New Year's Eve. I did what I always do - scrolled back through the year to look at everything we'd done.
And honestly? I felt a bit sad.
Not because the year was bad. Just because so much of it, I wasn't really in it.
There are photos Ben took of me at the park. Kids running around, sun out. And I look like I have the weight of the world on my shoulders.
That moment, I made a decision. This year, I was going to make the moments count. Not big holidays - the little moments. Every day.
So instead of a new years resolution (because those never work for me) I made myself a mantra. Every day CAN be a party. ‘Can’ being the operative word. It's a choice.
But here's what I learned fast: you can't mindset your way out of the load.
I tried. I printed a year-long calendar and stuck it on our wall. Filled it with things we'd remember. Added reminders. Had AI prompt me to think differently about dinner time - “perhaps a picnic on the lounge floor?”. And it helped.…
But the unpacked school bag still sat by the door. The dinner still got ordered on Uber Eats. Bedtime still felt like something to get through. The list still sat in my head as I faught myself to ‘be present’.
Turns out, I couldn't choose my way to presence when the overwhelm was structural. I needed to actually reduce the load.
What the load actually is
There's a name for it. Researchers call it the mental load - and it has three specific qualities that explain why it's so relentless.
It's invisible. Nobody sees it happening. It lives entirely inside your head.
It's boundaryless. It doesn't stop when you're at work, at the gym, or trying to sleep. (Hello brain at 10pm!)
And it's enduring. Because it's tied to caring for people who always need things, it never finishes.
This is why psychologists talk about "open loops", the unfinished tasks your brain refuses to release. Research shows the mind returns to an unresolved task over and over, generating a kind of cognitive static, until there's a trusted plan in place. Not a completed task. Just a plan. That's all your brain needs to release the tension.
The mental load isn't the same as anxiety. It's hundreds of open loops with nowhere to go.
And here's the part that makes it different from almost every other kind of overwhelming workload: unlike a job, you cannot choose to “do less but better” or just focus on the essentials. You can't outsource bath time. You can't deprioritise the washing when everyone's out of clean socks. You can't ‘essentialism’ your way through drop-off logistics.
I've tried everything
I'm a long-time productivity obsessor. GTD. Bullet journaling. FlyLady - shoutout to the old schoolers. I was “shining my sink” and “dressing to shoes” at 21 (if you know what this means please DM me.)
Each of them cracked part of the code.
David Allen's GTD gave us the most important principle in personal productivity: your brain is for having ideas, not holding them. Get everything out into a trusted external system.
FlyLady gave us routines as anchors. The morning routine and evening routine as the structure that holds the day. The before-bed checklist that means you're not starting from zero tomorrow.
Bullet journaling gave us intentional reflection and actual customisation. Space to think, not just record.
But here's what I found: systems that rely on willpower collapse the moment a sick kid, a bad week, or an energy crash arrives. Not because you failed them. Because they were designed for a tidier version of your life than you actually have.
And crucially - they all ask you to adapt yourself to the system. None of them adapt to you.
That's always been the gap.
AI changed that. Not with a better template - with the ability to build something that was designed for your life from the very beginning.
My system would never work for you
And I say that as the highest possible compliment.
Tiago Forte wrote a book called Building a Second Brain. It's about externalising everything your brain is trying to hold so you can actually think. It changed the way professionals manage their working lives.
Nobody built it for the invisible job.
Because the invisible job is entirely personal. My system runs on the fact that my husband works in the office two days a week. It accounts for the fact that my mum, dad and brother all live overseas - birthday presents need a three-week runway. It knows that Hadley only needs two packed lunches for pre-school a week because she's at daycare the other days.
No template in the world accounts for that.
That's what AI has changed. Not the concept - externalising your second brain so it stops running inside your actual one - but the ability to build something that was designed for your life from the very beginning. Not a template for you to adapt to. A system that adapts to you.
That's what PromptMum is. Not a productivity newsletter. An AI skills newsletter - that teaches you how to think like a systems engineer, through the life you're already living.
One prompt. One skill. One small win. It compounds.
I built a Family OS - an AI-powered system that runs the invisible work of family life. I documented every step as I went. That became PromptMum.
I'll share what I've learned so you can do it too. We're just getting started.
— Sarah xx