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Lower Cognitive Load - Primary Activities, Modes, and Cues

Summary

In this episode of Developer Tea, host Jonathan Cottrell continues the series on lowering cognitive load by introducing a practical framework for organizing daily activities. He explains that by categorizing all activities into “primary activities” (like focus time, meetings, writing, or socializing) and then identifying different “modes” within each primary activity (such as writing code for features vs. fixing bugs, or different types of meetings), we can create mental schemas that reduce decision fatigue.

The core mechanism for leveraging this framework is “cueing”—using sensory triggers (like a specific environment, music, or action) to instantly recall the appropriate mindset and context for a given mode. For example, going on a walk could cue the specific mindset needed for a one-on-one meeting mode. This creates efficient cue-response cycles that minimize the mental effort required to switch between tasks.

Cottrell emphasizes that this approach isn’t about rigidly structuring every moment, but about creating clarity. The framework helps distinguish between different types of work and life activities, making it easier to shift gears effectively. Importantly, it also helps identify when new tasks fall outside established categories, signaling where additional cognitive effort might be warranted.

The ultimate goal is to use these cues to smoothly transition between different modes throughout the day, conserving mental energy for the tasks that truly require deep focus and reducing the background cognitive load of constantly evaluating what to do next.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Introduction to lowering cognitive load series — Jonathan Cottrell introduces the episode’s focus on lowering cognitive load, continuing from previous episodes. He suggests listeners pause and breathe to refocus, noting that multitasking with cognitively demanding activities is difficult. The episode will present a proactive step to change how we schedule and prioritize time.
  • 00:01:45 — Identifying primary activities — Cottrell introduces the first step: classifying all daily events into “primary activities.” These are abstract categories like focus time, meetings, writing, scheduling, processing information, socializing, or relaxing. He advises reviewing your calendar to identify these recurring activity types, emphasizing that the list should be personal and inclusive of all life areas, not just work.
  • 00:03:09 — Defining modes within primary activities — For each primary activity, Cottrell explains there are typically two or three distinct “modes.” For example, writing code can have modes for new features, bug fixes, or prototypes. Meetings have modes like stand-ups, retrospectives, or one-on-ones. Even socializing has modes for familiar friends versus new acquaintances. The goal is to understand these distinctions without over-mechanizing everything.
  • 00:05:05 — The science of cueing and creating mental indexes — Cottrell addresses the potential concern that this framework increases cognitive load, explaining it actually creates a schema or “index” for the brain. He introduces the science of “cueing,” where a sensory trigger (a word, picture, environment, or music) can act as a pointer to recall associated feelings, experiences, and contexts. This cue-response cycle is a natural human ability to create associations.
  • 00:06:36 — Attaching cues to modes for context switching — The practical application is to attach specific cues to each mode of a primary activity. For example, a manager might use “going on a walk” as a cue for one-on-one meeting mode. Cottrell suggests spending time to identify what makes each mode distinct—like being more bug-sensitive in feature coding mode versus more experimental in proof-of-concept mode—and then choosing a cue that triggers that specific mindset.
  • 00:09:06 — Handling outliers and the purpose of cognitive load — Cottrell discusses how this framework helps identify when new events don’t fit existing primary activities or modes, which naturally spikes cognitive load. This spike is useful—it signals something worth extra attention. He clarifies that cognitive load isn’t inherently bad; it’s about avoiding constant load when managing schedules. The framework provides tools to treat activities as distinct and shift modes efficiently using cues.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2022-07-25T07:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:11:31

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] You’re listening to Developer Tea. My name is Jonathan Cottrell and we’re talking today

[00:00:16] about lowering cognitive load. We’ve been talking about this in the past two episodes

[00:00:21] of Developer Tea. I encourage you to go back and listen to them right now for you to lower

[00:00:27] your cognitive load. I encourage you to stop doing whatever it is you’re doing, even if

[00:00:33] it’s just for 10 seconds. Take a few breaths and then refocus on whatever you’re doing.

[00:00:40] If you’re trying to listen to this podcast while you’re doing something else, it’s probably

[00:00:45] worth considering stopping listening to this and focusing entirely on what you’re doing.

[00:00:51] Some things can be run at the same time. We have muscle memory for this stuff. We talked

[00:00:57] about that in the last episode. There’s kind of different ways of accessing this information

[00:01:05] or dealing with different kinds of inputs. For example, it’s fairly easy to listen to

[00:01:11] music while you are exercising, but it’s not very easy to listen to music that has lyrics

[00:01:16] in it while you’re doing something like coding or writing an essay. In today’s episode, I

[00:01:23] want to focus on a proactive step that you can take that’s going to change the way you

[00:01:29] think about how you schedule your time. This may change the way you think about prioritizing

[00:01:36] your time. It’s very simple. That is to look at your primary activities. This is a classification

[00:01:45] exercise. Look at the things that you’re doing. If you have a calendar, this is a really good

[00:01:49] way to do this retrospectively. Combine it with your personal calendar. The idea here

[00:01:59] is to try to look at all of the kinds of events that you participate in, not just the work

[00:02:05] ones, not just the ones that make it to your calendar, but everything that you do. I want

[00:02:13] you to identify primary activities. These primary activities might be something like

[00:02:20] focus time. It might be something like meetings. Maybe it’s writing. Maybe it’s scheduling.

[00:02:28] Maybe it’s processing some information, some list of information. You can see these are

[00:02:35] intentionally kind of vague or abstract, but these primary activities that you participate

[00:02:42] in every day, all of your activities should fit within one of these things. It’s important

[00:02:50] to make space, by the way, for primary activities that may seem a little bit more fluid, like

[00:02:57] socializing, relaxing. Don’t limit yourself to things that you think should be in this

[00:03:02] list of primary activities. This is your list of primary activities. Now for each of your

[00:03:09] primary activities, you likely have two or three different modes for those primary activities.

[00:03:17] Sometimes they have one, but usually there’s two or three. For example, you may have writing

[00:03:23] code as a primary activity and then writing code for a new feature, writing code to fix

[00:03:29] a bug, or writing code as a proof of concept or a prototype. These are all different modes

[00:03:38] for that primary activity. You’re going to think differently for each of those modes,

[00:03:45] even though the primary activity is the same. There are different kinds of meetings that

[00:03:50] you’re going to attend. A stand-up is a different mode from a retrospective. A retrospective

[00:03:57] is a different mode from a one-on-one. These even carry over into those more fluid activities.

[00:04:04] For example, you may have a social mode with people that you’re well-acquainted with, or

[00:04:09] you may have a social mode where you’re meeting new people. Now the goal here is not to create

[00:04:16] mechanics around every single thing you do in your life. Instead, it’s to understand

[00:04:21] and apply this concept so that you can have a clear picture of what those primary activities

[00:04:27] are and the different modes. Now this may be a daunting exercise to try to do all of

[00:04:32] your activities all at once. Instead, you can kind of stop for some of the activities

[00:04:38] that you don’t necessarily want to create those mechanics around. Hopefully you can

[00:04:42] see that if you wanted to progress with all of them, you could. But focus on one or two

[00:04:49] primary activities, maybe three primary activities, that you care about improving in this particular

[00:04:55] area. Remember I said I’m going to reduce your cognitive load, and so far it may seem like I’m

[00:05:00] actually increasing your cognitive load. What we’re actually doing is we’re creating a schema.

[00:05:05] We’re creating slots, and these slots are going to be, they’re going to essentially act like an

[00:05:11] index for your brain. We’re going to get to that in a second. The science behind this is called

[00:05:17] cueing, and it’s something that humans are actually pretty naturally good at. Cueing is a version of

[00:05:24] symbology. If you think about a particular word, you associate a lot of feelings or emotions or

[00:05:32] pictures in your mind with that word. You may associate experiences with it, and it can all be

[00:05:37] triggered off of a single word. And this is an artifact of the way that our brains work. We tend

[00:05:44] to create associations with things. And so if we have a highly associative word, it can act as a

[00:05:52] pointer. When we use these pointers as reminders, then that’s called a cue. We can use a pointer,

[00:06:01] a word or a picture, an environment can do this, a certain kind of music can do this. Really any

[00:06:09] kind of sensory cue, you can use this as a trigger to remind yourself of a lot of things at once.

[00:06:17] And this is essentially just a cue-response cycle. We get some kind of sensory input,

[00:06:24] and we respond. We train ourselves to respond to that sensory input. So hopefully you can see

[00:06:30] what’s coming next. What we want to do is evaluate all of these primary activities and specifically

[00:06:36] the modes for those primary activities, attach the kinds of context that we want in those modes.

[00:06:43] For example, if you’re a manager and you have the one-on-one mode, you may want to use the

[00:06:50] one-on-one cue, right? Because the primary action or primary activity here is a meeting,

[00:06:55] the mode is a one-on-one. The cue might be, for example, going on a walk. I’ve had managers that

[00:07:02] do this, and I have done this before as a manager. Going on a walk gives me a specific kind of

[00:07:10] undeniable sensory cue that reminds me that I’m in one-on-one mode. And for each of these modes,

[00:07:17] it’s worthwhile to spend some time. Again, we’re talking about doing this over the course of,

[00:07:23] let’s say, 8 to 12 different modes that you might be working in in a given day. Spend some time to

[00:07:28] specifically think about what makes that mode special, what makes it set apart from the other

[00:07:35] modes. If you’re, for example, in the earlier coding example where you’re coding a feature or

[00:07:42] you’re coding a proof of concept, these are two different modes. When you’re working on a feature,

[00:07:48] you may be highly sensitive to bug-prone or error-prone code, whereas when you’re working

[00:07:57] on a proof of concept, you may be able to reduce that sensitivity. And this is one of the things

[00:08:02] that sets these two things apart. Your mindset is a little bit different, so these are distinct

[00:08:09] from each other for that reason. It’s worth considering what makes each of these modes

[00:08:14] distinct from each other, what makes a retrospective distinct from a sprint planning meeting.

[00:08:22] So this all ties together when you can effectively use the cues, whatever your

[00:08:28] chosen cues are for each of these modes, to remind you what are these distinct things,

[00:08:35] what are the distinct characteristics of this specific mode of this primary activity.

[00:08:43] Now here’s where things get really interesting. In understanding that this may take time to

[00:08:49] adopt and understand how this fits into your workflow, this is definitely not a set of rules,

[00:08:55] so I don’t want you to apply this as if it was kind of an all-encompassing framework or anything

[00:08:59] like that. This is just a way to try to lower some of your cognitive load. Now here’s the

[00:09:06] important thing to recognize. When a new kind of event enters, let’s say you have somebody that

[00:09:15] invites you to a meeting and you don’t necessarily have a mode, it may fit in one of your primary

[00:09:22] activities but it doesn’t necessarily have a mode that you can readily identify. Well this is

[00:09:28] where your cognitive load will spike and this is by design. If something goes outside of your

[00:09:36] normal primary activities, right, or of your normal modes for those primary activities,

[00:09:42] it probably is worth thinking about. Remember cognitive load on its own is not necessarily a

[00:09:49] bad thing if it’s used in the right places. We just don’t want cognitive load to constantly

[00:09:56] be present when we’re trying to understand our calendars. That’s the whole goal of this exercise,

[00:10:02] to give you a set of tools that allow you to treat those activities as distinct. In other words,

[00:10:07] you don’t treat every meeting the same but also rely on your ability to associate those cues so

[00:10:15] you can shift modes effectively and, very importantly, recognize when something is

[00:10:20] totally out of place, when it doesn’t fit within your normal primary activities or modes for those

[00:10:27] activities. Thanks so much for listening to today’s episode of Developer T. I hope that

[00:10:33] you take away this idea of using cues, even if you don’t apply every single bit of this

[00:10:39] categorization framework to your work, that you use cues to lower your cognitive load. That is

[00:10:47] the ultimate goal here for you to utilize cues to shift into different modes throughout your

[00:10:52] working day, throughout your life. Thanks again for listening to this episode. If you enjoyed this

[00:10:57] episode, please take a moment to review us and rate us in iTunes. This is a huge help to the show

[00:11:04] because it gives others a chance to find the show a little bit easier. If you want to continue

[00:11:09] this conversation, join us on the Developer T Discord. Head over to developert.com slash Discord.

[00:11:15] Thanks so much for listening and until next time, enjoy your tea.

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