The Mental Offload Podcast

You're in a meeting. Half listening, half emailing. Suddenly, you hear your name.   "What are your thoughts on the proposal?"   Cue panic.   If you've been caught multitasking, you know the sting. And if we're being honest, most of us do it.  At work, at home, everywhere in between.   Because it feels like the only way to keep up.   But here's the truth: multitasking doesn't work.   It rarely help...

You know the drill: You're in the car after a long day of meetings, mentally cycling through your to-do list and meal plan…but secretly wishing you could teleport to an island resort where you could finally relax. Sound familiar? You're not alone.  Nearly ⅔-rds of working parents say they're feeling burned out. Even the U.S. Surgeon General declaring that working parents are facing a breaking poin...

I'll be honest, I had to unplug from the news this week. For many of us - not just in the US but around the world - the US election results were a blow to the causes we believe in.  But I had to turn off the tv when the analysts started to weigh in on "what happened." The sting of watching a powerful woman be dissected to see where she had "fallen short."  The inevitable pundits' roundtable asking...

Picture this: a woman with multiple Ivy degrees, running a reproductive rights think tank in NYC, crushing it on paper... yet finding herself curled up under her desk, feeling like a failure. This was Kara Loewentheil before she discovered the truth about why so many brilliant women feel like they're never quite "enough." In this week's must-listen episode, I sit down with Kara Loewntheil, host of...

Menopause has long been a sort of taboo topic in the workplace. So it's rare to see open discussion of the real-life impact menopause can have on our work, our leadership, and our sense of self.  This is not just a conversation about hot flashes. Menopause and perimenopause—the years leading up to it—can disrupt sleep, focus, and mood, and even self-confidence. All of this can impact how we show u...

Here's a scene that plays out in offices everywhere: A talented woman sits down for her year-end career conversation. Her boss asks where she'd like to take her career next.  Despite her quiet ambitions, she's unsure how to respond. Eventually, she croaks out something like, "I'm open to a lot of different opportunities."  Which does zero to advance her career. Sound familiar? Many of us have been...

We tend to think "getting rest" means simply getting more sleep, but what if there's more to it?  Most working moms know they should rest, but here's the problem: we're taught that rest only happens when everything else is done.  The truth? That to-do list will never get down to the point where you feel entitled to rest. And putting off your need to rest leads to burnout.  So, what can you do? Thi...

Female leaders often walk a tightrope.  You're expected to be strong and decisive—but not so strong you're seen as a bitch .  You're asked to be nice — but not too nice, or people might think you're not tough enough to be a leader. Oh, and please wear some makeup so you look polished – but not so much that you seem overdone. It's maddening, right? The so-called "leadership tightrope" is something...

For many, October means the start of pumpkin spice season. But if you're in the corporate world, it means something else: Year-end review season.  Along with it comes something most of us have a complicated relationship with: feedback.  We all love positive feedback.  But the prospect of critical feedback?! Let's keep it real: wouldn't you be happier to just skip it? Feedback – especially the 'con...

Ever feel like managing your family's calendar is a part-time job? You're not alone. Modern parenting = calendar chaos. Your commitments, kids' pickups, drop-offs, activities, medical appointments, parties—everything competes for your time. It's not just the physical running around. It's the mental gymnastics of squeezing it all into the few precious hours left after work. And even in 2024, women...

The worst time to be a working mom?  It might be 3am, when you bolt awake with anxiety. What is it that's got so many of us waking up in a panic in the middle of the night?? For too many of us, it's the weight of the mental load. Those I-shouldn't-forget-this tasks that your brain decides to alert you to in the middle of the night. And although the mental load isn't the only "sleep stealer", it's...

Any way you slice it, Back-to-School is a sprint.  The extra load?! It's real. And working mothers typically feel it extra hard.  And yet, there can be an unhelpful temptation the moment that back-to-school week is over…to immediately jump back into "real life", without a moment to recover. This will leave you spent. And contributes to burnout. You might think "recovery" means preparing well for b...

After a summer break, we're back with Season 3 of The Mental Offload Podcast! Mid-career is a challenging, and pivotal , point in almost every corporate career.  It's the point where most companies decide who has the potential to break through to the top. Some people will be tapped to ascend to the top levels of the organization, and others will stagnate…or fail completely. For working mothers, th...

Summertime, and the livin' is easy… said no working parent, ever. Your kids probably see it differently. Summer time is more relaxed, whether it's days at camp, at the pool, or on the road. You might have seen it differently in the B.C. (before children) era, back when Summer Fridays meant luxuriously long weekends to kick back with friends. If we put aside the logistical nightmare which is summer...

In a busy world, where most of us are overstretched, it's easy to end the day feeling drained, guilty, and anxious. You might hope that changing jobs, using your time better, or starting that exercise routine is the answer. But Dr. Emma Seppälä, director of the Women's Leadership Program at Yale School of Management, wants us to address the deeper issues at play. "You can have all the money and po...

Plenty of think pieces have taken on the tradwife trend. And a fair bit of ink has been spilled over that Harrison Butker commencement speech. And tradwives might be fairly compared to their vintage counterparts, the Stepford Wives. And yet, there's something deeper…and maybe more sinister going on here. It's an alarming notion that's sucking in plenty of high-achieving, feminist women. And drivin...

Ever struggled to get your message heard at work? Maybe it's in your boss's leadership team meeting, where your input is minimized and the boys' club is busy talking over you.  Maybe it's when your voice shakes with nerves as you present the roadshow deck to challenging stakeholders. Or maybe it's at your mid-year, where you get feedback that others don't see you as "presenting authoritatively." ...

In many companies, June means one thing: mid-year season is here. Many leaders give mid year performance reviews short shrift.  It's easy to make this mistake. Mid-year doesn't feel as important as year-end, and yet it still has a way of weighing down your to-do list: there's plenty of paperwork, feedback requests, and the like to complete. But it is a mistake to under-prepare for mid-year – both...

Mistakes. The word itself makes a high-achiever cringe. Sure, we all know that logically, "mistakes happen to the best of us." But when you're the one making the mistake?  It feels like the worst. And now, you've got two problems: the original mistake, and being knocked off your game. The original problem is now compounded. You might spend weeks or even months in your own head, worrying about the...

Are you drowning in email? Before you've even gotten dressed in the morning, your mind is already on the 117 emails that are sitting in your inbox. Waiting on a response. Email is usually one of the first things you look at in the morning, and one of the last things you look at at night. It seems impossible to get (and stay) on top of it. Email and collaboration tools have transformed the way we w...

Mother's Day.  It's billed as the ultimate celebration of the work of mothers.  And in a society that often gives so little acknowledgement, this one day takes on big importance: a recognition of how much you've given to others throughout the rest of the year. We want the day to be perfect. But so often, it's a major letdown. A source of strife, even. No, the Mother's Day hangover isn't what you g...

Women are more aware of the mental load of the household than at any time in the past. The dynamics of domestic labor and parenting have historically been biased. The expectation: women would and should do the work of running the home and raising children. Even for women who work outside the home, the mental load often ends up squarely on their shoulders. Women put in 10 more hours of household la...

"Put on your own oxygen mask first," they say.  But that's easier said than done, right?! How much time do you get each day completely for yourself? Add it up: time with no work concerns to attend to, no little humans to take care of. Purely to do as you want…  That's probably some quick math. For most women, the number is small. And women get less than men (thanks, patriarchy!). And for that litt...

Inbox zero is such a seductive proposition. Inbox zero was popularized by productivity gurus as an efficient approach to email. The idea is that you want to maintain your inbox with zero - or as close to zero - messages as possible.  For most people, this becomes a daily metric to track their own productivity. And, I'd argue it's a vanity metric.  It's seductive because it makes you think you're b...

Presentation anxiety. It's incredibly common, even amongst leaders. There's that oft-quoted statistic that suggests that most people's biggest fear is public speaking. And what are presentations, if not public speaking? Even when the scale is small (like leading a team meeting), the stakes rarely feel small. As a leader, you might need to give dozens of presentations a year. In some roles, you mig...