Speaker 1: Hi.
Speaker 2: I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
Speaker 2: and speaker.
Speaker 3: And I'm Sarah hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician, writer,
Speaker 3: and course creator. We are two working parents who love
Speaker 3: our careers and our families.
Speaker 2: Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
Speaker 2: how real women manage work, family, and time for fun.
Speaker 2: From figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1: Term career goals.
Speaker 2: We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1: Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2: This episode is airing in mid November of twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: Sarah and I are going to be discussing how to
Speaker 2: lighten your mental load, which is a hot topic for
Speaker 2: many people. I am sure we all want strategies for
Speaker 2: creating more calm and more mental space. I know a
Speaker 2: lot of our listeners are carrying a lot of mental
Speaker 2: load in their lives as they manage work, family, everything
Speaker 2: else that they have going on. Just a real quick definition,
Speaker 2: so we are all working from the same page. Mental
Speaker 2: load is the cognitive and emotional effort that it takes
Speaker 2: to manage life. So, Sarah, do you have any cognitive
Speaker 2: and emotional effort managing your life going on these days.
Speaker 1: Of course, don't we all.
Speaker 3: I mean, I am very envious of anybody who can
Speaker 3: actually answer this and say.
Speaker 1: No, but yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, if I had to kind of think about
Speaker 3: what the biggest things that are driving my mental load,
Speaker 3: I would say I'm doing a lot of spinning about
Speaker 3: like next academic year, which seems crazy because we're like
Speaker 3: only a few months into this academic year. But I
Speaker 3: just feel like there might be changes and it's like
Speaker 3: a whole logistical whirlwind if that happens, and so that
Speaker 3: is weighing on me, even though it's not really close.
Speaker 3: I feel like my mental load is taken up by
Speaker 3: how I am fitting in my writing amongst many other
Speaker 3: life activities. And then the third thing I would say
Speaker 3: that's a little bit extra right now is that Cameron
Speaker 3: is on two soccer teams, which this was the case
Speaker 3: last year as well, but there's a season which he
Speaker 3: has at school, but then he still has his club soccer.
Speaker 3: So that leads to a schedule that is pretty much nuts,
Speaker 3: with many days him going almost straight from soccer to soccer.
Speaker 3: He chose to do this again. He wanted to play
Speaker 3: with his friends. He really enjoys it, but it's like
Speaker 3: a crazy season.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I've just been feeling like there's a lot going on
Speaker 2: as well. I mean, we have a pretty good schedule
Speaker 2: that's tightly orchestrated. People know at this point their activity
Speaker 2: is what they're going to and all that. It's just
Speaker 2: that five kids generate a lot of details, and even
Speaker 2: though some of the basic stuff is set, there is
Speaker 2: always something that is going to be different every week.
Speaker 1: I mean, just right before we were.
Speaker 2: Recording this, I was setting up the schedule for the
Speaker 2: next week when I'm taking Ruth to her eye specialist appointment,
Speaker 2: which is far away, so we have to get her
Speaker 2: there that day. But that meant so I needed to
Speaker 2: reschedule something else that was going on that day, figure
Speaker 2: out the car situation, or you know when some kids
Speaker 2: like music lesson moves all of a sudden, everything else
Speaker 2: needs to switch around it. There's just a lot of
Speaker 2: contingent parts, and I feel with some evidence that I
Speaker 2: am the only person who has all this in my
Speaker 2: head or even on paper. So it is a lot
Speaker 2: to keep track of. It is just the thing that
Speaker 2: we you know, the topic here is that it is
Speaker 2: real work, and it can feel overwhelming if you are
Speaker 2: the person in your family managing most of the home front.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, it doesn't have to feel quite
Speaker 1: so overwhelming.
Speaker 2: There are obviously larger issues of who handles what amount
Speaker 2: of mental load in any given household, which is an
Speaker 2: interesting topic in and of itself, but is not the
Speaker 2: topic of this episode, which is that however much mental
Speaker 2: load you happen to be carrying, there are ways to
Speaker 2: make that burden more manageable and you know, maybe even
Speaker 2: see some of the upsides where if you are the
Speaker 2: one who controls the schedule, you have a certain power
Speaker 2: associated with that. But yeah, so one of the key
Speaker 2: things that makes it feel like there's a lot spinning
Speaker 2: is what you were talking about, Sarah. You're just perseverating
Speaker 2: on something, right, Like there's a lot in your.
Speaker 3: Head, yes, and you're I'm going to let you keep going,
Speaker 3: But I wonder if you're right, that's kind of adding
Speaker 3: to the stress, and I haven't fixed it because it
Speaker 3: seems too nebulous to like make concrete at this point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, so the spinning adds up to something,
Speaker 2: but in general, with mental load, like don't keep it
Speaker 2: in your head heads are very bad places for any
Speaker 2: sort of detail that needs to be remembered, because you know,
Speaker 2: humans don't have exceptional memories. We get tired, we forget things,
Speaker 2: details may slip us by, We may remember the wrong thing.
Speaker 2: So long time readers know, I advocate our listeners whatever
Speaker 2: we have here. I advocate a weekly planning session where
Speaker 2: you figure out your priorities for the upcoming week. But
Speaker 2: a key reason to do this is that if you
Speaker 2: know there is a time for planning, then you don't
Speaker 2: have to keep worrying about it the rest of the time.
Speaker 2: You're like, well, how am I going to figure out
Speaker 2: that tricky ride situation that is happening in a week
Speaker 2: and a half. It's like, well, maybe you don't actually
Speaker 2: have to figure it out right this minute. If you
Speaker 2: have a dedicated weekly planning time, you can sort it
Speaker 2: through at that moment and give yourself permission not to
Speaker 2: do it at every other point.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think that's actually huge. I think people don't recognize
Speaker 3: that side of planning. You know, when I hear a
Speaker 3: lot of people talking about, oh, you know, why plan
Speaker 3: because you know you're just in that like hustle mindset
Speaker 3: or something. It's like No, A lot of the times
Speaker 3: I'm planning so that I can like not stress about
Speaker 3: it later, or like just kind of have my mind
Speaker 3: be done with the planning portion and then move on
Speaker 3: to the doing portion without being polluted by all these
Speaker 3: thoughts that are going to come, whether or not I
Speaker 3: am trying to curate some then lifestyle or not.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think that's a great point.
Speaker 2: And then there's something to be said for a little
Speaker 2: bit of group planning too. I mean, I know a
Speaker 2: lot of our listeners have some sort of family meeting
Speaker 2: where you discuss logistics, especially if you need somebody else's
Speaker 2: input or you need to compare calendars or anything like that. Sarah,
Speaker 2: are you guys doing any sort of family meeting at
Speaker 2: this point?
Speaker 1: It's pretty informal.
Speaker 3: It generally happens around Sunday dinner, which is one of
Speaker 3: the few meals we tend to all sit down together,
Speaker 3: and by then I usually have completed my whiteboard action,
Speaker 3: which is getting in writing basically everyone is supposed to be.
Speaker 1: For the next week.
Speaker 3: We've started putting a couple of like shared family tasks
Speaker 3: on that board as well.
Speaker 1: That's sort of unfolded organically.
Speaker 3: It's not something I sort of set out to do,
Speaker 3: but I kind of like the idea that Josh and
Speaker 3: me and the kids can see like the two maybe
Speaker 3: most pressing priorities that kind of relate to everyone in
Speaker 3: addition to everything that's happening, And so our meeting is
Speaker 3: generally just everybody like kind of checking that out and
Speaker 3: me commenting on anything that is weird, like oh, there's
Speaker 3: no school on Thursday for two out.
Speaker 1: Of three kids or something else. An appointment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I basically construct a calendar for the
Speaker 2: upcoming week for the family on Fridays. People are supposed
Speaker 2: to get me any information that would be pertinent to this.
Speaker 2: Some people are better about it than others. And there's
Speaker 2: always just the reality that teens social life changes quickly.
Speaker 2: It's last minute, sometimes they have new things come up.
Speaker 2: But I get a comment that it's just that I
Speaker 2: have the structure of the week set then we can
Speaker 2: all work from the same document. But you know, so
Speaker 2: you have a weekly planning session to get all this down,
Speaker 2: but then stuff is going to occur to you at
Speaker 2: other points, and the quickest way to get it out
Speaker 2: of your head is to capture it somewhere that you
Speaker 2: know you will be able to act on.
Speaker 1: So, Sarah, you email yourself all the time, right.
Speaker 3: Yes, I find that a really easy and effective way
Speaker 3: to make sure I capture things on the fly. And
Speaker 3: I think the thing that makes it work is that
Speaker 3: I always know I'm going to be processing my inbox
Speaker 3: at some point, So this is a pretty fool proof
Speaker 3: way of making sure I keep things on my radar.
Speaker 3: Of course, sometimes I might happen to have my paper
Speaker 3: planner with me and I can put stuff directly in there.
Speaker 3: When that's not the case, super super easy way to
Speaker 3: just not have to keep it in my head.
Speaker 1: Excellent. Less we keep in our heads, the better.
Speaker 2: All Right, We're going to take a quick ad break
Speaker 2: and we will be back talking about more ways to
Speaker 2: lighten our mental load.
Speaker 1: Well, we are back.
Speaker 2: Talking about ways to lighten the mental load. Whatever you
Speaker 2: think about how mental loads should be split in households,
Speaker 2: in society, etc. There are always ways to lessen the
Speaker 2: burden on yourself so you have mental space for other
Speaker 2: things and you have a more calm and controlled life.
Speaker 2: One of the key ways you can do this is
Speaker 2: to batch process things. So one of the reasons people
Speaker 2: feel like they're always dealing with the small details of
Speaker 2: life is because they are always dealing with the small
Speaker 2: details of life.
Speaker 1: It's always an option.
Speaker 2: So you're trying to squeeze them in here and there
Speaker 2: all over your schedule, and that can be pretty inefficient.
Speaker 2: It's better to save them all up, all these sort
Speaker 2: of not urgent tasks and do them in one fell swoop,
Speaker 2: possibly at a lower energy time, so you know you're
Speaker 2: not constantly filling out permission slips. You're doing permission slips
Speaker 2: on Friday afternoon at one o'clock when you are also
Speaker 2: ordering that birthday party for your niece, answering those three invitations.
Speaker 1: For events from HR.
Speaker 2: You are reordering X, Y, and Z that you need, Sarah,
Speaker 2: you do something like this on your lunch break right.
Speaker 3: Yes, Friday afternoon would not work because I'm already starting
Speaker 3: to see patients at one, But twelve to one is
Speaker 3: actually a good amount of time to get a lot
Speaker 3: of these little things done. I just remembered Kretchen Ruben,
Speaker 3: I think called it a power hour where you just
Speaker 3: like designate a sixty minute period of time to get
Speaker 3: a lot of stuff done, and over the course of
Speaker 3: a week this can add up to a lot. So
Speaker 3: I guess it's not one big batch, but it's still
Speaker 3: better than doing it little one off, ten minute increments randomly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, getting through as much as you can.
Speaker 2: I call it like my Friday punch list, and I
Speaker 2: sort of keep a running list during the week. And
Speaker 2: as these things occur to me, and as I'm tempted
Speaker 2: to be like, oh, I'm gonna stop what I'm doing
Speaker 2: to go go fill out all these permissions up, somebody
Speaker 2: like no, no, no, Laura, there is a time to
Speaker 2: do this.
Speaker 1: Now is not that time.
Speaker 2: You can also automate things. So one way that you
Speaker 2: can lessen your mental load is to not need to
Speaker 2: constantly make decisions. You can make a decision once and
Speaker 2: then roll with it until it needs to change. So
Speaker 2: an example of this is taco Tuesday. Right. You know
Speaker 2: on Tuesday, you always know you are having tacos. You
Speaker 2: don't have to think about it. You don't have to
Speaker 2: plan what's my Tuesday night meal. Everyone expects it. Every
Speaker 2: time somebody goes to the grocery store, they get the
Speaker 2: stuff that you know you're going to be using on
Speaker 2: taco Tuesdays. And that's one less thing anyone has to consider. Sarah,
Speaker 2: you do subscribe and save right as a way to
Speaker 2: automate things.
Speaker 3: Yes, we automate our household goods by using that feature
Speaker 3: from Amazon, and I'm sure other companies have it as well.
Speaker 1: But this is just such an easy way.
Speaker 3: For me to not even you know, I have an
Speaker 3: automatic trigger to ask me do you need paper towels? Essentially,
Speaker 3: and then I just take a couple of minutes and
Speaker 3: then they get automatically shipped to me. Now, I do
Speaker 3: tend to I like to maximize my savings with this
Speaker 3: particular program, which means I keep more subscriptions on there
Speaker 3: than I actually use. So the danger is that if
Speaker 3: you do not answer the call to tell them what
Speaker 3: you need, you will get more things. However, they're all
Speaker 3: things that are non perishable and we use eventually, So
Speaker 3: the worst case scenario is we build up a little
Speaker 3: bit of a stockpile. And the best case scenario is
Speaker 3: that I just get pained gently to decide what we
Speaker 3: need for the household in the given month, and then
Speaker 3: it comes without having to think about it.
Speaker 1: Yay. And then you had a pretty good hack for
Speaker 1: scheduling stuff as well.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean this isn't like automatic, but I've made
Speaker 3: it an automatic to do item for myself, which is
Speaker 3: that any appointment that I leave, I try really hard
Speaker 3: to schedule the next appointment while I'm still there. This
Speaker 3: does mean I bring my physical planner to various appointments
Speaker 3: like my hair appointments, dental, kids, doctors, but it feels
Speaker 3: automatic to me, like, oh, this is just what you
Speaker 3: do at the end, and then hey, it's already booked
Speaker 3: on your calendar when the next time rolls around, and
Speaker 3: it's not a to do item that you have to
Speaker 3: give yourself to do later.
Speaker 1: I love that, Yeah, love it. Love it.
Speaker 2: Another way to lighten your mental load is to embrace
Speaker 2: vertical ownership, meaning that somebody else takes on a task,
Speaker 2: but then they also take it on completely. And the
Speaker 2: reason for this is that if you're still managing exactly
Speaker 2: how things are done, you're not really lightening your mental
Speaker 2: load that much because you're still telling the other person like, Okay,
Speaker 2: now it's your night to go do the dishes, as
Speaker 2: opposed to simply having somebody own a night for cleaning
Speaker 2: the kitchen or whatever it happens to be.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: The one caveat with this, obviously, is if you have
Speaker 2: a family, where for whatever reason, one person sort of
Speaker 2: knows the schedule better than others, which may be what
Speaker 2: is happening in my house. Sometimes it's kind of hard
Speaker 2: even to totally delegate something like make the kids dentist appointments,
Speaker 2: because if the other person does not truly have the
Speaker 2: lay of the land, they may not understand that three
Speaker 2: is a total disaster, but three point thirty is not,
Speaker 2: and would need to come back to you like, oh,
Speaker 2: can I book it at this point? Can I book
Speaker 2: it at this point? Which by that point you're like, well,
Speaker 2: I could be on the phone with tensavas myself doing
Speaker 2: this a lot more quickly. So you might need to
Speaker 2: assign a whole project that isn't as contingent on other things,
Speaker 2: Like you don't need to know everyone's daily schedule to
Speaker 2: book the vacation right to buy all the plane tickets,
Speaker 2: to make the hotel reservations, to figure out if there's
Speaker 2: trips that need to be taken in the middle of it,
Speaker 2: or whatever else needs to do. So that could be
Speaker 2: the kind of thing that you could assign, right Sarah.
Speaker 3: Yes, Or in our case, we have a really not
Speaker 3: my favorite thing to do project that is due monthly
Speaker 3: for anyone who is in the grades through one through three,
Speaker 3: which we happen to have a first grader again at
Speaker 3: our house, and I have no ownership of that. That
Speaker 3: is vertically owned by Josh. And it seems small, but
Speaker 3: like it's a huge mental load relief. And it also is,
Speaker 3: like Laura said, like not very You don't really need
Speaker 3: to have a complete grasp but the whole picture if
Speaker 3: you're just like I'm getting this particular project done. We
Speaker 3: also have Josh to a lot of the gift buying
Speaker 3: for certain holidays, which is a sizeable task, but you're right,
Speaker 3: you also don't need necessarily to understand the whole big
Speaker 3: machine to make that done effectively.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can even split up gift buying too.
Speaker 2: So we have two fall birthdays in our household, and
Speaker 2: my husband took the fifteen year old boy. I took
Speaker 2: the thirteen year old girl. We each just bought whatever
Speaker 2: presence were desired or we thought would be good for
Speaker 2: those people. And that was probably the right way to
Speaker 2: split it, because I'm a little bit more unsure of
Speaker 2: what a fifteen year old boy might find exciting, and
Speaker 2: I think my husband is definitely more unsure of what
Speaker 2: a thirteen year old girl would find exciting.
Speaker 1: So that was a good way to split it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, older kids can take on things somebody who
Speaker 2: works with your household. Maybe you can completely assign something
Speaker 2: to them. But that is certainly a way to get
Speaker 2: some stuff off your plate, as is encouraging kid independence.
Speaker 2: So the more things that your kids can do on
Speaker 2: their own and without your input.
Speaker 1: Obviously, the less stuff you have to deal with.
Speaker 2: So with my older children, I don't want them coming
Speaker 2: to me and be like I need socks. Like that's
Speaker 2: not a good way to approach this conversation. I say, well,
Speaker 2: the better way is that here's a link to the
Speaker 2: socks I want and then I can go purchase them,
Speaker 2: or even better, for those who have shopping cart privileges
Speaker 2: on our Amazon count I've put the socks I want
Speaker 2: in the cart and then I can either go do
Speaker 2: it or I just tell them to order it and
Speaker 2: it's a lot more simple. Sor you quite given people
Speaker 2: access to the purchasing privileges. Yet, yeah, I'm fine to
Speaker 2: get them the card part. Yes, so they do have access,
Speaker 2: and I guess they could hit by, but I tell
Speaker 2: them not to do that.
Speaker 1: Yet I'm not quite ready to relinquish that.
Speaker 3: Plus, I think it'll mess up my budgeting because anyway,
Speaker 3: long story shorts can be hard to track Amazon expenditures,
Speaker 3: as I'm sure is a strategic decision on their part anyway,
Speaker 3: But I'm happy to have them put in their cart.
Speaker 3: That makes it easier and then I can vet it
Speaker 3: and make sure that we want to move forward with
Speaker 3: whatever purchase. I also just think being really clear about
Speaker 3: getting them to do their own thing, for example, in
Speaker 3: the morning, like let's talk about what you need for school,
Speaker 3: because I'm not going to manage it. You need your glasses,
Speaker 3: you need your soccer cles, you need whatever. And just
Speaker 3: making sure to reinforce that so that it's not something
Speaker 3: that continually stays on my list. And then trying to
Speaker 3: hopefully let not be micromanaging school work helps for this
Speaker 3: as well. Now, of course there's a time and a
Speaker 3: place for having to get more involved when things aren't
Speaker 3: going well, but when they are going reasonably well, I
Speaker 3: think this can be one where we give ourselves more
Speaker 3: responsibility than we even need to, and you can lighten
Speaker 3: everyone's mental load to make sure the kids are taking
Speaker 3: ownership of what they should be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't necessarily react all that. Well, when someone
Speaker 2: says to me, like, help me remember my trumpet in
Speaker 2: the morning, I'm like, okay, mommy has a million things
Speaker 2: in her brain. It's more likely that you are going
Speaker 2: to remember it. But what I will do is circling
Speaker 2: back to one of her earlier tips email myself, and
Speaker 2: often I will at least be glancing at emails in
Speaker 2: the morning as people are getting out the door, and
Speaker 2: so there's a reasonable chance that I will have seen it.
Speaker 1: But people can also put instruments like right in front
Speaker 1: of the door.
Speaker 2: That's also a good idea, buy your backpack something else
Speaker 2: that's it's hard to miss it. But yeah, some I
Speaker 2: love when kids do start taking ownership of things. We
Speaker 2: recently had with the Halloween costumes. My fifteen year old
Speaker 2: like started talking about the Halloween Costume'm like, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: I guess I'm gonna have to order something. And they say, well,
Speaker 2: I'm going as a group with my friends. I'm like okay,
Speaker 2: and he said, do we need to get you somebody.
Speaker 2: He's like, well, no, actually, just we're giving money to
Speaker 2: a kid who is ordering it for everyone. I'm like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: and he'd already given him the money, so I was like,
Speaker 2: well that's you know, I really didn't have to do anything,
Speaker 2: so I was very excited about that. Another idea for
Speaker 2: listening the mental lode is don't be cheap. So sometimes
Speaker 2: for things you either pay in time or you pay
Speaker 2: in money. And I know for many of our listeners
Speaker 2: you might be in a stage of life where time
Speaker 2: is more strictly limited than money, so it might be
Speaker 2: worth paying for a more comprehensive solution that means less
Speaker 2: things that you have to keep track of. And where
Speaker 2: we often see this is let's say somebody's kid is
Speaker 2: starting preschool and they have had a full time nanny,
Speaker 2: and they might think, well, my kid's in pre schoo
Speaker 2: for fifteen hours a week, so I should have them
Speaker 2: in preschool for fifteen hours and do a part time
Speaker 2: care solution outside of that. But the problem is when
Speaker 2: things are part time, sometimes people aren't as invested in
Speaker 2: them long term.
Speaker 1: They might not stay around as long.
Speaker 2: They may be doing other things with their life because
Speaker 2: they're only working part time, and so their other job
Speaker 2: winds up taking precedents and they have to stop something
Speaker 2: and it's just or you're keeping track of multiple things
Speaker 2: like oh, well, I can bring them to early care
Speaker 2: and then we have somebody else picking them up as
Speaker 2: then you're managing multiple different things, and then the days
Speaker 2: off that they you know, you have to get coverage for.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, maybe it would have been better off
Speaker 2: keeping the full time and just accepting that some weeks
Speaker 2: you are paying for fifteen hours that you didn't actually need.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're right.
Speaker 3: The mental load costs of managing a whole bunch of
Speaker 3: moving parts versus one general person that you have employed
Speaker 3: full time. It does make a big difference. And that's
Speaker 3: not the reason that we did it. There are many
Speaker 3: reasons that we did it. But we've definitely paid for
Speaker 3: more hours of childcare than we have used for many years,
Speaker 3: really in part because it's just a piece of mind thing,
Speaker 3: and it is a mental load thing, because you know,
Speaker 3: when your kid is sick, I don't have to do
Speaker 3: backflips trying to figure out coverage if I have someone
Speaker 3: that is going to be available because they're actually really
Speaker 3: working those hours, whether they're physically present on a given
Speaker 3: day or not. So I am absolutely for that. We've
Speaker 3: also kind of paid cash for various specialists in different
Speaker 3: fields when it might not be the most cost effective option,
Speaker 3: but it was just the most expeditious option and the
Speaker 3: one that required less legwork on our part, and like
Speaker 3: maybe we got a recommendation. It was just easier to
Speaker 3: go with, let's say a psychiatrist who is not in network,
Speaker 3: but you know, is reasonably affordable and pay cash versus
Speaker 3: go through the many, many steps of figuring out who's
Speaker 3: there and then do they have limited availability and who's
Speaker 3: actually good and going through multiple people, Like at the
Speaker 3: end of the day, I kind of hate that, but
Speaker 3: this is a thing in healthcare, Like we shouldn't have
Speaker 3: multiple tiers of healthcare. And also sometimes you got to
Speaker 3: do what you've got to do, and so this has
Speaker 3: been what's worked for us for certain things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean in your professional life too.
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously, if you work for a corporation, you
Speaker 2: sort of have the support team that you have or
Speaker 2: don't have. But if you're more on your own, more entrepreneurial,
Speaker 2: you don't even have to hire like a full time assistant,
Speaker 2: but having a virtual assistant for a few hours a
Speaker 2: week might be something that could reduce some of your
Speaker 2: mental load. Now, obviously you have to handle this well
Speaker 2: because if it was going to just be more mental
Speaker 2: load for you in order to manage the person, then
Speaker 2: that might not be worth it. But ideally you will
Speaker 2: come up with a situation where there's at least some
Speaker 2: frontloading of training the person, and then your life becomes
Speaker 2: easier afterwards.
Speaker 3: I'm always like wondering what I would do with such
Speaker 3: a person. What does your person do?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: A lot of different things I mean related to like
Speaker 2: formatting newsletters and doing SEO on the website and some
Speaker 2: of the social media posts and.
Speaker 1: Things like that.
Speaker 2: So I'm pretty sure you could come up with something
Speaker 2: if you wanted to, Sarah, but we could discuss.
Speaker 3: You're probably right, and we also do kind of do
Speaker 3: that with the podcast.
Speaker 1: That's with the podcast.
Speaker 3: We don't do the audio processing or really any of
Speaker 3: the tech parts of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, none whatsoever.
Speaker 2: We're going to take one more quick ad break and
Speaker 2: then we'll be back with a little bit more on
Speaker 2: listening your mental load. Well, we are back talking how
Speaker 2: to reduce your mental load. To lighten your mental load,
Speaker 2: as it were, the biggest way I think in many
Speaker 2: cases to have less on your brain is simply to
Speaker 2: care less, because the more things that you require to
Speaker 2: be a certain way, the more things you're going to
Speaker 2: have to think about. And obviously there are many things
Speaker 2: that are hard to get out of. There are some
Speaker 2: things we do even if they are hard, because they
Speaker 2: matter for closely held values. But I think it's important
Speaker 2: to ask, when you're thinking a lot about something, does
Speaker 2: it fall in that category or does it not.
Speaker 1: So, for instance, I don't.
Speaker 2: Keep track of screen time tallies for my kids, like
Speaker 2: I don't have some elaborate system for figuring out how
Speaker 2: many hours they're doing X, Y and z, or if
Speaker 2: they've played too many games, or if they've been on
Speaker 2: YouTube too much or whatever. We just set certain hours
Speaker 2: that they cannot have their devices and keep them pretty
Speaker 2: busy and let the chips fall where they may.
Speaker 1: So that's a topic I'm not really thinking about all
Speaker 1: that much.
Speaker 2: I don't want to think about who's made their beds
Speaker 2: on any given day. If they're doing that, you know
Speaker 2: they have to clean up their rooms before the floors
Speaker 2: get vacuumed every two weeks.
Speaker 1: But other than that, I'm just not going around looking
Speaker 1: into it. You mean, there's no ten pm inspection with
Speaker 1: a white glove at your house, Sarah, There is no
Speaker 1: ten pm home inspection.
Speaker 2: I would like to point out for everyone who has
Speaker 2: trouble like relaxing when their home is a mess, like
Speaker 2: there's no eleven pm home inspection at your house either,
Speaker 2: Like nobody is coming around to give you demerits if
Speaker 2: there are toys on the floor, if there are still
Speaker 2: papers on the counter. I like a clean house as
Speaker 2: much as everyone, but I think you just want to
Speaker 2: be careful about putting a lot of time and effort
Speaker 2: into repeatedly getting it reset at a certain time, because
Speaker 2: then that can mean you never have time to relax.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, this was last weekend. Our house was
Speaker 3: We had just come back from a soccer tournament. Everything
Speaker 3: was everywhere. People had various suitcases, and I was like,
Speaker 3: I'm taking a.
Speaker 1: Nap, and I did well.
Speaker 3: The house was messy, and you know what, I woke
Speaker 3: up with more energy to clean it up. If I
Speaker 3: had been like, I can't rest until this is done,
Speaker 3: I might have been on a puddle on the floor crying,
Speaker 3: which I feel like I have put myself in that
Speaker 3: position before, But now I've learned to just be like,
Speaker 3: that mess will still be there, the kids can play
Speaker 3: some games, and I'm going to sleep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And there are all sorts of things you've
Speaker 2: just decided to care less about.
Speaker 1: I mean home decor. Yeah, I mean definitely.
Speaker 3: If you come to our house, you will know that
Speaker 3: home decor does not take up much of our time.
Speaker 3: We don't replace things unless they are like not usable.
Speaker 3: Like we did have a couch a futon that had
Speaker 3: a few too many children jump on it and at
Speaker 3: some point it basically was like not sitable on but
Speaker 3: like even then, we actually haven't even replaced it yet.
Speaker 3: We're like, eh, do we need to sit in that area?
Speaker 1: Eventually we will, but it will.
Speaker 3: Batch it with a bunch of others and just like
Speaker 3: rebuy the same like Ikia stuff. It's just like we
Speaker 3: keep it very easy because we don't have strong values
Speaker 3: about that. And would you know again, you're always making
Speaker 3: choices and we just are choosing other stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't want to put the effort into it,
Speaker 1: which is good.
Speaker 2: So the more things you can care less about, the
Speaker 2: light and lighter your mental load will be. And I
Speaker 2: think sort of as a wrap up to this concept,
Speaker 2: you also want to pay attention to when there is
Speaker 2: less to think about, because I think we can come
Speaker 2: up with the story that you know, I've got all
Speaker 2: these details all the time ahead of spending all the time,
Speaker 2: I get no time to relax whatever. And some weeks
Speaker 2: may have a seemingly overwhelming number of details, but others
Speaker 2: might have less. I know, I was well aware last summer,
Speaker 2: like I always make a weekly schedule on Fridays for
Speaker 2: the upcoming week, and some of them during the week
Speaker 2: are these like multi page documents by the time we're
Speaker 2: figuring out where everyone is going and the rides and
Speaker 2: all that. But then summer it would be like, well,
Speaker 2: we only have three kids at home and these two
Speaker 2: are in camp, and that's all it is. Like they
Speaker 2: go to camp in the morning, they come home in
Speaker 2: the afternoon, camp in the morning, the next day, home
Speaker 2: in the afternoon. Like I don't even have to print
Speaker 2: this up, I don't have to send it around, Like
Speaker 2: we can all keep that in our heads basically, you know,
Speaker 2: And so just appreciate when that is happening that the
Speaker 2: seasons are very different, definitely.
Speaker 3: Like being aware when there are it's never going to
Speaker 3: be like a completely clear calendar, but when you have
Speaker 3: weeks without anomalies and conflicts and that kind of stuff,
Speaker 3: it can make sense to notice it and be like,
Speaker 3: all right, we're sailing in calmer waters right now, and
Speaker 3: I do love summers for that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't love summers, but I love that
Speaker 1: about summers, or.
Speaker 2: Just taking a chill vacation right where you're not managing
Speaker 2: a ton of mental load for that either.
Speaker 3: I do not manage a lot of mental load on vacation,
Speaker 3: and I prefer it that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So there's different kinds of vacations. They're the
Speaker 2: one where you go somewhere and just chill. There's others
Speaker 2: where you're trying to see all of a country in
Speaker 2: a week, which you know there's going to be more
Speaker 2: mental load with that.
Speaker 1: But maybe in a life you kind of have both,
Speaker 1: all right.
Speaker 2: So moving on to our question, this listener writes in, Hi,
Speaker 2: Laura and Sarah, I love kids.
Speaker 1: I also love my income.
Speaker 2: Based on what you've seen, what are the best six
Speaker 2: figure jobs for parents who want the flexibility to attend
Speaker 2: kids school events? And so we don't really know whatever
Speaker 2: life stage this particular listener may be in if they
Speaker 2: have kids, if they don't have kids, But we were
Speaker 2: sort of approaching this question from the perspective of if
Speaker 2: you are younger and you're kind of planning out your life,
Speaker 2: so not forty five and needing to switch careers. What
Speaker 2: sorts of jobs might you be looking into if you
Speaker 2: were interested in trying to earn a lot and also
Speaker 2: having a reasonable amount of flexibility. And I think we
Speaker 2: both realized this is a trickier question then, and trick.
Speaker 3: Your question, And please don't be mad at us for
Speaker 3: the question itself, because I think there were people that
Speaker 3: were like, how could anyone like ask something like that
Speaker 3: and it's not so entitled or something like that, and.
Speaker 2: Like, well, we posted on our Patreon community, we posted
Speaker 2: this question to get other people's feedback, like I don't know,
Speaker 2: maybe there's some magical job where you earn a lot
Speaker 2: of money and have complete flexibility and we just don't
Speaker 2: know about it.
Speaker 1: So we wanted a better answer to crowdstarce that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, some people are like, well, you shouldn't be
Speaker 2: looking for flexibility and optimizing that early in your career,
Speaker 2: Like if you are twenty four years old, just out
Speaker 2: of school, you don't have anyone depending on you for
Speaker 2: care then you might be better off emphasizing where can
Speaker 2: I learn a lot of skills?
Speaker 1: Where can I grow my network.
Speaker 2: How can I move quickly up and get more seniority,
Speaker 2: Because when you build that career capital, then you can
Speaker 2: trade that in later for flexibility when you do have
Speaker 2: people depending on you, and it might be more needed.
Speaker 2: But you know, I think people have different opinions on that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what am I good at? What do I enjoy?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 3: At the end of the day, can I be successful
Speaker 3: at cultivating that career capital.
Speaker 1: I think that's the best question to ask.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think in many fields there's some flexibility available.
Speaker 3: It might come in different forms. You can do more
Speaker 3: shift like work, but that still isn't going to necessarily
Speaker 3: give you, like in the moment flexibility. Like if you're
Speaker 3: an er doctor and you decide to work sixty percent times,
Speaker 3: you're going to be super flexible sometimes, but you're still
Speaker 3: going to be totally inflexible on other times. And actually,
Speaker 3: I was doing some reflection when we were talking about
Speaker 3: this question, and I don't feel very flexible, even in
Speaker 3: my quote flexible job. Like I somehow had this vision
Speaker 3: that when I was working more entrepreneurially and for myself
Speaker 3: and podcasting doing all the stuff, that I'd have this
Speaker 3: very freely flowing calendar, and I would just get my
Speaker 3: task done. And yet it seems like especially maybe yes
Speaker 3: I have freedom like six months out, but that's true
Speaker 3: my clinical job too. I can move days or take
Speaker 3: time off, but if you look like a week or
Speaker 3: two ahead, I can't just imprompt you throw some all
Speaker 3: day school field trip on there. Like I got interview schedule,
Speaker 3: I got this duet, I got beslie plans live Like,
Speaker 3: the more you do something, and probably the more successful
Speaker 3: you are at it, the more your calendar is going
Speaker 3: to be crowded with like obligations related to it, probably
Speaker 3: no matter what that thing is.
Speaker 1: Think about Taylor Swift, she's busy. I mean she calls
Speaker 1: the shots.
Speaker 2: But yes, once she's decided to do something, she's not
Speaker 2: going to just randomly not do the Miami concert because
Speaker 2: you know, it was a nice day.
Speaker 1: She felt like doing other things exactly.
Speaker 3: So I think flexibility is really complicated.
Speaker 1: Well, it's so because what do we mean?
Speaker 2: Do we mean that if you found out two days
Speaker 2: from now that your kid was having a party a
Speaker 2: special person's tea at their school at eleven am, would
Speaker 2: you be able to go? And I think some jobs
Speaker 2: the answer is absolutely not. You wouldn't be able to
Speaker 2: some jobs you probably would, but maybe not. I mean
Speaker 2: there's a few jobs we're totally sure whatever, But once
Speaker 2: you have kind of anything on the schedule, it becomes
Speaker 2: a little bit more complicated with stuff like that. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think of what I do as being very flexible,
Speaker 2: and it is on some level. But if I agreed
Speaker 2: to fly to Florida to give a speech, I'm not
Speaker 2: going to not do that just because there was an
Speaker 2: event at the school, because that's something I've committed to doing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: or even I mean, like you were talking about, you know,
Speaker 2: things like medicine. I mean, medicine is a high plaid
Speaker 2: profession and that you can have some flexibility. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of people who do work part time in it,
Speaker 2: but part time is not the same as flexibility, right
Speaker 2: because part time, you know, if you always are seeing
Speaker 2: patients on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, you can't suddenly decide two
Speaker 2: days before to not work Wednesday. I mean it would
Speaker 2: need to be a like you're deathly ill for you
Speaker 2: to cancel all those patients.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's a tricky question.
Speaker 2: But I mean I don't think there's anything wrong with
Speaker 2: like hoping to have a high paid job. I mean, certainly,
Speaker 2: maybe the way to go about this is to aim
Speaker 2: for a high paid job and then be really good
Speaker 2: at it and turn that into flexibility. And we've seen,
Speaker 2: we've talked to people who've done that. I mean, we
Speaker 2: know our previous guests you've talked about this. Sarah Laura
Speaker 2: May Martin.
Speaker 3: She is a Google executive who also is an author
Speaker 3: and has a lot of passionate feelings about various time
Speaker 3: management things. But when we interviewed her for this show,
Speaker 3: was really remarkable to hear how she had really crafted
Speaker 3: her day. And I think it was her level of
Speaker 3: seniority and her kind of like specialist niche that she
Speaker 3: had carved for herself within the company that allowed her
Speaker 3: to call a lot of the shots, and she like
Speaker 3: had lunch with her kids every day, and you know,
Speaker 3: all these things that she seemed to want. So it's
Speaker 3: sort of generic, but it's like, be really really good
Speaker 3: at what you do so that you can then leverage
Speaker 3: that for the things that you want specifics in your career.
Speaker 3: And you know there's going to be careers where that's
Speaker 3: less likely to happen. I mean, like I don't know,
Speaker 3: like even just thinking about like a CT surgeon that's
Speaker 3: at the top of his game is still probably going
Speaker 3: to be doing surgeries most days, so he's not going
Speaker 3: to be able to have lunch with the kids, or
Speaker 3: she's not going to be able to have lunch with
Speaker 3: the kids, most likely if you're doing a surgery that's
Speaker 3: super long.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: So there are probably careers that are more likely to
Speaker 3: have that kind of thing than others.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but an interesting question if people have feelings about that.
Speaker 2: Let us know what you would recommend. If somebody was
Speaker 2: looking to earn a lot of money and have some flexibility,
Speaker 2: what would you tell them to go into and just
Speaker 2: be like the graduate plastics, go into plastics, that's what
Speaker 2: you need.
Speaker 3: Except don't because the same thing I think they.
Speaker 1: Don't go there plastics summer er.
Speaker 2: I don't know, all right, So Sarah, love of the Week,
Speaker 2: I will go with mine new nice notebooks. I like
Speaker 2: spiral bound. I like the cover to be hard, I
Speaker 2: like them to be narrow ruled. I have all these specifications,
Speaker 2: but the problem is once I buy them, I often
Speaker 2: don't want to write in them. Like they look so
Speaker 2: nice and neat and perfect. I don't want to sully
Speaker 2: them with my half baked thoughts, although one way I've
Speaker 2: gotten around this is just by enough of them that
Speaker 2: I feel such a sense of abundance that I can
Speaker 2: leave a few untouched and write in some. And you know,
Speaker 2: at this point, I would say that my supply of
Speaker 2: little notebooks for capturing my great thoughts exceeds my supply
Speaker 2: of actual great thoughts.
Speaker 1: So that's probably a good place to be in. But
Speaker 1: I do like my notebooks. Yes, you should not be
Speaker 1: afraid to use them, use them with glee, Glee, VIM
Speaker 1: and vigor exactly. Yes.
Speaker 3: My love of the week is ordering concert merch online. Okay,
Speaker 3: so second tailor, so with reference of the show. But
Speaker 3: I did just recently go and it was amazing and
Speaker 3: I did not wait in the like three hour long
Speaker 3: merch line, and it was great and I was able
Speaker 3: to get everything I wanted anyway and it already came.
Speaker 3: And just like I think, if you're at a concert
Speaker 3: and you see a very very long line, check out
Speaker 3: whether you could just get the same things shipped to
Speaker 3: your house with much less effort in waiting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think in general waiting in line and think
Speaker 2: how bad that would be to miss part of the
Speaker 2: actual concert because you are waiting in the merch line.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I just feel like that would be
Speaker 2: totally backward of how the experience should go, because you know,
Speaker 2: totally I mean, I realized it's a way to remember
Speaker 2: the experience, but you want to have the actual experience
Speaker 2: itself in order to remember it.
Speaker 1: You know, just a little thing.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, this has been best of both worlds.
Speaker 2: We have been talking about how to lighten your mental load.
Speaker 2: Lots of different strategies we can use to make life
Speaker 2: feel a little bit more calm. We will be back
Speaker 2: next week with more on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3: You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com
Speaker 3: or at the Underscore shoe Box on Instagram, and you.
Speaker 2: Can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This
Speaker 2: has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join
Speaker 2: us next time for more on making work and life
Speaker 2: work together.