Offload cognitive load
Tools to tackle complexity in your cognition
Human brains can normally only keep 3 to 4 things in mind at a single point of time. So, if you find yourself getting overwhelmed with complexity, most probably, you’re trying to work with too many things at once.
A few simple tools to take care of this are:
Notes
Diagrams
Simplifying and summarizing
Teaching it to a 5-year-old (not to be taken literally)
Distilling the essence
Connecting the dots one by one
Drawings
Explaining it to a rubber duck (yes, really)
Explaining it to your grandma
Saying the same thing in your native language
Explaining why not
Trying the opposite
Playing the devil’s advocate
Explain using negative terms
Creating a story around it
Creating a physical model of it
Writing all the reasoning you came up with for or against each point
Point is, there are many ways to get unstuck when complexity arrives. Try some of the above and see.
