If you're feeling like every morning you wake up, fail at a few things, and then go back to bed, you're not alone.
Over the last few months, Mamamia surveyed almost 1500 Australian women, and discovered that in the midst of a pandemic and a recession, women's mental load has significantly increased.
If last year you were juggling 47 balls (work, maybe children, friendships, exercise, washing, floor being... visible), this year you probably feel like you're being shot at by an additional 400 balls. Made of concrete. And you keep tripping over them. And they keep dropping on your forehead at three o'clock in the morning which is why you're always so bloody tired.
That's where Nora Roberts' analogy about what to prioritise when you're busy and overwhelmed comes in especially handy.
Earlier this year, a woman named Jennifer Lynn Barnes tweeted about being in the audience of a Q&A where best-selling author, Roberts, was speaking.
"One time, I was at a Q&A with Nora Roberts," she writes, "and someone asked her how to balance writing and kids, and she said that the key to juggling is to know that some of the balls you have in the air are made of plastic & some are made of glass."
She continued, "And if you drop a plastic ball, it bounces, no harm done. If you drop a glass ball, it shatters, so you have to know which balls are glass and which are plastic and prioritise catching the glass ones.
"I think about this ALL THE TIME. I dropped more than one ball today. It is hard to drop any ball, and I hate it! But they were plastic, and tomorrow, it will be okay. "
One time, I was at a Q&A with Nora Roberts, and someone asked her how to balance writing and kids, and she said that the key to juggling is to know that some of the balls you have in the air are made of plastic & some are made of glass.
— Jennifer Lynn Barnes (@jenlynnbarnes) January 23, 2020