Time to get practical
Making the invisible workload visible
Quick note before I start - This is the second in my new series for paid subscribers, which will drop once a month (ish), and includes a practical exercise to help address the issue covered. ( The first is here.). I am in the throes of writing my next book - Unburdened: Ditch the mindf*ckery that keeps you overwhelmed, to reclaim your time, energy and sanity and I’m going to be trialling it through this space before it launches in September. My free columns will be the other 3 weeks for now. Thank you to everyone for being here, and thank you to my paid subscribers for supporting my writing work. It takes a big chunk of time each week and I really appreciate it.
And…. if you fancy really getting down and dirty sorting out your midlife once and for all… my next 10 week group coaching adventure starts on the 13th April. My Midlife, redefined - A Practical Reset will help you check back in, delve deep into what you need and want next and give you the practical tools to make real and lasting change to make your life more about you! All wrapped up in coaching, camaraderie and courageous becoming!
And now to this week’s article … the first part of what I call the Quadrant of Chaos which keeps you overwhelmed, guilt-ridden and under-supported.
Quadrant One: The Practical Overload
Nag.
No teenage girl ever put that on her “what I want to become” list.
Overwhelmed. Exhausted. Irritated about things that seem trivial to everyone else - how the dishwasher is stacked, plates left on the landing, prescriptions not picked up. All you get is eye rolls and “boring!”
Except it’s not.
We didn’t imagine this life. We imagined being free-spirited, fun, alive to possibility. And we hold onto that version of ourselves for as long as we can. Still find her occasionally. But for many (most?) women, the sheer volume of practical work slowly drains that energy away. Certainly for a substantial portion of these long midlife years.
Because so much of this work is invisible. Unacknowledged. Unowned by anyone but you.
If you are the facilitator of the home - as most women are - you become responsible for everything: the picking up, clearing up, putting away, packing, unpacking, tidying, fixing, fetching.
The buck stops with you.
That pile on the stairs? Technically anyone’s job. In reality? Yours. You might hope someone else will see it and deal with it. They won’t. (In my house, there could be a dying puppy on my stairs with a vet at the top and I still don’t think anyone would pick it up.)
I don’t know if you’ve seen the TikTok where a man tells his partner about a “magic fairy” in their house. He leaves dishes out at night—gone by morning. Leaves clothes lying around—washed, dried, folded when he gets home. Magic.
It’s funny. Except it’s not.
Because women still carry the bulk of this workload - around two thirds of it.
And in a world largely built by and for men, this work isn’t even considered “work.” It’s unpaid. It always has been. So it’s dismissed. When robots were first developed, what did they do? Mowed lawns. Mowed lawns before the idea of a hoover. Visible work.
Not the invisible labour that actually keeps life functioning.
Take something as simple as “make dinner.” It sounds like one task. It isn’t. It’s a six-step process you repeat every single day:
Decide what to cook
Figure out what you need
Buy what’s missing
Cook it
Manage the people while eating it
Clean up afterwards
Every. Single. Day.
Recipe. Rinse. Repeat.
Despite men stepping up and doing far more than their fathers would have done, it is still most often nowhere near enough to make a two-person household team feel equitable. Not because they’re bad necessarily, but because they are raised on the back on unseen, unrecognised labour and literally do not see the vast scope of work that actually needs to be done.
Now it is entirely possible that you did in fact marry an arse and your children are lazy louts, but in all fairness it is far more likely that you are doing much more than anyone else is a hangover. Not your menopausal one.
I mean the legacy from an outdated societal system where men went out to work while their wives, mothers, daughters and the occasional unmarried aunt, did all the domestic and family labour.
That system is called a patriarchy. Now don’t be clutching your favourite bra, we aren’t burning it today. We weren’t handed a rulebook labelled “How to Be a Woman,” when we grew up, but The Rules where deftly and diligently drilled into our brains through cultural messaging and social schooling. When I was growing up, women over 40 weren’t allowed on our TV screens lest their naturally ageing faces offended the men who most certainly had offending faces but we told to put up and shut up and smile sweetly, please.
We got The Rules from watching our own mothers and grandmothers, from watching TV shows, from the teachings of the Churchmen and the preaching from the headmen who seemed to run everything.
As women gained access to education, careers, and opportunity, something didn’t shift alongside it: the division of labour at home.
(When the argument is made that ‘feminism’ ruined the idea of marriage and family, I would argue that it wasn’t feminist asking for equality - it was lack of marriages that didn;t support women equally. Feminism is not telling women not to marry. Doing double shifts at work and at home is. In countries that have the highest levels of gender equality - and societal supports to back it up - also have a increased level of marriages).
So now, many women are doing both. And the modern To-Do list reflects that.
It’s not a list - it’s a pressure cooker. Things sit on it, roll over, expand. It’s the 9 point plan ones that kill you, isn’t it? The one-word item just sits there innocuously on your To-Do list, as if it’ll just take a minute, when you know in fact, it’ll take 15 phone calls, a google search and the recall of an obscure password you haven’t a hope of remembering. Nothing on your To-Do list is an easily done job. Or else it will be done. These are the jobs that exhaust you. The ones that look small but aren’t.
Post the package. Frame the picture. Buy the card. Pick up the prescription that wasn’t in stock. Get to the gym. And for the love of God - what’s for dinner? And research has shown that when jobs are divided up, men tend to do jobs that can be done anytime (bins and mowing the lawn) whereas women often fo the time-tied jobs like pick ups and meals which add to reduced agency and increased pressure.
Research backs up what you already know from living it: women still do more unpaid work, even as their financial contributions increase.
But here’s the part that rarely gets said clearly enough: Paid work does not exist in a vacuum. It is built on unpaid work.
Clean clothes don’t appear by accident. Meals don’t cook themselves. Children don’t organise their own lives. Homes don’t run on autopilot.
Behind every functioning day is a web of invisible tasks - laundry systems, food planning, school logistics, life admin, emotional management.
This isn’t extra. It’s foundational.
So the idea that the higher earner should do less at home misses the point entirely. Their ability to earn more is often made possible by someone else carrying more of the load.
A friend of mine, Nikki, saw this clearly. At a financial planning meeting, the advisor focused entirely on her husband’s income, pension, and insurance. Nikki had built a career too - but had scaled it back after having children, and started her own business. When she asked, “What about me?” the advisor replied without thinking: “You’re not worth insuring.”
As she furiously told me over lunch the next day, she had hastily scribbled down all the jobs she did and shoved it forward. “This is what it would cost to replace me.” But there was no insurance policy available for that.
Research done by insurance and pension company Royal London Ireland found that the amount of work done by a stay-at-home parent in 2026 amounts to €60,000 per year. That figure is underestimated by the vast majority of people. Less than one in five people polled put the figure over €50k. The average guess was €37k. Men aged 18-24, and those over the age of 55 were the groups most likely to estimate the salary at €20,000 - €30,000. In fact, countries that actually provide a ‘wage’ to whoever stays at home to raise a family experience greater well-being and higher fertility rates.
The issue isn’t necessarily about being paid directly. It’s about recognition, respect, and equity.
Because right now, many women face an impossible choice: be overworked, or give up financial independence. And asking for money is not the same as having equality.
We’ve also been sold another lie - that women are naturally better at multitasking. Recent research shows this is not actually the case. “Multi-tasking doesn’t come including in the DNA of a vagina - it’s made up so we believe the struggle to juggle is our fault.
But when we believe bullshit - it sticks and stinks. We do too much. We shoot ourselves in the foot by believing we are better than men at certain jobs. This isn’t true - I know brilliant single dads and my brother is a perfect example of a man who can multi task, manage the home front and work while supporting his wife’s career.
So how does the practical overload contribute to your blizzard brain and how do you fix it?
