Pumpkin spice is the only thing I look forward to right now, and I am only half kidding.
Hi Reader,
September takes the biggest toll on your mental load, your invisible labor, and your relationships? If you’re a Mom, odds are most of these things fall to you.
Back to school schedules, a full calendar of school events, sports, shopping, doctor appointments, and setting up all the well intentioned routines at home that no one wants to follow.
A week ago your brain and family was in vacation mode, eking out the last good days over Labor Day.
Then September and handed you a hundred to-do’s.
Overnight you got too many tasks at once, a hundred decisions to make. Your brain is in hyper drive figuring out who needs what and when. If you have ADHD, this is even harder.
If you don’t want to carry the mental load alone, this may be a perfect opportunity to practice verbal processing and brain dumping it together with your Partner because
“Noticing The Task” and “Planning The Task” is more than 50% of the labor needed to “Execute The Task”.
Here are the 5 things I do when September overwhelm hits:
(besides treat myself to a Trader Joe’s run when pumpkin spice everything hits the shelves):
- Brain Dump: Grab a tool you can brain dump on and share with your Partner. I use a large white board that sits in a visual place in our home so we SEE it every day.
- Chunk it down: Look at one week, not the whole month. Add to your calendar the hard fixed dates, the school start, doctor visits, practice times. Those are your anchors.
- Theme and batch the brain dump and to-do’s into buckets: • School lunches • School forms • Back to school errands • Sports equipment • Doctor appointments • Lunches / Dinners • Your regular work that didn’t slow down • Butt in the chair tasks (administrative nightmare) • Run around the house tasks • Errands outside the house
- Decide: Can one partner own a whole bucket?
- Plan your time in blocks. Give one bucket its own slot and work only inside it. Bouncing between all of them at once takes more brain energy.
I’d love to hear from others how they survive the September wave of extra to-do’s, or the invisible job in your house nobody sees you doing?
(And secretly, if you also eagerly await Trader Joe’s pumpkin spice. 😉 )
Until next time.
Heidi
