WEBVTT - How to lighten the mental load, with Allison Daminger 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:08.000 Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning. 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:13.880 This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:16.200 episode is going to be a longer one part of 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:18.880 the series where I interview fascinating people about how they 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:21.759 take their days from great to awesome and any advice 0:00:21.800 --> 0:00:24.360 they have for the rest of us. So today, I'm 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:27.280 delighted to welcome Alison Damager to the Before Breakfast. She 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:31.560 is a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin Madison. 0:00:31.880 --> 0:00:34.479 She's also the author of the brand new book What's 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:37.159 on Her Mind, which is about the mental load of 0:00:37.200 --> 0:00:40.080 family life. So Allison, welcome to the show. 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:41.879 Thanks for having me, Laura, it's great to be with you. 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:44.440 Yeah, excited to have you. So why don't you introduce 0:00:44.479 --> 0:00:45.519 yourself to our listeners? 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:50.360 Absolutely so, As Laura said, I am a sociologist by 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:54.560 training and profession, and I study how gender shows up 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:57.440 in family life. So most of my work so far 0:00:57.560 --> 0:01:01.560 has looked at what that means for both different gender 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:04.360 and same gender couples. How do they divide up the 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:08.840 work that goes into keeping a household running, keeping children 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:13.080 alive and reasonably happy, And in particular focus on the 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:15.360 cognitive or mental aspects of that work. 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:17.720 Yeah, how would you define mental load? 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:22.520 So I think it's easiest to start with what it's not. 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:26.360 When we talk about housework, usually what people have in 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:30.600 mind is I'm washing the dishes, I am cooking a meal, 0:01:30.760 --> 0:01:34.800 I am driving someone somewhere. And what I have tried 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:37.840 to show is that we also have to think about 0:01:38.080 --> 0:01:41.640 what's going on in people's minds, what decisions are they making, 0:01:42.240 --> 0:01:44.959 what problems are they travel shooting? And so I think 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:47.800 about cognitive labor as sort of the work behind the 0:01:47.840 --> 0:01:51.480 scenes that makes everything else possible. It's scanning the horizon 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:57.120 for potential problems or opportunities or upcoming issues, doing research 0:01:57.160 --> 0:02:00.160 to figure out how to handle those, making decisions, and 0:02:00.200 --> 0:02:02.640 then following up to make sure all of that happened 0:02:02.640 --> 0:02:03.560 as you expected it to. 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:06.080 And what drew you to this topic. 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:11.520 I went into grad school intending to study something completely different, 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:15.640 and then in my first year classes I kept really 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:18.880 feeling fired up by the readings I was assigned that 0:02:19.000 --> 0:02:23.160 talked about gender and equality in households, and I had 0:02:23.160 --> 0:02:27.760 that sort of classic awakening moment where I realized that, oh, 0:02:27.840 --> 0:02:31.079 these are not issues that were dealt with entirely by 0:02:31.080 --> 0:02:34.800 prior generations. This is something that is still very much ongoing. 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:39.480 And I also thought that, you know, most of the 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:43.120 studies that I'm reading really focus on how people are 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:47.840 using their time, and there's important, right I'm talking to you, Laura, 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:51.360 who's of course the expert on this, But I think 0:02:51.560 --> 0:02:56.960 so much of what households need is hard to capture 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:59.760 with a staff watch. It's all of the things that 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:03.960 we know can be really taxing about making decisions in particular, 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:08.760 and I couldn't find work that really rigorously measured that 0:03:09.280 --> 0:03:13.040 thinking labor and captured you know, how it was divided 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:16.000 between men and women in households, and so I set 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:18.880 out to create an interview study where I could figure 0:03:18.880 --> 0:03:19.160 it out. 0:03:20.120 --> 0:03:22.680 Yeah, well, that's an interesting question because if you're trying 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:25.040 to ascertain how people are spending their time, I mean, 0:03:25.040 --> 0:03:27.840 there's sort of relatively well established ways of doing this. 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:30.680 I mean something like the American time you survey asking 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:32.760 people what they were doing over the course of twenty 0:03:32.760 --> 0:03:36.600 four hours, for instance, or people send out stop watches 0:03:36.760 --> 0:03:39.920 and say, you know, okay, every time this time, you know, 0:03:39.960 --> 0:03:41.520 what are you doing? Right down in a journal? What 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:44.840 you're doing and we'll record it that way. I know 0:03:44.920 --> 0:03:49.080 you've thought about this. How does one measure what people 0:03:49.200 --> 0:03:54.880 are thinking about and sort of the you know, stress 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:58.640 or ease associated with what they're thinking about. I mean, 0:03:58.680 --> 0:04:00.360 I could be thinking about what's for life lunch, but 0:04:00.400 --> 0:04:02.960 it doesn't really stress me out that much. So it's 0:04:03.040 --> 0:04:05.840 a different matter of that versus you know, how is 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:08.400 this kindergarten teacher going to be this year? So how 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.400 does one or any ideas you've come up with for 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:12.200 how to measure that. 0:04:12.640 --> 0:04:15.080 So one thing that some people have tried is what's 0:04:15.120 --> 0:04:18.920 called the experienced sampling method. In the old days, this 0:04:18.960 --> 0:04:21.920 would be a pager, you know. Nowadays it'd be a 0:04:21.960 --> 0:04:26.839 text notification where you randomly check in with people throughout 0:04:26.839 --> 0:04:29.080 the day and say, what are you doing and what 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:31.240 are you thinking about? And how are you feeling about 0:04:31.240 --> 0:04:34.400 those things? So that's one approach some people have taken. 0:04:34.640 --> 0:04:41.200 I think the downside with that is it's hard to 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:46.040 capture the complexities of thought. Often I'm thinking about, you know, 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:48.880 ten things over the course of a five minute period, 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:51.559 and I probably wouldn't write all of those things down. 0:04:52.720 --> 0:04:55.440 Another thing that people have tried to do is to 0:04:57.080 --> 0:05:00.359 put together a list of common areas of life that 0:05:00.400 --> 0:05:03.240 someone might be thinking about and say, within the last 0:05:03.920 --> 0:05:07.400 X hours or days, have you thought about this? What 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:10.960 I did, because I was doing a smaller sample study 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:13.360 with you know, a couple hundred people, I had this 0:05:13.440 --> 0:05:17.720 really painstaking approach where I asked people to do a 0:05:17.720 --> 0:05:21.800 modified version of a timelog, but rather than tracking their 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:24.680 time and activities, I asked them to track their decisions. 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:29.839 Because my thinking was usually we know when some sort 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.640 of decision outcome has been reached, and then when I 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:34.400 met with them in the interview, I would have them 0:05:34.560 --> 0:05:38.000 work backwards and say, oh, you decided to sign your 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:41.800 child up for this camp? How did you start thinking 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:44.480 about this right? What other options did you consider? Did 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:46.320 you talk to your partner about it? And so on? 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:48.440 And so then I would take what they told me 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:51.360 in the interview and put together a picture of who 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:53.240 was doing what in their household. 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:57.120 And I know you found that there was certainly a 0:05:58.080 --> 0:06:00.480 gendered aspect to this. I'm sure are life listeners are 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:04.120 not surprised to hear that in at least many heterosexual 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:08.720 couples that wound up being more women who were likely 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:13.359 to do it but with that, many of your people 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:17.000 that you were interviewed didn't have that as the explanation. 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:19.159 They weren't just like, well, yes, she does it because 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:21.839 she's the mom or something like that. They had other 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:26.400 reasons they gave you as modern enlightened people. Right, This 0:06:26.480 --> 0:06:26.720 is the. 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:29.640 Part that I found most interesting and in a little 0:06:29.640 --> 0:06:32.600 bit surprising. So you're absolutely right that most of the 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.680 people I talked to, many of them were college educated 0:06:35.760 --> 0:06:39.680 living in big cities, the kinds of people who research 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:43.240 would suggest are likely to have more egalitarian beliefs. So 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:45.919 they didn't tell me, oh, she does most of this 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:48.440 thinking work because she's a woman and that's her job. 0:06:48.920 --> 0:06:51.839 They told me she does most of this because she's typing. 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:56.960 She is just such an organized person. She plans ten 0:06:57.000 --> 0:07:00.760 steps ahead. She's just on top of everything. She's supermum. 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:04.560 And they wouldn't tell me, oh, he leaves all the 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:07.160 thinking work to his wife because he's a man and 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:09.640 it's not a man's job. They would say, he's just 0:07:09.680 --> 0:07:12.680 so laid back, he goes with the flow. He is 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:15.320 just in the moment and kind of taking things as 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:18.640 they come. But what I was able to show was, Okay, 0:07:18.680 --> 0:07:21.880 I don't think that I accidentally discovered a cluster of 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:25.160 Type A women. I think what was happening was people 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:30.720 were taking gender stereotypes and gender roles and sort of 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:32.920 switching the language a little bit to make it seem 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:37.120 like it was about their individual personalities. Because that's you know, 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:39.800 as you said, modern lane people, we don't necessarily want 0:07:39.920 --> 0:07:43.480 to think of ourselves as falling into traditional roles, and 0:07:43.520 --> 0:07:46.760 so it's much easier and a way to prevent conflict 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:49.840 to say, you know what, it's just our personalities. But 0:07:50.040 --> 0:07:51.360 I think gender has a lot to do with it. 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:53.280 Yeah, I was gonna say, because then when you looked 0:07:53.320 --> 0:07:58.239 at LGBT couples, it it didn't. I mean, it wasn't 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:01.240 quite like you weren't suddenly having two women in a 0:08:01.240 --> 0:08:05.520 couple both being Type A about it necessarily exactly. 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:09.280 So, there are a number of couples who, especially with 0:08:09.360 --> 0:08:15.360 the LGBTQ couples, they didn't necessarily divide this work fifty 0:08:15.360 --> 0:08:20.160 to fifty. But they also didn't fall into this very 0:08:20.920 --> 0:08:25.080 clear role where one person is the main thinker in 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:27.200 all aspects of life and the other person is more 0:08:27.280 --> 0:08:30.160 laid back. It was much more mix and match, where Okay, 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:33.600 Partner one does most of the thinking work related to 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:36.600 food and shopping and home maintenance, and partner too does 0:08:36.640 --> 0:08:39.200 most of the thinking related to the kids and travel 0:08:39.240 --> 0:08:41.679 and things like that. So they mixed and matched in 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:46.479 a way that didn't map onto any particular gender stereotype, 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:49.160 which alerted me to, Okay, I think there's a gender 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:51.560 thing going on here for the street couples. 0:08:51.840 --> 0:08:54.360 Yeah. Absolutely, Well, we're going to take a quick ad 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:56.280 break and then we'll be back talking about more of 0:08:56.320 --> 0:08:59.280 the practical side of this, how various people can sort 0:08:59.320 --> 0:09:08.959 of change them of mental load that they are carrying. Well, 0:09:08.960 --> 0:09:12.319 I am back talking with Professor Allison Damager, who's at 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:15.640 the University of Wisconsin. She is the author of the 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:18.680 brand new book What's on Her Mind about Mental Load 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:20.720 and Family Life. So we've been talking a little bit 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:22.880 about her research and how one figures out how much 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:26.400 mental load people are carrying and the gendered aspects of that. 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:29.280 But you know, this is a very practical show. The 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:31.319 gender stuff is fascinating, but we want to talk more 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:34.800 about practical Somebody listening to this feeling like I am 0:09:34.840 --> 0:09:37.120 feeling overwhelmed. I have a lot of mental load that 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:39.440 I am carrying and planning stuff all the time, keeping 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:44.679 track of all the calendar. How what are some practical 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:49.920 ways that they can go about carrying less? And maybe 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:52.360 that's not always just getting the other person to carry more. 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:54.440 I mean, there might be many ways to approach that. 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:58.000 You're absolutely right. I think there are at least a 0:09:58.000 --> 0:10:01.680 couple pathways. So I'm imagine it could be someone of 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:03.920 any gender, but let's imagine it's you know, the more 0:10:03.920 --> 0:10:06.440 common Okay, it's a woman carrying more of this work 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:11.120 for her family. Her two main options are to get 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:14.240 someone else in her family to take on that work, 0:10:14.360 --> 0:10:17.199 or someone beyond her family, right. I know folks who 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:20.880 have household managers and others who they pay to share 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:24.040 the load in this way with them. Number two would 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:28.720 be find ways to just take more things off the 0:10:28.720 --> 0:10:31.960 family's collective plate, right, so that no one has to 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:35.240 work up on this sort of thing. Now, if you 0:10:35.280 --> 0:10:39.199 want to go with path number one, reallocation, I think 0:10:39.240 --> 0:10:42.400 step one has to be making what you are currently 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:47.920 doing visible. Oftentimes in households, one partner who's doing this 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:52.319 work is feeling burdened by it, but their spouse either 0:10:52.360 --> 0:10:55.240 doesn't know all that they're holding, or it only comes 0:10:55.320 --> 0:10:58.360 up in times of conflict, right when we're fighting about oh, 0:10:58.400 --> 0:11:01.079 I'm stressed and you're not doing enough. It doesn't necessarily 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:03.560 happen where we sit down and have a really strategic 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:06.480 discussion about here are all the things I'm holding, what 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:09.400 are you holding? How can we think about this? What 0:11:09.520 --> 0:11:14.160 I find most commonly in couples is that they've sort 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:19.920 of slid into particular patterns. Oftentimes that is coming from 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:22.120 you know, what did their parents do, what have they 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:25.880 seen modeled around them? All sorts of factors that sort 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:28.480 of make it the path of least resistance for many 0:11:28.520 --> 0:11:31.199 couples to fall into a she does most of the 0:11:31.480 --> 0:11:34.079 planning and life management and he does less of it. 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:37.040 So what I first say is, you want to decide 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:41.760 not default, make a conscious decision about what are we 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:45.000 aiming for as a couple, as a family. Are we 0:11:45.080 --> 0:11:49.959 okay with the current imbalance? Presumably you know, if they're 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:52.280 asking this question, at least one partner is not okay 0:11:52.320 --> 0:11:55.240 with it, So then the question becomes, okay, what would 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:59.760 be more realistic given our current constraints. I don't think 0:11:59.760 --> 0:12:03.600 it's realistic for people to go from eighty twenty to 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.640 fifty to fifty overnight. There are many households for various 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:09.719 reasons where that just would not be the ideal, and 0:12:09.760 --> 0:12:12.319 so I think it's important for both partners to agree 0:12:12.320 --> 0:12:14.920 on what are we aiming for, what's important to us, 0:12:15.440 --> 0:12:18.360 and then to think about, Okay, how can we close 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:20.800 the gap between where we are and where we want. 0:12:20.679 --> 0:12:21.840 To be now? 0:12:21.840 --> 0:12:25.120 There are some approaches that, you know, suggest sort of 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:29.920 a complete overhaul of who's doing what. My personal suggestion 0:12:30.040 --> 0:12:34.079 is to start small, pick the low hanging fruit. And 0:12:34.280 --> 0:12:37.720 what I have seen is that for a lot of reasons, 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:41.280 the low hanging fruit is not the kid's birthday party, 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:45.280 or interacting with the teachers at school, or planning the 0:12:45.280 --> 0:12:48.680 family gatherings. The low hanging fruit for most families tends 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:51.719 to be more internal to the household. Right what are 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:54.560 we eating for dinner? How often are we cleaning things 0:12:54.600 --> 0:13:00.200 and repairing things? Stuff that has lower stakes for doing 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:04.479 differently or not being done in the exact same timeframe. 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:07.640 So I recommend picking a place where the person who's 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:11.480 the primary cognitive labor doesn't have super strong feelings. They 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:13.839 want it to get done, but they don't necessarily care 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.559 that it be done. In a particular way. And then 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:19.319 the crucial part is you've got to have some patience. 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:23.760 Most of this stuff is a set of skills that 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:27.040 gets built up over time, and it's not reasonable to 0:13:27.120 --> 0:13:29.920 expect that the minute you say, okay, we're switching and 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:32.440 now person two is in charge of this, that they're 0:13:32.480 --> 0:13:34.880 going to do it exactly right. So that's why I 0:13:34.920 --> 0:13:37.880 think picking something that's a little bit lower stakes gives 0:13:37.920 --> 0:13:40.240 you a bit of wiggle room when there's some inevitable 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:41.920 hiccups along the way. 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:44.920 Yeah, oh, that's funny because the skills, I mean, you 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:47.439 mentioned it's skills, but the idea of scanning their horizon, 0:13:47.880 --> 0:13:52.040 seeing a problem or an opportunity and taking action toward 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:56.640 it is not I mean domestic. That's what people do 0:13:56.679 --> 0:13:59.600 at work all the time. So it's not that people 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:02.360 don't don't have those skills regardless of their gender, it's 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:05.199 that they're usually not used to applying them in this 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:06.240 particular context. 0:14:06.320 --> 0:14:08.800 Correct. And so that's another piece of advice that I 0:14:08.840 --> 0:14:11.880 often give to people, where you know, couples who feel 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:13.920 like I'm just not he's just not good at this, 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:17.360 or she's just not good at this. I recommend looking 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:22.040 at what you do or have done professionally as a 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:25.920 sort of a proven ground, right, most professions require some 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:29.280 level of as you say, it's getting the horizon, planning ahead, 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:32.880 being strategic, and so asking well, how have you done 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:35.840 that in your hobbies or in your paid work or 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:39.520 in school, and then what skills might you transfer? Because 0:14:39.520 --> 0:14:42.040 you're exactly right that I think it's not that these 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:46.240 skills aren't there, it's just they have not historically been 0:14:46.280 --> 0:14:48.920 deployed in this particular context. 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:52.600 And what about the option of kind of caring less. 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:55.000 I mean, you said, look at the low hanging fruit, 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:59.080 but it's possible when you sort of identify low hanging fruit. 0:14:59.080 --> 0:15:00.920 And some people aren't part too. I mean, it's not 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:03.200 there's there's somebody else that they can delegate this too. 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:04.880 If they need to reduce the mental loads, some of 0:15:04.960 --> 0:15:08.680 it's going to have to come from not doing things. 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:10.680 I mean, is that reasonable? 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:14.680 So I think it is very reasonable. I do want 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:19.640 to be realistic that women especially are held accountable for 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:23.120 a lot of domestic outcomes. And so while I would 0:15:23.160 --> 0:15:25.600 be the first to say I don't think it matters 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:28.160 if your child is matching, you know, at school, I 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:30.400 don't think it necessarily matters that you've got to thank 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:34.280 you card out within six months of the event. But 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:36.840 you have to decide whether you're okay with the potential 0:15:36.920 --> 0:15:40.920 social consequences of not doing these things in this particular way. 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:45.080 If you are, then great, absolutely drop it, let it go, 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:50.080 or find a less time intensive or mental energy intensive 0:15:50.160 --> 0:15:54.120 way to perform the same function of say, acknowledging that 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:56.920 you received a gift, maybe as a text that's in 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:00.240 a picture or something like that. Right, they're often less 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:03.760 labor intensive ways to achieve the same aims. 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:08.040 Yes, absolutely, And with this even if people don't wind 0:16:08.120 --> 0:16:11.480 up shifting how the mental load gets allocated. You mentioned 0:16:11.600 --> 0:16:15.400 something that I read in the book that appreciation helps 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:17.720 a lot. That some of this labor is just invisible, 0:16:17.800 --> 0:16:20.680 like nobody even knows that it happened. You know, you 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:22.600 come to your partner with like a list of your 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:25.880 top two camps. Your partner is like, yeah, that looks 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:27.240 like I like this one. You're like, yeah, I like 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:29.000 that one too, and they don't know that there were 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:33.000 ten other camps that were examined and discarded before we 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:38.120 got to the final two. But making just making sure 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:42.600 it's visible and then the other person. Expressing appreciation can 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:43.160 go a long. 0:16:43.040 --> 0:16:46.160 Way, absolutely So. One thing that my partner and I 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:49.800 have have done inconsistently, but when we do it it's great, 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:54.400 is at night we say one thing that we appreciated 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:58.600 the other person having done that day. And what often that's, 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:02.720 you know, work for our household. What that does is 0:17:02.760 --> 0:17:05.760 sort of signal, hey, I saw that you were doing this. 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:07.920 I saw that you were working hard on this thing. 0:17:08.880 --> 0:17:13.560 Sometimes we also share, hey, here's all the work that 0:17:13.600 --> 0:17:16.760 went into planning this trip. Just that you know, right, 0:17:16.800 --> 0:17:18.639 and the other person knows, oh, that's a signal that 0:17:18.680 --> 0:17:22.240 you are looking for some gratitude from me. So I 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:24.280 find too that it can be really helpful to have 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:28.440 some shared household project management tools. We like to use 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:32.160 Apple Notes and Google Calendar. There are plenty of other 0:17:32.280 --> 0:17:36.280 technologies and more springing up every day, it seems, and 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:39.160 part of that is just a way of making it visible, 0:17:39.840 --> 0:17:43.040 whether or not you were equally sharing it or changing 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:46.200 anything about how you're doing it, at least you can 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:50.159 show yourself as well as your partner that hey, this 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:52.879 is valuable, this is a lot I'm holding it. I 0:17:52.920 --> 0:17:56.680 think for many people who are their family's primary cognitive labor, 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:00.840 just having language to say Okay, even if I am 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:06.400 not outside mowing the lawn or cooking a meal, there's 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:08.000 a lot that I'm doing, a lot that I'm holding, 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:10.600 and it makes sense that I might feel tired or 0:18:10.600 --> 0:18:11.920 overwhelmed from time to time. 0:18:12.480 --> 0:18:14.720 Absolutely, all right, We're going to take one more quick 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:16.280 ad break and then I will be back with more 0:18:16.320 --> 0:18:26.479 from Alison Damager. Well, I am back talking with Alison Damager, 0:18:26.520 --> 0:18:28.200 who is the author of the brand new book What's 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:30.919 on Her Mind about the Mental Load of Family Life, 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:35.239 professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin Madison. So 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:38.520 pivoting a bit more toward your own schedule, I always 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:40.320 like to hear, do you have any routines that make 0:18:40.359 --> 0:18:41.240 you more productive? 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:44.359 Well, I am a bit influx at the moment. I 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:47.600 have a five month old baby, my first child, and 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:49.800 so I am in the process of trying to figure 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:53.720 out which of my old routines still holds in this 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:56.680 new era. But the one thing that I'm definitely holding 0:18:56.720 --> 0:18:59.920 on to is a kind of weekly planning session where 0:19:00.080 --> 0:19:02.840 I do both the professional and personal. It's a brain 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:06.000 dump of everything that I could possibly get done in 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:09.040 that week, and then I try to assign tasks two days. 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:12.240 So that is something that even if the task lists 0:19:12.320 --> 0:19:14.760 are shorter and more flexible than they used to be, 0:19:15.320 --> 0:19:19.359 really keeps me grounded. The other thing that I try 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:23.440 to do is really sit down every morning and map 0:19:23.480 --> 0:19:27.639 out the day. Sometimes that's how Newport time blocking style. 0:19:27.960 --> 0:19:31.000 Sometimes more often lately it's just a post it note 0:19:31.040 --> 0:19:33.600 where I list the five things that I must do. 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:39.280 But those help me to not face so much decision fatigue. 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:42.080 To cite some of my own research, it's taxing to 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:44.720 have to constantly make decisions about what you're doing, and 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:47.920 so I like to chunk that sort of thing and have, 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:51.520 you know, my Sunday night self make most of those 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:52.879 decisions about what I'll do. 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:55.920 Are you a morning person? I mean you said you're 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:57.960 doing this in the morning, you're mapping out the day? 0:19:58.000 --> 0:19:59.960 Is Are you a morning routine kind of person? 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:03.000 I am? And that's been one of the hardest parts 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:06.520 so far about adjusting is my daughter is also a 0:20:06.560 --> 0:20:10.199 morning person, often a five am morning person, and so 0:20:10.280 --> 0:20:12.960 whereas previously I had time to kind of ease into 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:17.119 the day, reflect this is often happening much later in 0:20:17.160 --> 0:20:19.160 the morning, but Usually it's when I first sit down 0:20:19.160 --> 0:20:21.840 at my desk. This is the time when I get organized, 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:24.840 think about the priorities, and move forward, even if it's 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:27.320 at nine am rather than seven am as it used 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:27.520 to be. 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:30.479 Yeah, and do you guys, I mean you and your 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:34.879 partner have active discussions about then, you know, looking forward 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:37.080 and knowing your research as you're going to be making 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:40.679 decisions about life for all three of you. Who does what? 0:20:41.600 --> 0:20:45.240 Yeah? So we have historically had a Google document where 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:49.480 we list out all of the different chores and areas 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:52.720 of life that we're responsible for. You know, who's going 0:20:52.800 --> 0:20:55.920 to take our pet to the vet and who's going 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:58.320 to make sure of the car gets maintained. We've been 0:20:58.320 --> 0:21:01.520 pretty good about putting both the physical and the associated 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:05.800 cognitive work in that document, and then we revisit when 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:08.600 there's big transitions. So we bought a house last year. 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:13.760 That was exciting, but it brought a whole new set 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:17.800 of tasks and chores. And we try not to assume him, right. 0:21:17.840 --> 0:21:20.480 I think it's very easy just to be like, oh, 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:23.600 he's a man, and so mowing the lawn is going 0:21:23.680 --> 0:21:25.960 to be him. But we had a conversation earlier this 0:21:26.080 --> 0:21:28.160 year where I said, actually, I think I would enjoy 0:21:28.480 --> 0:21:32.399 mowing the lawn right It's time outside, getting some exercise. 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:36.560 So that has become my task. And we keep this 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:40.560 spreadsheet updated and have to keep ourselves honest by periodically 0:21:40.560 --> 0:21:43.119 revisiting to make sure we haven't stray too far from 0:21:43.160 --> 0:21:44.159 what we were intending to do. 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:46.600 I love that. I love that you are mowing the lawn. 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:51.240 And I suspect many people have in fact chosen lawnmowing 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:53.359 as a chore because it's like, Hey, on the weekend, 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:55.399 I gotta get outside. I got it. Sorry, I can't 0:21:55.400 --> 0:21:57.840 help with everything inside the house right now, I gotta 0:21:57.880 --> 0:21:58.840 get out and mow the lawn. 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:00.720