Mental load
What it means
Mental load is the invisible, ongoing work of keeping track of everything that needs to happen: noticing the milk is running low, remembering the school form, planning the birthday, knowing when the car is due for a service. It is not the chores themselves but the thinking about them, and in many households it falls mostly on one person.
How to use it
Make the load visible by writing it down in a shared, concrete way. Hand over whole tasks, remembering included, instead of asking for help with single steps. Recurring reminders lift a large part of the remembering off everyone's shoulders.
Try it: what you write, what LifeOS does
- “every thursday at 7pm put the bins out” → A weekly reminder every Thursday at 19:00: one less thing that someone has to keep in mind.