Cognitive bottlenecks: the inherent limits of the thinking mind

Once we get rid of the illusionary multitasking and the toxic productivity, cognitive bottlenecks are not inherently bad. They are just characteristics of our mind we need to consider when we plan our work and interact with the world.

3- Practice mindful productivity. Instead of blaming yourself anytime you notice you’re distracted, gently bring back your attention to the task at hand. If it keeps on happening, simply take a short break to recharge your mental batteries.

2- Plan for focused chunks of work. Instead of trying to multitask, define clear tasks and block time in your calendar to complete them.

1- Offload some of your thinking. Instead of relying on your mind alone for information processing and decision making, use tools for thought that help you collect and connect ideas together.

3 Strategies to Manage:

Everyone will have different profiles for levels of attention and working memory, and your cognitive capacities also vary throughout the day and throughout the years. Being aware of the existence of these cognitive bottlenecks can help you avoid being overconfident in your cognitive capacities, and to make more sound decisions at work and in your d... See more

Working memory is the second major cognitive bottleneck that limits our thinking mind. It allows us to retain multiple pieces of information for short-term processing. The problem is that working memory is extremely limited in capacity and duration, which can impact learning and decision-making.

Using brain scanning and behavioural experiments, researchers at the Center for Integrative and Cognitive Neurosciences at Vanderbilt University have identified a unified attentional bottleneck in the human brain, which impacts both perception and action. Simply put, we’re bad at dividing our attention between different tasks.

Our thinking mind is limited by two Big Bad Bottlenecks: our attention and our working memory.