A Complete Guide to the Invisible Labor Running Your Life & Home

You’re at work - in the zone, totally focused. Presenting last quarter’s results, and you’re doing really well. The leadership team is nodding along, and your points are landing. You should be flying high.

What they don’t know, what nobody else realizes, is that you’re running a parallel meeting in your head. With yourself.

You ask yourself if you remembered to sign the field trip permission slip. You make a mental note to buy that particular cereal with the chimpanzee on the box because it’s the only one your little one will eat. You know the birthday gift for Saturday’s party needs to be ordered today. And oh yes, you need to call mom to check on her knee appointment. You remember the RSVP you’ve mentally sent eleven times without actually ever sending it. You need to replace the kids’ toothbrush heads, pay the nanny extra for Tuesday, and buy your mother-in-law’s birthday present. And you woefully realize you’ve never actually made it to the yoga class even once since buying that 10-class pack. How is it that you’re the last on your priority list? You don’t have time to dwell on that thought.  

It’s like you’re running 20 browser tabs in your head with everything that’s needed for everyone around you. You can’t close them, because if you do, there’s no one else to pick it up. 

This 20-tab thing is you being über organized. This is you running on high adrenaline. You see things that need to be done and…just do them. Others don’t realize this dialogue you have with yourself. Your labor is invisible. You’re in a supportive household, but you still make lists and how-to guides whenever someone offers to ‘help’. 

No wonder you’re mentally exhausted. No wonder you have no time for yourself. No wonder you doom scroll when you’re supposed to be asleep. You are on overdrive, and you’re cognitively, emotionally, and physically wrung out. You don’t know what to call that feeling. 

Now you do. 

This is called mental load.