The mental load of new parenthood is heavy.

In this post, I’ll share seven steps to help you simplify your mental load.  These are strategies I use to manage my own mental load as a parent and they’re strategies I teach my clients.  But before we hop in, I want to clarify: this isn’t about striving for some unrealistic version of balance or productivity.  It’s not pretending that a simplified mental load isn’t still heavy.  It’s just experimenting where we can to see if we can make this hard thing a little easier.  

Here are 7 steps to simplify the mental load as a new parent.

Step One: Get Honest. 

The first step in simplifying the mental load is to get honest about who is carrying it.  A common and often unintentional dynamic for new parents is to have one person – usually mom – who gradually becomes the default parent.  This is the parent who is expected and assumed to be in charge, even when there is another capable adult on the scene.  If you relate to this dynamic, ask yourself: “Is this working for me?”

Maybe it is.  Maybe you choose to take the lead with your family’s mental load because you truly want to and this arrangement supports the life you want for yourself and your family.  If so, go on ahead to step two.    

If this isn’t working for you – if you’re feeling overwhelmed, burned out, or resentful – get honest about this too (and consider taking the rest of these steps with your partner).        

Step Two: Externalize. 

The next step in simplifying your mental load is to externalize it.  The mental load is often invisible because it lives in your head.  The goal here is to get stuff out of your head and somewhere where you can see it.  Pick whatever tool works best for you – whether that’s pen and paper, a Google doc, or some sort of project management system (like Asana or Notion).  Then, do a brain dump by listing ALL the tasks and to-dos you’re mentally managing right now.  

Step Three: Organize. 

While it can be helpful to get these tasks out of your head and somewhere you can see them, that’s not enough to simplify your mental load.  Looking at a never-ending, always-expanding to-do list can feel overwhelming.  You’ll need a way to easily understand how all these tasks fit into the context of your real life.  This is when you’ll organize each task by frequency.  How often do you need to be thinking about this particular thing?  Sort them by daily, weekly, seasonal, and as-needed responsibilities.  

For example, daily responsibilities for a new parent could include things like tending to baby’s routines, meal prepping, and doing the dishes.  Weekly responsibilities might be stuff like running errands, sorting the mail, or taking the trash to the curb.  Seasonal responsibilities happen less often, but are recurring and predictable, like scheduling baby’s yearly checkup or sorting out holiday plans.  As needed responsibilities are unpredictable – like picking baby up from daycare when they have a fever or replacing a broken kitchen appliance.  

As you do this exercise, it will hopefully paint a picture of the expectations you’ve been placing on yourself AND give you a sense of whether or not they’re realistic.     

Step Four: Prioritize.

After you’ve externalized and organized all of your responsibilities, it’s time to prioritize.  Don’t be surprised if your priorities as a new parent are a little different than your priorities from your pre-baby life or the priorities you hope to have at some point in the future.  It’s okay to prioritize based on the realities of your life right now.  Holding this unique season of life in mind, which tasks and to-dos do YOU consider essential?  Which are nice to have?  Are there any you could let go of (for now)?  

For example, let’s say you’re returning home from the hospital with your newborn.  Maybe in this season, you consider essential tasks to be anything that supports you to meet your family’s basic needs (like prepping simple meals, doing the dishes you’ll need to enjoy those meals, doing laundry so you have clean clothes to wear, and making sure your baby is fed, changed, and cuddled).  Maybe you decide it’s nice if the house is clean and tidy, but if it’s a little messier than usual, that’s okay.  You might decide that, at least for now, most other things can wait.

Clarifying what’s essential, nice-to-have, or skippable helps you prioritize your responsibilities based on what matters most to you and your family.

Step Five: Collaborate.

At this point, you should have a streamlined list of responsibilities grouped by how often they need your attention.  If you have a partner, it’s time to talk about how you’ll approach these tasks as a team.  This is where the two of you decide how you’ll collaborate on a daily and weekly basis to share your family’s mental load and get stuff done.  The goal is to divide responsibilities in a way that feels fair, balanced, and sustainable for both of you. 

Whether or not you have a partner, consider also collaborating with your wider support network.  This can include extended family, close friends, neighbors, or professionals.  Collaboration in this context might look like trading babysitting, swapping meals, or hiring someone to help you solve a specific problem at home.  

Partnered or not, keep in mind: you don’t have to do everything on your own.

Step Six: Systematize.

Now that you’ve clarified what needs to get done, how often, and by whom – you’re ready to design systems that help you manage your responsibilities with as little effort as possible.  These systems are strategies you can repeat on autopilot.  For example, you could keep a shared family calendar that you update and review every Sunday morning.  You could create a simple meal plan that repeats on a weekly or monthly basis.  Or, you could make checklists that outline various steps involved in a specific recurring task (like packing the diaper bag or prepping baby for bedtime).

If you’re new to systems, ask yourself: “What is one thing I could do to make this task easier?”  Then, do that thing.  Treat it as an experiment – see for yourself how front-loading your decision-making around a specific task impacts the effort it takes to get that task done on an ongoing basis.  The idea is that, over time, simple systems can help you manage your mental load in a much more gentle and sustainable way.  

Step Seven: Keep Experimenting.

Simplifying your mental load isn’t about finding the perfect systems that you’ll use into infinity and beyond.  Life with your baby will constantly shift and change, and your strategies will too.  Since you’re treating your systems like an experiment, you can stay curious and flexible.

Maybe it was hard to keep up that shared calendar system.  Maybe your weekly meal plan was a little too ambitious.  Or maybe something you thought would be super helpful actually made things harder.  That’s okay.  And actually, that’s all really good data you can use when designing your next experiment.

It’s not about getting it right on the first try.  It’s about experimenting until you find systems and strategies that work well for you and your family in this season.

No matter how much we simplify, the mental load is a lot to manage.

As much as I wish they were, I know these seven steps aren’t a magic fix for the mental load.  They won’t take the fact that you’re still a new parent managing all the things.  But, I hope that simplifying the mental load in this way helps you manage all the things with a little less overwhelm and a little more ease.