Latest / Good Morning From The Chicken Coop! / Season 4 - Episode 28 - What is cognitive overload?

Transcript

Season 4 - Episode 28 - What is cognitive overload? · Good Morning From The Chicken Coop!

• 0:01
  Hey everybody, welcome to the good morning from the Chicken
• 0:04
  Coop podcast. My name is Kim Johnson and I am
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  a mastermind, set coach, creative strategist, and also
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  happen to be a farmer. This is my chicken coop and I
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  come out here every day to record a podcast to teach
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  distinctions, possibilities, new ways of thinking, and just bring
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  some joy into the world. So welcome to the coop, and
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  let's start your day off in a fantastic way.
• 0:28
  Hey everybody, good morning. So today we are talking about
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  cognitive overload. Sounds so impressive, doesn't
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  it? Well, it's really what happens
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  when your brain is processing more information than it can
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  effectively handle. It's like it's all coming in at
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  once. It leads to, you know,
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  overwhelm, confusion. They're all driving the bus.
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  And the most important thing that happens is it decreases
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  your performance. Think of it like if you thought
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  of it like a computer, you could think of it like you have too
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  many tabs open. It's what happens when I share a
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  screen, my assistant and she goes, Oh my gosh, why do you
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  have so many tabs open? You need to close them down.
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  Or when I called Apple and said, hey, I had to call Apple Care
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  because my computer was acting wonky and they shared my screen
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  with me and they said, jeez, you have a lot of tabs open here.
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  And this is what it does. It slows everything down.
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  Nothing runs efficiently when this happens, but we don't think
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  of it that way because we can do it.
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  And this is where it it becomes a little wonky for us because
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  just because you can do something doesn't mean you
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  should do something. And I can have hope in 57 tabs,
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  sure, but should I know what's the optimal number?
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  So this comes back to cognitive overload and what happens when
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  we're bombarded with too many thoughts, mind chatter,
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  decisions, distractions, distractions, distractions,
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  distractions. They're always happening around
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  us, whether it's our phone dinging, someone walking in our
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  office, someone asking you a question, emails coming in.
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  It remains very hard in today's world to be focused.
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  Unless you decide you're going to make a conscious effort to
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  say I'm reducing my cognitive overload, I'm going to shut this
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  down. Now, why do I want you to think
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  of it in terms of cognitive overload?
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  Because it's nothing that we have an association to it.
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  It's it's when we have a, a meaning, when we set a meaning
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  to a phrase, we will sometimes take it on.
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  So multitasking, that's the exact other way to say cognitive
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  overload. But for some reason, we love to
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  talk about how we can multitask oh so well, when the real
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  reality is we don't. It decreases performance.
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  It means you're giving something not your full effort, not your
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  full intention with it because you're being pulled in many
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  directions, but because it sounds sexy.
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  See, when we say, oh, I'm multitasking, we we get away
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  with it. When we say cognitive overload,
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  we go, wait a second. Overload doesn't sound good.
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  So let me think about that for a second and we stop.
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  So when you start to process this and really want to clear it
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  out, you can recognize that this is not healthy.
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  This is not a healthy pattern. And if you want to get to where
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  you want to go, especially at the end of the month, we're
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  coming up to the end of January. This is one of those times where
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  the pressure starts to come on. We're almost 30 days through the
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  month and guess what? Oh my gosh, I didn't get done
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  what I thought I was going to do.
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  I have to hurry up. I have to do this, I have to do
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  this, I have to do this. The list becomes longer and
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  longer, the pressure becomes longer and and on top of that,
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  you still all those distractions and other things that are
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  attempting to come in and wipe you out.
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  So the bombardment of all of it is where you have to say, hold
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  on, this is cognitive overload and I cannot operate well
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  effectively in that state. So forget about making it sound
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  sexy with I can multitask. Can you?
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  Yes should you No, no, no and no.
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  So how do you handle this? Well, first of all, you know, we
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  can always go back to say, OK, how did we get here?
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  If you want to debrief what's causing it, But we all know
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  what's causing it. It's everyday life.
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  It's all those little things. So if you can pull down, close
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  some of those tabs and say I'm going to focus on one thing at a
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  time. I'm going to choose to have one
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  thing at a time be done. It's going to make you perform
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  better. It's going to help you choose
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  better drivers for your emotions and your bus.
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  It's going to make you be more productive when you do one thing
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  at a time. But unless you can recognize
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  that this is happening, and part of the reason why we're talking
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  about this is because I am, I experienced this myself.
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  At the end of every month, I'm looking at all the stuff that I
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  wanted to get done. And with all the weather that
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  we've had here, I haven't been able to get stuff done on the
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  farm that I wanted to in time so that I can get a jump start on
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  the growing season. So what happens?
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  I'm my brain is running like crazy and all of the thoughts,
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  I've got to get this. I've got to make a decision on
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  where I'm going to do this watering system.
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  I need to do that. And it all takes over.
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  And granted, this is all about helping us to thrive, helping
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  all of you to thrive when I do all these thoughts.
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  But guess what? It's not effective and I'm not
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  getting where I want to go. And I'm experiencing exactly
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  what I'm talking to you about. So shutting down cognitive
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  overload, that's our focus today.
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  Really focus your attention on one thing at a time and choose
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  to not allow all those thoughts, decisions, distractions, the
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  mental chatter, everyone talking on the bus to take over and make
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  that focused choice. Be a really good time to say,
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  okay, what's my one thing I want to get done today and what's the
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  best emotion and driver I need for that?
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  Or the even if it's not the whole day, it's just this next
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  hour, this next 15 minutes, however you want to break it
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  down, jump into it. All right, my friends, I hope
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  you have a fantastic day and a blessed day and I will see you
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  tomorrow. Bye.