🚀 Add to Chrome – It’s Free - YouTube Summarizer
Category: N/A
No summary available.
00:00
When you sit down to work and you can't focus, it's not because you lack discipline or willpower. It's because your mental ram is maxed out.
You're one brain dump away from the best work of your life. Now, I'm Randar, founder and CEO of flowstate.com.
We've trained everyone from Audi, Assenture, and the US Air Force to use neuroscience-based
00:16
principles to access flow states at will. Now, you know that nagging, foggy sense that there's stuff you need to do.
You can't quite pin down what they are. Part of your mind is constantly scanning, searching, trying to remember what else needs attention while you're trying to focus on the task in front of
00:32
you. 45 minutes later, you've accomplished nothing, but you're exhausted from the mental juggling act.
Now, most people think this mental fog is a focus problem. But the real culprit is something wasn't even named until a psychologist in Australia made a discovery that changed how we understand mental overwhelm.
In the late 1970s, a
00:49
researcher by the name of John Sweller was studying how people solve problems. He'd give students math problems and watch them work.
And what he saw puzzled him. The students who tried the hardest who pushed themselves to juggle all the steps in their head at one time actually learned the least.
Meanwhile, students
01:04
were given a clear step-by-step map of the problem solving process so that they didn't have to hold it in mind would learn much faster. Sweller realized something profound was happening.
The struggling students weren't learning poorly because they lacked intelligence. They were learning poorly because their
01:20
minds were overloaded. like a computer trying to run a program while simultaneously downloading updates, scanning for viruses, and rendering video.
Now, in 1988, Sweller published his findings, and he gave this phenomenon a name. He called it cognitive load.
We can only hold about
01:36
four to seven distinct pieces of information in our working memory. When we exceed this limit, our mental performance crashes.
Think of your brain as having two major networks that need to take turns. There's the default mode network, active when you're planning or mind wandering, and then there's the task positive network, engaged when
01:52
you're focused on external work. Under normal conditions, these networks are like dancers trading the spotlight.
When one steps forward, the other steps back. This anti-correlated relationship discovered by Michael Fox and colleagues at the University of British Columbia is what allows you to shift smoothly
02:08
between internal reflection and external focus. But under high cognitive load, your brain can't cleanly switch between networks anymore.
It's trying to plan the default mode while also trying to focus the task positive network. It's like trying to have a phone conversation while also listening to a podcast.
Both
02:23
networks are firing at once. This neural traffic jam creates two radically different types of performers.
Let's call them the overburdened brain and the unbburdened mind. The overburdened brains live in perpetual chaos.
Brain scans would show sustained beta waves in these individuals. The high frequency
02:40
electrical pattern of overthinking. They never get back to you.
When they finally do the work, it's sloppy, so much beta wave noise that the CAM alphatheta patterns of flow can't emerge. The unbburdened mind operates completely differently.
They keep their mental RAM clear. Brain scans here for these
02:57
individuals would show alphatheta activity, the smooth hum of relaxed, calm, and alert focus. These are the frequencies where flow state occurs.
With cognitive load low in these folks, their brain can fully commit to whatever's in front of them. The difference between these two types is an understanding that your mental RAM must
03:13
be actively cleared. Otherwise, you're biologically locked out of peak performance.
As my prior co-founder Steven Cutotler says, when you analyze all the triggers for flow state, they work to primary mechanisms. Increasing focus or decreasing cognitive load.
But why? Both create conditions for
03:30
transient hyperrontality where your inner critic quiets and self-consciousness fades. Flow can emerge unimpeded.
But here's the key. You cannot achieve transient hyperventality when your cognitive load is high.
This is why cognitive load isn't just a flow blocker. It's the flow blocker.
So how do you lower your cognitive load? Well, there are two
03:46
steps. It starts with firstly the cognitive load dump.
Now several years ago, I remember being up at midnight working on a slide deck that was due in a few hours. I'd spent three hours staring at a blank title slide while Slack pinged and my inbox piled up.
Out of options, I messaged my business partner the following morning and he
04:02
asked one thing. How many tabs are open in your mind?
I started listing curriculum outlines, ad copy. 20 seconds in, he cut me off.
Grab a page. Write down everything that's taking up space in your mind.
I filled the legal pad more or less front to back in 10 frantic
04:18
minutes. Client deliverables, a tense conversation that I needed to have with our lead developer, my mom's birthday gift.
As I wrote, something shifted. Each item I captured on paper was one less thing my brain had to hold.
My breathing slowed and became more rhythmic. That messy brain dump became the foundation of a protocol that's now
04:34
helped thousands clear their mental RAM. And we call this protocol the cognitive load dump.
Here's how to do it. Step one is the brain dump.
Grab a sheet of paper and a pen, physical, not digital. When you write by hand, your visual and motor cortex work together to create a cognitive offloading effect.
Write down everything on your mind. Tasks, worries,
04:51
random thoughts, open loops, that thing your spouse mentioned, the fact that you've got a strange looking rash, whatever it is. Don't organize.
Just dump. Once you think you're finished, keep writing until more surfaces.
There's always another layer to offload. So, persist with the writing.
Even if you think you've gotten everything, hold
05:07
for another 3 to 5 minutes, and more will surface and emerge. Step two, organize your RAM.
When the timer ends, quickly scan what you wrote. For each item, make a decision.
Do it now if it's under 2 minutes. Schedule it.
Add to the calendar with specific times or delete it. Cross it out.
It's not actually that important. Or delegate it.
Note who to
05:23
hand it off to. This step is crucial.
Just writing things down will still result in cognitive load continuing because although we've dumped these things out, which does help, the loose ends have not been snipped. Deciding the fate of all these things you're dumping out onto the page allows your brain to
05:40
truly release them. Step three is to release and reset.
Take the paper, fold it in half, and put it somewhere out of sight, in a drawer, in a folder, just away. This physical act of putting it away creates a psychological boundary.
Then take three deep breaths. In for three, hold for two, out for 10 to activate the parasympathetic nervous
05:56
system, clearing the stress hormones that occur when cognitive load is high. Now go directly to your most important goal- directed task.
Don't check email, don't look at your phone. Use this cleared state immediately.
Now, by the way, if you want all four steps of the cognitive load dump protocol, plus the
06:11
advanced sustaining practices I'm about to share, all in one downloadable guide you can easily reference, click the link below in the description, pop your email in, and boom, we'll zip it to you right away. Now, the cognitive load dump is like a deep clean for your mind.
But just as you wouldn't deep clean your kitchen once and expect it to stay
06:28
spotless forever, you can't dump cognitive load once and expect mental clarity. The cognitive load dump drops your mental burden from 100% to, let's say, 20% or lower instantly.
But what you need next is a system that keeps you hovering around 20 to 30% capacity by
06:43
default. That way, when important work arrives, you have the mental bandwidth to engage fully.
This is exactly what elite performers do. They don't just clear cognitive load when overwhelmed.
They maintain practices that prevent the overwhelm from occurring. Here's how.
Sustaining low cognitive load, which is
06:58
our second step. Here are three rules to follow.
The first rule is never hold information in working memory. Your brain is for processing, not for storing.
Every thought you try to hold internally in mind steals processing power away from your current task. Rule
07:14
two is to close open loops immediately. Unfinished tasks create mental tension until resolved.
Either complete them, schedule them, or capture them externally, but never leave them floating. And rule three is to eliminate the need to remember.
Elite performers don't have better brains. They have emptier ones.
Not because they're
07:30
thinking less, but because they're thinking more efficiently. Oralass performers across every domain unconsciously develop rituals to clear cognitive load before their most important work.
Concert pianists have pre-performance routines. Elite athletes have pregame protocols.
Nobel laureates
07:46
have thinking rituals they've discovered through experience what neuroscience now proves. A cluttered mind is an inefficient mind.
The unburdening of mind creates a clarity and lightness that touches every aspect of your existence. You stop being the frantic, overburdened brain who's always behind,
08:01
always apologizing, and you become the calm center others rely on. Peak performers aren't those who successfully juggle the most.
They're those who refuse to juggle at all. Now, for a downloadable template for maintaining low cognitive load, click the link in the description, pop your email in, we'll zip it to you right away.
And if
08:16
you want to dive deeper into the neuroscience of peak performance, check out our video on waking up and entering flow state immediately while cognitive load is naturally lowest. It pairs well with what you've just learned about clearing cognitive load.
All the best.