The Mental Load List

A full mental load checklist, sorted by category, covering the invisible jobs nobody sees. Copy it, cut what does not apply, and add what does.

The mental load is the work of keeping track: knowing the nappies are running low, that the six-week check needs booking, that your mum's birthday is a fortnight on Thursday, and that somebody has to be home for the boiler service.

It's invisible work, which is what makes it heavy. Nobody can see it, so nobody can share it, and you can't hand off what nobody else knows about.

Writing it down is how it stops being invisible.

Below is a full mental load list, sorted by category. Copy it, cut what doesn't apply to you, and add what does. Tick things off as you go, and keep it somewhere you can add to it.

If you already know the problem is keeping it current rather than writing it, further down your phone can fill it in for you.

The mental load checklist

Health and medical

• Knowing when each person is due a check-up, jab or screening
• Booking the appointments, and rebooking the one that got cancelled
• Remembering which surgery, which dentist, which optician
• Repeat prescriptions, and noticing when one is running out
• Tracking symptoms so you can describe them accurately later
• Knowing everyone's allergies, weights and medication doses
• Keeping the red book, growth chart or health record current
• Remembering what the health visitor said to watch for

Children

• Nappies, wipes, cream, and knowing when each runs out
• Which size clothes fit now, and which need packing away
• Feeds, naps, amounts, and how today compares to yesterday
• Nursery or school forms, deadlines and payments
• Term dates, inset days, and who covers them
• World Book Day costumes, and the fact that it's next week
• Party invitations, replies, and a present bought in time
• Which friend fell out with whom, and whether it has settled
• Whether the car seat still fits, and when it stops being legal

Food and meals

• Knowing what's in the fridge right now
• Planning meals around what needs eating first
• Who will eat what, and who has decided they no longer eat it
• The shopping list, and the three things that were forgotten
• Noticing the bread has gone and buying it before anyone asks
• Packed lunches, snacks and the drinks bottle that went missing
• Whether there's anything in for the weekend

The house

• Washing, drying, folding, and knowing whose is whose
• Which sheets were changed when
• Bins out, and which colour bin this week
• Noticing the loo roll, washing powder or lightbulbs running low
• Booking the boiler service, chimney sweep or window cleaner
• Being in for the delivery, the plumber or the meter reading
• Knowing where things are kept, because everyone asks you

Money and admin

• Bills, direct debits and which ones went up this month
• Insurance renewals, and checking they haven't auto-hiked
• Car tax, MOT, service, tyres
• Passport expiry dates for everyone, checked before booking anything
• Nursery fees, childcare hours, and the paperwork to claim them
• Whatever the letter on the side is about

People

• Birthdays, cards, presents, and posting them in time
• Remembering to ask how the interview went
• Keeping in touch with both families
• Thank-you messages
• Noticing when someone is struggling
• Remembering the things other people tell you about their lives

The invisible layer

Most mental load lists stop at the tasks. This layer is the thinking behind every one of them, and it takes the most energy:

• Noticing that a thing needs doing at all
• Deciding when it should happen and what it depends on
• Working out who could do it and whether asking costs more than doing it
• Checking that it actually got done
• Carrying all of the above while doing something else

What usually happens next

You write the list. It's a relief to see it. You feel lighter for about a day.

Then a fortnight passes and the list is out of date. New things arrive constantly, and you're usually holding a baby, driving, or halfway through something else when they arrive. So they go back into your head, because that's the only place you can put them without stopping what you're doing.

That's why paper mental load lists go out of date so quickly. A notebook needs you to have both hands free and a pen nearby when you remember. You rarely do.

A list that keeps itself filled in

The other way is to say it out loud when it occurs to you, and let your phone sort it into the right list. This is the shortcut you build in our course Hand Off the Mental Load. We call it the Brain Dump, and it works like this.

You talk, however it comes out:

"Right, we're out of nappies, wipes and barrier cream, I keep meaning to book the six-week check, the health visitor's coming Tuesday at eleven, and the car really needs a wash. Oh, and we need bananas."

A few seconds later your phone has sorted it into three lists, and you can tick off each line:

Logistics

• Book six week check
• Health visitor Tuesday at 11

Food and household

• Buy bananas
• Out of nappies
• Out of wipes
• Out of barrier cream

Misc

• Car really needs a wash

You didn't type anything, and you didn't open an app. And because the lists are saved in a shared folder, your partner sees the same three lists on their own phone and can tick things off from their end.

Your partner ticking things off from their own phone is what makes it shared work. If only you can see the list, you're still the only person keeping track of it.

But they still have to open the folder to see what's new. So you can also have the shortcut message them the new items every time it runs, even when they're on an iPhone and already have the folder. You both still tick things off in the folder, and the message tells them something has been added.

Something occurs to you in the queue at the shop. You say it out loud, and by the time you've paid it's on the right list, worded properly, and on your partner's phone as well. Something else comes to mind at two in the morning with a baby on you, the kind of thing that would normally keep you awake until six. You say that too, and go back to sleep.

There's no right time to do it and no session to sit down for. Whenever something is on your mind, you say it out loud, which is the only time you reliably remember it anyway. The list stays current because adding to it takes ten seconds of talking instead of sitting down with a notebook.

And you can stop holding something in your head on purpose, because you know it will still be on the list when you look.

You build it in our course Hand Off the Mental Load, tapping a few blocks together in the Shortcuts app that's already on your phone. The Brain Dump itself takes less than 10 minutes, and it's the first challenge, so you can build it for free. The rest of the course sets up the sharing, adds a second shortcut to log your baby's feeds, nappies, and naps, or anything you want a dated record of, and gives you ways to start either one without unlocking your phone.

It uses Apple Intelligence, Apple's built-in AI, so it needs an iPhone 15 Pro or 15 Pro Max, any iPhone 16 or newer, or an iPhone Air. Apple Intelligence costs nothing to use, and there is nothing to download. We made it for mums, so the examples use nappies, feeds and health visitors, and you can reword the categories and prompts to fit your own household.

On an older iPhone or an Android, the list at the top of this page still works. Keep it in a shared note rather than a notebook, so at least two people can see it.