I have trashed the to-do list. To help my brain...

There are new studies showing that young men and men with more progressive views of what a father should be - which is not just a helper and fun parent, but actually a partner - are beginning to feel more work-life conflict than mothers are. They're trying to do what women have been doing for 30 years, and they're having a very stressful time of it - a harder time at work because we still expect men to be on 24-7, working 40 years straight.

Even when men do more housework and child care, a lot of times it's still women in charge, delegating, so you have all that noise in your brain. You're on a bike ride or picnic with your family, and it looks like leisure, but on the inside you are keeping track of everybody's emotional temperature, and did I pack this, what are the directions, how much time are we going to be here, do we have anything for dinner? It's like a toilet running all the time.

The more armed we are with information about the seduction of technology, the more we can build systems to better deal with it. I had no idea that I got a hit of dopamine, which is the pleasure hormone that also governs addiction, every time that little email bing goes off.

It's become such a cultural norm that people brag about it: "Oh yeah, you did that? I did this." Keeping up with the Joneses used to be about "I have the bigger house and car," and now it's much more about how much stuff you can cram into your calendar.

Busyness has become such a social value that we will even create it, we will create that sense of breathlessness because we think that's how we show status and importance. That is a really interesting and troubling finding. We've taken this notion of hard work to a crazy degree.

On a personal level, I do a "brain dump" where everything that's in my head that needs doing gets written down. It gives your brain a rest. And then I give myself permission not to do everything on that list. I'm much more clear about my priorities: What are those moments of connection that are most important to me? Today is a busy workday but it's also a snow day, so I'm going cross-country skiing with my husband. And then I'll come back and finish my work.