HOW TO DEAL WITH WORK?
Unlocking Your Brain’s Limitation: The Magic Number 7
How to deal with work? How to deal with endless tasks, messages, notifications, and calls? Well, let me ask you a question: did you know that your brain can focus on only 7 things (+/-2)? It might sound surprising, but this intriguing limitation is a fundamental aspect of how our brains function. Understanding this concept can empower you to work more efficiently, make better decisions, and navigate the complexities of our daily lives. In other words, learning more about your own friend – your brain – can simplify your life.
Our decision-making processes are primarily housed in a remarkable region of our brain known as the Prefrontal Cortex. While this part of the brain is undeniably powerful, it, too, has its own set of limitations. By becoming aware of these constraints, we can significantly enhance our cognitive abilities and harness this critical part of our brain to its full potential.
No matter whether we are grappling with the tasks of understanding, deciding, recalling, memorizing, or inhibiting, each of these processes demands a substantial amount of mental energy. The key insight is that, during these cognitive tasks, our brains are naturally wired to focus on just 7 things simultaneously. This magical number, 7, defines the threshold of our cognitive capacity.
The Mental Stage Analogy
To understand this limitation better, imagine your short-term memory as a mental stage where cognitive actors perform. This stage is rather small, and it can host only seven actors at a time. Each actor represents a piece of information, a task, or a thought.
When you’re bombarded with information or tasks, it’s like many actors jumping onto the stage at once, each vying for your attention. The stage quickly becomes chaotic as they bump into each other, pushing some off the stage before they can complete their act. This illustrates the challenge of trying to focus on too many things simultaneously and that’s why it can be difficult to deal with work.
Also, when you need to recall something from the far reaches of your memory, it’s like searching for an actor in the furthest rows of the audience, in the dark. Retrieving that piece of information consumes a lot of mental energy, akin to bringing an actor from the audience onto the stage.
Keeping an “actor” on the stage when you don’t want them to leave also consumes a significant amount of energy. This scenario occurs when you try to keep something in your mind, like remembering a phone number, but your working memory keeps pushing it offstage.
Energy-Consuming Activities and Strategies
When you’ve got so much on your plate, it’d be a good idea to prioritize. But one of the most energy-consuming activities for our brains is the act of prioritizing and making difficult decisions. These cognitive processes can be mentally draining, especially when our brain is not in an optimal state.
To mitigate the energy drain, it’s crucial to tackle these activities when your brain is still fresh and has a lot of glucose at its disposal. This often means scheduling demanding tasks earlier in the day when your cognitive resources are at their peak.
So how to deal with work more effectively? Reducing the energy these processes consume is also possible through some effective strategies:
- Eat: Ensure you’ve had a nourishing meal. After all, your brain needs good fuel.
- Using Visuals: Visual aids can help simplify complex information and decisions. Diagrams, charts, and graphs can make it easier for your brain to process and organize data. Visuals engage your brain in a different way, often making it more efficient in understanding and decision-making.
- Jotting Things Down: Reduce the number of items in your mental stage by jotting things down. Whether it’s to-do lists, notes, or mind maps, writing information down externalizes it, freeing up valuable mental space and preventing cognitive overload.
By integrating these strategies into your daily routines, you can make the most of your brain’s natural capacity and reduce the mental strain associated with complex tasks and decisions.
Conclusion – how to deal with work?
In a world filled with constant information and demands for our attention, understanding the magic number 7 is like having an operator’s manual for your brain. By recognizing the limitations of our working memory and adapting our cognitive processes to this natural constraint, we can enhance our productivity, make wiser decisions, and navigate the complexities of modern life with greater ease.
In essence, embracing the power of 7 can help us unlock the true potential of our brains, making our mental work more efficient, effective, and less taxing. So the next time you find yourself overwhelmed, remember that your brain’s magic number is 7, and use it to your advantage.
Thank you for visiting HOW TO DEAL WITH!
References: Rock, David, (2020). Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long. NY: Harper Business
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