Before Breakfast

How to lighten the mental load, with Allison Daminger

23 snips
Sep 24, 2025
Allison Daminger, a sociologist and professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, delves into the unseen cognitive labor in households, particularly how it disproportionately falls on women. She defines the mental load and shares her research methods for measuring decision-making stress. Allison offers practical advice on task allocation, suggesting strategies like making work visible and setting clear decisions, along with discussing routines that minimize decision fatigue. Her insights aim to help listeners lighten their mental load and foster shared responsibilities in family life.
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INSIGHT

What Mental Load Really Means

  • Cognitive labor is the behind-the-scenes work that makes household tasks possible.
  • It includes scanning for problems, researching solutions, deciding, and following up.
ANECDOTE

Research Pivot During Grad School

  • Allison explains she pivoted in grad school after readings on gender and household inequality fired her up.
  • She designed an interview study to measure thinking work that typical time-use methods miss.
ADVICE

Measure Decisions Not Just Time

  • Track decisions instead of just activities to reveal who does the thinking work.
  • Ask people to reconstruct decision steps in interviews to map cognitive labor.
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