Where’s your Cognitive Load?

Every morning, this is often what my kitchen table looks like. Actually, most of the time this is what my kitchen table looks like:

- a notebook for my PR clients (I also run a PR firm)
- a notebook for my Life Coaching Clients
- notes from my M.A. program
- a ripped out page that has my tentative New Year’s resolutions (I keep it to 3 and pray that I can keep them going through March, but it’s the effort right?)
- post-it notes with affirmations or quotes
- and most importantly, a page that I keep on my nightstand at night, with my “overnight thoughts.”

When I wake up in the morning, my mind is usually racing. Not always with high anxiety things, but with things that I need to do, conversations I need to have or moments from my dreams. Sometimes it’s an idea for a client, sometimes it’s a blog post idea, sometimes it’s something that somebody said to me earlier in the day that stuck in my subconscious but it’s meaningful, and it’s made it’s way into my consciousness.

I’ve found over the last few years that the mornings are when I have the utmost clarity on how to problem solve something, how to phrase something or even prioritize something. I’ve also found that if I don’t download all of these things down and put them on paper, they stay in my brain.

When that happens, I run out of space. I don’t have room for new creative ideas, I don’t have room for processing new things that come up, I don’t have room for decision making.

It’s because I am carrying what’s called a “cognitive load.”

In cognitive psychology, cognitive load is the level of mental energy you expend to interpret a situation and act on it. Because our “working memory,” (the part of our brain that powers conscious thought,) is limited to only 4–5 pieces of information at any given time, the lower the cognitive load, the easier and faster a decision can be made.

It helps. Feeling stuck? Overwhelmed? Unsure what is bothering you? Take out a sheet of paper and write down everything that’s on your mind.

You DON’T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING WITH IT — the practice is giving your scattered conscious and subconscious thoughts that are running around a home. A tag. A file.