The family mental load: making tasks visible

The child’s dentist appointment, the present for Saturday’s birthday party, the tax return, the car service, the form for the school ski camp: in every family, one person keeps track of all of it. Much of the work gets done together. The thinking often stays with one person. That is what the term mental load describes.

What the mental load is

The sociologist Allison Daminger interviewed 35 couples and split “cognitive household labour” into four steps: anticipating needs, identifying options, deciding and monitoring whether it got done (Daminger 2019, American Sociological Review). Her finding: women do more of this work, especially anticipating and monitoring. The deciding itself is shared roughly equally.

That matches what happens in many families. Who decides which dentist to see is rarely the problem. The problem is that someone has to remember that an appointment is due, and later whether it was actually booked.

Paid and unpaid work are unevenly shared, too. In Switzerland in 2020, women did about 60 percent of the unpaid work and men about 61 percent of the paid work (Swiss Federal Statistical Office, household production satellite account 2020). Those numbers count hours, not thoughts. The mental load is in no statistic; it comes on top.

Why invisible work leads to arguments

Invisible work has two properties that make it tiring:

• It never stops. A finished task is gone. A task in your head keeps running until it is done, at night as well.
• Nobody sees it. Whoever does the shopping has visibly done something. Whoever noticed that the washing powder is running out has not.

This is where the classic line comes from: “You could have just asked.” It is meant well, and it still hands the load back. Now the person who keeps track also has to delegate and follow up.

Three steps that actually help

1. Put everything where everyone can see it

The first step matters most: what is in one person’s head goes onto a shared list. Not into a chat where it disappears after three days, and not onto a note on the fridge that nobody sees when they are out. A shared list shows how much there really is, and it takes the anticipating out of a single person’s head.

For this to work, capturing a task has to be faster than forgetting it. With the iPhone shortcut you dictate a task to Siri in a few seconds, without opening the app.

2. Offer open tasks instead of assigning them

Assigning is more work for the person who already keeps track of everything. A better way is a place for tasks that do not belong to anyone yet. In tasks it is called “Up for grabs”: leave a task in the family workspace without an assignee and everyone sees it as up for grabs. Whoever has time takes it. When a task is assigned to someone, that person gets a push notification. So not only the work moves, but the remembering too.

How to create a shared family workspace, invite members and use “Up for grabs” is in the guide Create and share workspaces.

3. Let the app do the monitoring

The fourth step in Daminger’s list, monitoring, is something an app does better than a person. tasks sends a push notification when a task is due and, if you like, a summary every morning by push or email. If you would rather look at your calendar, subscribe to your due tasks with the calendar feed in Apple, Google or Outlook.

Keep family and work apart

Many parents keep two lists: one for work, one for home. The catch: the parents’ evening on Tuesday and the presentation on Wednesday belong together, but neither list shows both.

In tasks, every context is its own workspace. Your family sees only the family workspace and nothing of your work. You see everything on one page in Today and Upcoming. More on the page Separate work and family.

No terminal needed

For the family, tasks is a web app that installs on the home screen like any other app. Nobody needs a terminal or an AI assistant. What the family gets out of it is on the page Family tasks.

Conclusion

An app does not make the mental load disappear. It does get smaller once it is visible: a shared list instead of one head, open tasks instead of assignments, reminders instead of follow-ups. Start with the ten things that are on your mind right now, and write them down.