One day last week I spent fourteen hours working. In front of screens for pretty much the entire day, I was researching, writing, calculating and completing spreadsheets, reports and producing charts and analysis. I was in a happy place and didn’t realise the time that passed. When you’re in that Csíkszentmihályi flow state, you miss how time passes and become engrossed in what you’re doing.

The next day I was out and about, connecting with people face to face, having rich and engaging conversations. Chewing the fat and chatting through an incredibly diverse range of topics was also a flow, and the time rushed past at speed.

The day after, I was exhausted.

Both of these states of flow (one introverted and concentrated on work, the other extroverted and all about other people) absorb different forms of energy from you. My brain ached the day after from the number of thoughts, traces, and trails that had been left.

Cognitive overload? Done it.

We need to recognise this more in the way we’re working, but more so in learning. Being able to produce learning in the flow of work is all well and good, but that reflective, relaxed, spaced time when we are able to take pause is more essential than ever in an “always-on” world.

Yet how often do we actually build this into our working patterns? We schedule back-to-back meetings, cram development into lunch breaks, and treat any gap in the calendar as inefficiency rather than necessity. The irony is that the spacing effect (one of the most robust findings in learning science) tells us that distributed practice over time beats massed practice every time. We know this is the case and yet we design work and learning as if intensity equals effectiveness.

There’s also something worth acknowledging about the different types of recovery we need. After deep analytical work, I don’t want conversation. After intensive social interaction, I don’t want spreadsheets. The brain needs variety, but it also needs stillness. Not switching from one demanding task to another, but genuine cognitive rest.

For those of us designing learning experiences or advising organisations on capability building, this matters. We can’t keep treating people as if they have unlimited processing capacity. The flow of work is relentless enough without us adding to it with demands for continuous development that never pauses for breath.

Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is nothing at all.

---

#Learning #WorkplaceLearning #CognitiveLoad