I first heard the term “mental load” on a podcast earlier this year. It might have been NPR — I honestly can’t remember, which is kind of the point of this blog post. That’s the mental load talking.
Mental load is the invisible cognitive work of planning, organizing, remembering, tracking, and worrying about everything that needs to get done. It’s not the tasks themselves — it’s the work of holding them in your head and making sure they don’t fall through the cracks.
The concept stuck with me, but it didn’t fully click until this summer. I was exhausted — a low, buzzing, background hum of mental fatigue I couldn’t shake. So I sat down and tried to name what was actually running through the back of my brain. Here’s what I came up with.
- Planning a trip with my two teenage daughters
- House projects that needed attention
- Keeping up with daily administrative tasks
- Checking in on my kids’ health and wellbeing
- Making sure my client projects are on track
- Monitoring my own health and wellbeing
- Planning ahead for my business
- Normal worrying about friends and family
- And on, and on, and on
When I actually wrote it all down, I ended up with ten different “buckets” — categories of worry, planning, and remembering that were all jumbled together in my head like a knot of charging cables in a drawer. Just naming them helped. I even drew a picture of the buckets. And then, of course, I got the idea to write this blog post, which immediately became bucket number eleven.
That’s the thing about mental load. It’s not the big, visible tasks on your calendar. It’s the invisible work of holding it all in your head — the remembering, the anticipating, the tracking, the worrying.
What the Research Says
Two recent pieces helped me understand what I was experiencing.
The first is a Harvard Business Review article called “The Invisible Work Draining Your Best Employees.” Their core argument: the employees who carry the most mental load — the ones who remember the details, anticipate problems, and keep things running smoothly — are often the most drained and the least recognized. It’s the people who are best at their jobs who are most at risk.
The second is a UCLA Health article called “Mental load: What it is and how to manage it,” which breaks down mental load as “the invisible to-do list that runs through your mind” and offers practical strategies for managing it. Things like scheduling worry time, externalizing tasks, and learning to say “that’s not mine to hold.”
Both made me think: if this is true in any workplace, it’s especially true in libraries.
Four Forces That Make Mental Load Worse in Libraries
Libraries have some specific dynamics that can turn normal mental load into something heavier. Here are four I’ve been thinking about.
Scarcity thinking. When budgets are tight and staffing is thin, there’s a constant undercurrent of “we can’t afford to mess this up” and “there’s no one else to do it.” That pressure makes every task feel high-stakes, and it amplifies the mental load of even routine work. (Read more: Six Common Characteristics of Libraries—and How They Impact Marketing)
Vocational awe. This is the idea that library work is a calling, not just a job. It’s a beautiful thing — we believe in what we do. But it also makes it really hard to set boundaries. When you believe your work is a public good, it’s easy to tell yourself you should be doing more, thinking about work on your day off, saying yes to one more committee. That “should” voice is a major source of mental load. (Read more: Vocational Awe Revisited: The Promise and the Pitfalls of Passion-Driven Work)
Wearing many hats. Most of us aren’t just managing one set of responsibilities. In libraries, we generally have multiple roles — and every hat adds another bucket of things to remember, track, and worry about.
Older systems and complicated workflows. Library land is full of legacy technology, outdated processes, confusing workflows, and processes that require workarounds. When your tools fight you instead of helping you, every task takes more cognitive energy. That’s mental load that shouldn’t exist in the first place.
Personal life bleedover. Whether you work in a library or some other workplace, you know that it’s virtually impossible to draw a solid line between work life and home life. Doctor’s appointments aren’t scheduled at night, and text messages from coworkers don’t only come from 9am-5pm. Just like my list above, mental load is typically made up of a mix of work and personal topics. Even positive things, like a new relationship, a life milestone, or a vacation, can still add to the list.
What Helps: Two Directions at Once
Dealing with mental load requires coming at it from two directions. Both matter.
What leaders and managers can do:
- Name it. Acknowledge that mental load is real and that it’s work. Just saying “I know you’re carrying a lot in your head right now” can make a difference.
- Distribute the invisible work. If one person always tracks the desk schedule, the meeting follow-ups, or the supply inventory, rotate it or share it publicly.
- Simplify the systems. If your workflows require workarounds, fix the workflow, not the workaround. That’s a leadership responsibility.
- Push back on scarcity thinking where you can. Transparent communication about budgets and realistic workload expectations help people stop carrying the “what if” scenarios alone.
What you can do for yourself:
- Get it out of your head. I started using a free project management tool (Asana) to capture everything — from rote daily tasks to big-picture milestones. The rule: if it crosses my mind, it goes into the system, not back into the mental pile. Your email inbox is not a project management tool.
- Name your buckets. When I wrote out my ten categories and literally drew a picture of them, something clicked. Now, when a worried thought intrudes — “did I forget to schedule that?” — I tell myself “put it down” and mentally drop it into the right bucket. It sounds simple, but it works.
- Schedule your worry time. UCLA Health recommends this: give yourself 15 minutes a day to mentally review your buckets. Outside that window, tell yourself “not now, I have a time for that.” It trains your brain to stop holding everything all the time.
- Use the two-minute rule. If a task takes less than two minutes, do it immediately. Those micro-tasks — a quick reply, a calendar update, a note to yourself — are disproportionately heavy in your mental load because they feel too small to write down but too important to forget.
The Bottom Line
Libraries are places of immense job satisfaction, but under that is immense cognitive labor. We juggle patron needs, coworker needs, programming, technology, partnerships, and administrative tasks — often all in the same hour. The people who are best at this work are often the ones carrying the heaviest invisible load.
Library marketers are especially affected by this, because they are often the people who see everything the library is doing – not just what is happening in their own department or branch. And while they may see broader patterns, and want to work more proactively or efficiently, the work environment may not support that.
If we want to keep our best people, retain institutional knowledge, and foster the creativity our communities depend on, we have to take mental load seriously. That means leaders building systems that reduce cognitive burden, and individuals giving themselves permission to put things down.
I’m still working on my own ten buckets. But at least now I know what they are. And that alone has lightened the load.
Interested in naming your own buckets? Here’s my embarrassingly crude template.
