Do you have a cluttered mind at the end of the day, or do you feel like you could have achieved more? Unlocking your full potential often lies not in working harder, but smarter -and in how you manage your energy.
The invisible factor that influences your performance is Cognitive Load. This is the total mental effort required to complete your tasks.
The good news? You can learn to understand your mental load and learn to consciously manage it. It is the route to more rest, a sharper focus, as well as sustainable productivity.
The game of your memory
Cognitive load is the total mental effort that your working memory makes. Your working memory is crucial, but it has a strict limit: it can hold up to seven items at a time. We distinguish between three types of load:
🧠 Intrinsic Load: the task itself
This is the inherent difficulty of the matter. How complex or novel is the topic? Think of understanding a business process or learning a programming language.
Goal: Control! Keep it organized. You can reduce the overall load by dividing the material into smaller, logical steps.
🧠 Extrinsic Load: unnecessary strain
This includes distractions, unclear emails, a lack of structure, as well as noise or friction unrelated to the tasks themselves.
Goal: Minimize! Switching between tasks can cost you up to 40% of your productivity.
🧠 Germane Load: learning
The useful, conscious effort to make connections, recognize patterns, and store them in your long-term memory. This is where knowledge is built.
Goal: Optimize! You want to invest a large part of your mental energy to actually grow.
Keep your head workable
Your brain is only 2% of your weight, but consumes almost 10 times more of your energy. When you take on too much of the extrinsic load, recognize these signals:
- Brain fog/mental fog: a sense of emptiness and difficulty concentrating, even on simple tasks.
- A “short fuse”: you quickly become (more) annoyed by colleagues or minor interruptions.
- Indecision: you get stuck in details and can't make decisions.
- Sloppiness: errors in routines that you normally do on autopilot.
Deep concentration reaches its limit after about 45 minutes. That is when you brain needs a moment to recharge.
Is your brain 'full'?
- Do a brain dump: write down what you're thinking about, without a filter. Visual information is processed faster than text.
- Your auditory memory (the inner voice) only remembers 2 seconds, so take note!
- Work with checklists: you give your brain space by not having to remember everything.
- Temporarily turn off notifications and work with 30-45 minute focus blocks to gain control over the balance between attention and rest.
- Evaluate for energy, not tasks. Plan the toughest tasks when you're freshest.
- Escape from blockages by starting with a minimal version. What is the smallest step you can take now? Go for small victories, they provide momentum.
- Get enough high-quality sleep: one bad night reduces your cognitive capacity by 30%.
Realistic perspective
It's not about working harder, it's about managing your scarce mental capacity more effectively. By minimizing the extrinsic load, you create space to focus on the task itself (intrinsic load) and the associated learning process (germane load). Remember: it's not about perfection, but about learning to manage your mental energy better.
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