you desperately try to capture and get out of your head and onto a long ‘to do’ list before you forget one of them and end up dropping a plate that you’re trying to keep spinning?

That.

And you know when you are so busy trying to make sure that the kids have their dental appointment, and remembering to change the filter in the fish tank, and that you noticed that the shoes needed a clean, and that they’ve got a school trip coming up that they need a packed lunch for, and that your other half went as far as inviting a few friends for dinner but now you need to plan the menu, find out what time he told them to arrive and remember to subsequently tidy the house and iron the tablecloth and and and…

That.

And you know how you flop into bed exhausted and realise that yet again, you didn’t manage to take five minutes you promised yourself to meditate. Or you still haven’t done that online course you were so interested in. And that you still haven’t found time to sit down with a cup of tea and read a chapter from that amazing book you were so excited to buy?

That.

There is a beautiful cartoon by French illustrator Emma which explains the mental load (if you’ve not seen this before, take a look and then share it with all the men in your life!). This is the unseen labour which is (mostly) carried and held by women. The ‘to-do’ list of life that is constantly playing on your mind, and stopping you from putting you first.

And when we are carrying this for everyone else, it’s no wonder that we end up putting ourselves and our dreams last.

Whilst the perception is that women are better at multitasking, research shows that this is unlikely to be the case, and in fact women become better at it because they are expected to. This constant expectation that we are expected to be able to (and be better at) the ‘project management’ of homelife can also have adverse impact on our careers, Maribeth Bearfield (Chief Human Resources Officer, Bright Horizons) says that being responsible for the mental load can be holding back women in the workplace saying that women will often step back from promotion opportunities due to the load they are already carrying. Add to that the fact that women are still doing the lion’s share of running the household (even whilst working full time), and it’s no wonder we put ourselves at the bottom of the list.

The pandemic exacerbated that too. The research by the World Economic Forum and by the United Nations shows that women have taken on more unpaid labour (think home schooling and caring responsibilities) during the pandemic, with working women being described as ‘sacrificial lambs’ by the Guardian. 

For me, carrying the mental load is one of the contributing factors to ‘Mum guilt’. Knowing that you are responsible for so much, so other people, means that it can be hard to prioritise yourself. I find myself doing battle with the guilt I feel when I sit down and read a book with a cup of tea, knowing that there is an endless list of chores to accomplish too. How can I ‘indulge’ in me, when there are ‘essentials’ to be carried out. Making time for, and investing in, yourself can feel like an utter luxury, where actually, the old adage of applying your own oxygen mask first, is so right. Looking after yourself is key to building your resilience enough to look after others.

One day, when I felt I was buckling under the weight of the mental load I was carrying, I jammed with a flip chart and a marker and wrote it all out. Then I told my then-husband and two children that they had to pick three things and go and do it. It was inspired by a webinar where Caitlin Moran was being interviewed and it was bloomin’ genius (and reminds me to do it again…). The weight of making the invisible, visible to everyone helped enormously. And when I was asked that inevitable question “how can I help you?”, I simply bit my lip and pointed. I followed it up with a gentle “Here are some of the things that I think we can all do to contribute. Please do add anything that you notice or think about too”. There was a surprised eyebrow lift, but not all of it fell to me that day.

Another variation of this tool that you can try to manage this is a simple organisation chart. Grab a large piece of paper (raid your recycling if it helps; an old amazon box reinvigorated!) and roughly mark it into four quadrants. In the top left write ‘for me’. The top right gets ‘grab a task’. Bottom left is headed ‘nice to do’ and bottom right is ‘holding bay’.

Do a brain drop of all the ‘to-dos’ you’re carrying and write them all on separate post it notes. Allocate each post it to a quadrant. Be very, very careful that you are not just putting everything in the ‘for me’ pile. Ironing can be done by a number of people, as can change the sheets, mow the lawn, or book the MOT. In your ‘holding bay’ can go the things you need to remember but don’t need doing yet. You can then review them and move them into the right quadrant when they become time critical. 

Ensure that in the ‘for me’ quadrant you are adding in the things that you WANT to do too, rather than just those things that only you can do or you SHOULD do. In fact, if you can avoid the ‘shoulds’, do! 

What you should be left with is a chart that you can display somewhere centrally in the house that anyone who lives there can come along, grab a task and get it done. It’s quite satisfying to have a separate ‘done’ sheet too so you can see what you’ve crossed off!

You can engage younger children in this too. For example, when they collect five completed tasks, they can get a small reward such as extra tv time, their choice of dinner, or more time before lights out.

Sometimes we get so out of the swing of putting ourselves and our pleasures on the to-do list, that it can be hard to remember what we love to do. There is nothing greater than seeing women reconnect with this. I love how one of our alumni reconnected with prioritising herself by remembering her love of dance as a child and then promptly booking pole dancing classes as soon as she left the Your Life Less Ordinary Weekender! We loved seeing her joy when she shared a couple of the photos her instructor took. She challenged herself to make it to the top of the pole and nailed that too! Making time for that, and remembering how it felt to put her own happiness on the to-do list, as well as that of others, meant that each week she was building in time for sheer joy.

So, next time you’re buckling under the mental load, get it out there for all to see. And if you live on your own, do the same exercise, but think about what you can outsource or delegate to others.

Whatever you do, put you first and make sure that your pleasure is not always last on the list.

With love

Jane x

Image by Gemma Brunton Photography

Further Reading