The Mental Offload Podcast

We're living in a fraught time. The nightly news is filled with calamities, on every continent of the planet.

In the face of so much turmoil in the world, women hesitate to speak about their own struggles at home and at work.

We self-deprecatingly tell friends that we've got "first world problems".

Women tell me they're ashamed to even complain about feeling overwhelmed at home, or undervalued at work, because "it sounds so privileged".

This sets up an unhelpful hierarchy: problems worth caring about (the "big stuff" going wrong in the world), and "first world problems" (the "little stuff" going wrong in our homes).

And it's a form of self-gaslighting. Of trying to convince ourselves that we shouldn't care so much about our own emotional pain, because it's not "important enough" in the bigger scheme of things.

As feminists, we need to examine this line of thinking. Because it's one way that people in power keep women down.

What You'll Learn:

• Two things can be true: there are important tragedies in the world AND important issues at home

• Why patriarchal, white-supremacist, late-stage capitalism runs on women's exhaustion

• A few reasons why we should retire the entire phrase "first world problems"

• How putting yourself first can make you MORE equipped to cause good trouble in the world

For more information, visit The Mental Offload.

Almost no one loves a performance review. Even top performers can feel dread in the face of an upcoming review.

Performance reviews will amplify our insecurities and leave us ruminating on our perceived shortcomings. We know that these reviews can be make or break moments for raises, promotions, and more. And yet, we're rarely given transparent, direct advice on how to approach this important career conversation.

Some women deal with this by trying to put their head in the sand until review season is over. Others end up anxious and on edge, unable to stop thinking about it. Almost everyone wishes their review were over and done with, already.

Performance review anxiety sets us up to fall into predictable traps during annual review season. But these traps are avoidable.

Let's demystify performance reviews, so you get the review you deserve.

What You'll Learn:

• 4 traps of performance reviews - how to spot and avoid them

• How to manage up around performance conversations (whether your org has a formal or informal process)

• 3 steps you can take to get your best-ever review

For more information, visit The Menatl Offload.

Does the idea of "managing up" make you squirm?

Some people mistake it for a sort of "dark arts" of the leadership world. A way that bad leaders can make themselves look better, and get ahead.

But smart women know that managing up is an essential skill for all leaders.

The problem? It can make you deeply uncomfortable. It might feel like pointless office politics, or bring up a lot of anxiety over whether you're doing it "right".

But managing up doesn't have to be difficult or scary. And when done well, it's simply a way of maintaining open, two-way communication with your leaders.

Managing up helps your leader help you and help your team. And it can help you turn leaders into trusted allies at work.

What You'll Learn:

• Why managing up brings up so much fear and anxiety

• The 2 ways to approach leading upward – only one of which is useful

• Low-stakes ways to manage up that build trust and credibility

For more information, visit The Mental Offload.

From Barbie to Beyoncé to T. Swift, something's been brewing. This was the summer of women creating massive success. Generating billions of dollars of success.

But the financial success isn't the only common denominator.

What do these women have in common? Comfort playing on the world's biggest stages, certainly. Comfort with playing big, period.

Call it Main Character Energy, if you want.

But mere mortals are down here worried about whether we're playing too big. Whether others will judge us as too much if we embrace our role as leaders.

In this episode, we'll explore how you can embrace main character energy to get ahead (in life and business).

What You'll Learn:

• What the billion dollar summer of Barbie, Beyoncé and T.Swift can teach ordinary women

• The sneaky messages that convince women to feel guilty for wanting to be the main character

• How to find middle ground between being self-centered and self-effacing

For more information, visit The Mental Offload.

Fun. 3 letters that strike fear in the bones of most high-performers.

We're told that fun is fluff. Fat to be trimmed from your schedule.

So any fun that we do have in our work days leaves us feeling guilty and unproductive. Unless it's having fun with our kids, in which case we feel guilty for not having enough of it.

Eliminating fun seems like perfectly rational advice for getting more done.

And it does work in the short term.

But in the long term? It backfires spectacularly.

In this episode, we'll explore why fun is necessary for more productive days, and a more balanced life.

What You'll Learn:

• Fun has a broad definition: try these 3 types of activities

• The devastating long-term impacts of the pressure to eliminate fun from our weekdays

• How to let go of what you think "should" be fun and embrace what actually *is* fun for you

Featured in this Episode:

• Get The Mental Offload's Shut Down Ritual template

• Sign up for the free Reclaim Your Time Masterclass on Oct 10th

Feeling stretched in all directions? Like there's not enough time for work or for family?

You're not alone. But modern productivity methods end up offering "solutions" that dig you deeper into the hole. Encouraging you to just keep cutting all the "unproductive" time from your calendar, to make more time to grind it out at work and in life.

In this episode, we'll introduce the concept of the "time diet": the varied types of activities that should fill the 24 hours on your "plate" each day.

When we cut certain activities out of our diet, we start to feel unbalanced, unhealthy, and on the brink of burnout.

Reclaiming our time and energy starts by building a balanced diet. This is your secret key to more happiness and well-being. What You'll Learn-

• 4 parts of a balanced "time diet" that you'll want to have your calendar each day

• Thinking about your calendar as net energy gain vs. net energy drain activities

• The corporate productivity lie that leaves your time unbalanced

• How rebalancing your time promotes work-life balance and prevents burnout

For more information, visit The Mental Offload.

Do you ever find yourself striving for peak productivity, only to end up feeling drained and overwhelmed? Do you ever dream of a work culture that seems to value hustle and busy-ness? Do you find saying you need to stop multitasking as you're multitasking?

Uncover the productivity habits that may be secretly sabotaging your success.

Discover 6 of the biggest disordered ways of working (yes, you know multitasking isn't your friend), and the hidden costs of indulging in them. might be holding you back. We'll also expose the myth of constant 'busy-ness' and share proven strategies to help you regain control of your time and energy.

What You'll Learn:

• How living in a culture of "busyness" normalizes disordered ways of working

• 6 disordered ways of working that secretly sabotage your success (and productivity)

• The hidden costs of constantly chasing perfect productivity

• Reclaiming your bandwidth in spite of hustle culture

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload.

There's a predictable phenomenon that happens in the workplace when people become parents. Mothers get penalized, both in salary and opportunities. Meanwhile, fathers get rewarded. It's structural bias, and it hits women hard.

The wage gap turns into a chasm, and it can have a staggering impact on women's careers and self-worth.

In this episode, we'll unravel the staggering truth about the Motherhood Penalty at work. And while it might feel hopeless to think you can succeed on such a biased playing field, we'll investigate how you can reclaim your power and win in the workplace, on your own terms.

What You'll Learn:

• The impact of the Motherhood Penalty, the Fatherhood Bonus, and why women under 30 seem to be defying the odds when it comes to gender pay equity

• Why self-advocacy matters, even when you're fighting external bias

• How women internalize the bias, and why "feel good" slogans don't help us move the needle in our daily lives

• The Mental Offload framework for reclaiming your power in a biased system

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload.

For mothers in the paid workforce, the end of the workday can feel like your personal witching hour. Whether you're scrambling to finish up those last things – and working later than you'd like – or getting pulled into a second shift of work after your kids' bedtime, the result is the same.

Work feels like it's always on your mind. Even when you'd like to be present with your family.

Having a "shut down" routine is a secret weapon I've developed that pays dividends at work and at home.

The shut down routine is a neuroscience-informed process that helps you feel done with work, even when your to-do list is still has things on it. Instead of having half your mind scrolling through work every evening, you can be fully present with your family.

A good shut down routine also helps you be more effective at work. It helps you create a crystal clear plan for where you need to focus each day.

Implementing a good shut down routine is one of the best things you can do to promote work-life balance.

This episode will set you up with a streamlined, effective routine to end each workday feeling confident and in-control at work and at home.

What You'll Learn:

• Why having a "shut down" routine is as, or more, important than a morning routine for working mothers

• Why learning to disconnect feeling "done" from your to-do list is an essential success factor in modern work

• How a shut down routine helps you switch off your "work brain", so you aren't pulled into work in the evenings

• The 3 steps of an effective shutdown routine

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload.

Having a solid morning routine is important for increasing productivity and reducing stress. Most leaders try to thoughtfully optimize their morning routine to enhance their job performance.

And having a solid, streamlined morning routine can make the difference between calm and chaos.

But do you really need a complex, multi-step routine for peak performance?

Thinking that we do keeps busy, high achieving moms feeling like failures. Or waking up before the crack of dawn to try to fit it all in.

So, let's debunk some myths about morning routines. And build a streamlined, effective routine for starting the day off with calm, clarity, and focus.

What You'll Learn:

• Why a long, complex morning routine isn't necessary for peak focus and productivity

• The only 2 elements you need for an optimal morning routine

• Always have good ideas in the shower? Here's why.

• Where to build in flexibility in your routine

To learn more, visit The Mental Offload.