# Q5 — Managing the invisible mental load - **Episode:** [203](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/203.md) (2025-06-05) - **Type:** other - **Tags:** mental-load, invisible, management - **Time:** 32:54–36:10 (start 1974s) - **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/203?t=1974](https://truthliesandwork.com/203?t=1974) --- [32:54] Al Elliott: Now, I know you, and I'm guessing you'll have done some reading around this, so go on, hit us. What's, what's the, uh, what does, what's the research say? [33:01] Leanne Elliott: It's, again, it's quite intuitive. You know, employees that are carrying this high cognitive load, so lots competing priorities in work and life, um, they're twice as likely to support symptoms of burnout. It's as simple as that. It's not, it's not really a surprise, but what the research has found that working parents in particular, um, can, can struggle. Um, I think there was actually, um, people in, in the study that I read, the qualitative study where they gather feedback, um, that parents basically said it's like a permanent sense of anxiety. Because there's so much to be juggling. So, with that as well, people do potentially, you know, might pull back, might start to disconnect from people at work, might start to make more mistakes. It's just being mindful that people might be trapped in this cycle of pressure and guilt, and they really need that support to help manage their priorities and time during that period [33:57] Al Elliott: Cool. So, strategies for dealing with this. What can we do? [34:02] Leanne Elliott: Talk to your people. It's, um, it's really not more difficult than that. It's making sure that people feel seen, people feel heard, people feel understood. And again, this is everybody in the organization, but you're going to have an idea at this point in time who are the people to prioritize in terms of those conversations. And everything we've said previously in terms of automating processes where you can, having those handovers, rotating responsibilities [34:28] Al Elliott: Yeah [34:29] Leanne Elliott: You know, these shared documents in terms of planning, or as you said, Basecamp, Al, having the platforms in place. It's really just making sure that you're being very transparent about it with your people. We understand this is a tricky time of year for some people. We're having those check-ins with everyone to make sure they're okay and that we can do, and then we're actually putting together some operational processes in place as well to make this period work more smoothly [34:53] Al Elliott: Yeah, and I suppose no matter where you are in the year, you've always got this mental load, this kind of like, You've got stuck. You ever wake up and you're just like, oh my God, there's so much to do today. And then you start to do one thing, you start thinking about something else, something else. Um, I personally find that, um, I use Claude, uh, quite a lot and I'll very often just open a thread with Claude and just talk to him. Him? I'm sure he's a him. That's my, that's my thoughts anyway. I just talk to them and get it all out of my head, all the stuff I'm stressing about, maybe when I'm out with the dogs or perhaps having a cup of coffee in the morning. And then I go, right, okay, can you list out all the things I've told you and help me to prioritize those? [35:27] Leanne Elliott: Yeah [35:28] Al Elliott: And even just the, just the fact of just talking and getting it out a little bit, sort of, I feel, I find it takes a little bit of a mind off. The other thing which I do, which I think people must think I'm a little bit crazy, is quite often I'll put my AirPods in and then I'll go out for a walk with the dog and I'll just chat. I'm not chatting to anyone. I'm just chatting to myself. But just by talking out loud again, that really, really helps me. And that's possibly because I'm a bit more of an extrovert. So I tend to say things out loud and then start thinking about them as opposed to Leanne, who tends to think about them and then say them out loud. But all this is just helping to sort of just lighten that mental load a little bit [36:03] Leanne Elliott: Yeah, that's a really good tip, Al, for an individual who's feeling a bit overwhelmed. Introverts, you might prefer to write it down if you don't want to speak it out loud