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This is very familiar to me, I've been trying to use some strategies to limit cognitive load to mixed success. The most effective thing has just been taking be

This is very familiar to me, I've been trying to use some strategies to limit cognitive load to mixed success. The most effective thing has just been taking better notes. If i know i take good notes, and i write something down and know i will go back and read it, my brain knows it's "allowed" to forget about it, and that greatly lessons the load. Sounds obvious and simple but sometimes it's not obvious that spending time to write down a mix of both really basic and really complicated stuff can make it so much easier to get stuff done.

cborch 5y ago
This is the key for me, but I've never heard anyone else talk about it. It feels like I need to get it out of my brain and somewhere else or my brain's 'ram' is full. I'm not sure if its mental of there is some physiological phenomenon going on there, but it really works for me.
pier25 5y ago
You mean like documentation? Or what type of notes are you talking about?
- LightHugger 5y ago
  Documentation would be a part of it but not really what im talking about. First step would be learning to recognize the thoughts that keep buzzing around in your head, like if are frequently noticing that you keep thinking "I gotta do X, which requires me to do Y, and this is how i should do Y but im not sure about Z and whether or not i do Z or Y first so now im thinking about how i should do Z". Then those things need to get offloaded to some kind of note system. Just a text file can work, or a doc, or a paper notebook... It's good to write down the things you need to do, but also anything important about how you wanted to do them, or any inter-depencies you might forget about if you "offload" them now. Any thoughts you are 100% confident you can regenerate trivially dont get written down. Once you have them stored, you need to mentally recognize that you no longer need to think about those things. It's kind of vague but thats the best i got. Then all the space it was taking up is free, and you're free to focus in on something more specific.
  - pier25 5y ago
    Thanks. It makes sense. I will try your method and see if I can offload some RAM!

cborch 5y ago

This is the key for me, but I've never heard anyone else talk about it. It feels like I need to get it out of my brain and somewhere else or my brain's 'ram' is full. I'm not sure if its mental of there is some physiological phenomenon going on there, but it really works for me.

pier25 5y ago

You mean like documentation? Or what type of notes are you talking about?

LightHugger 5y ago
Documentation would be a part of it but not really what im talking about. First step would be learning to recognize the thoughts that keep buzzing around in your head, like if are frequently noticing that you keep thinking "I gotta do X, which requires me to do Y, and this is how i should do Y but im not sure about Z and whether or not i do Z or Y first so now im thinking about how i should do Z". Then those things need to get offloaded to some kind of note system. Just a text file can work, or a doc, or a paper notebook... It's good to write down the things you need to do, but also anything important about how you wanted to do them, or any inter-depencies you might forget about if you "offload" them now. Any thoughts you are 100% confident you can regenerate trivially dont get written down. Once you have them stored, you need to mentally recognize that you no longer need to think about those things. It's kind of vague but thats the best i got. Then all the space it was taking up is free, and you're free to focus in on something more specific.
- pier25 5y ago
  Thanks. It makes sense. I will try your method and see if I can offload some RAM!