cognitive load: Why Thinking Gets Hard When Your Brain Has Too Many Tabs Open

Understanding cognitive load (and what to do when thinking gets heavy)

There’s a particular moment that tends to happen somewhere between “I’ll just quickly check this” and “Why am I suddenly exhausted?”

You open your laptop to start something important. You remember three other things that also need attention. One of them is small but urgent. Another is bigger but harder to begin. A third isn’t due yet, but it’s hovering in the background like a suspicious cloud.

So you start none of them.

Instead, you reorganize something. Or read something vaguely related to what you’re meant to do. Or search Amazon for a new planner. Or finally decide to deep clean your all of your pots and pans, so you can come back to the task in the future when you are older and therefore wiser… right? Technically, you’re still active. Still responsible. Still trying to be productive some way somehow. But forward movement on what you need to actually address feels strangely difficult.

This is usually where people start wondering if they’ve become less disciplined, less motivated, or mysteriously worse at thinking.

They haven’t.

They’ve just run into cognitive load.

What cognitive load actually is

Cognitive load is simply the amount of information your brain is holding and managing at one time.

That’s it.

Your brain can do remarkable things, but it cannot juggle an unlimited number of active items at once. When too many things compete for attention — decisions, responsibilities, unfinished tasks, expectations — thinking becomes slower and less precise.

Not because you don’t know what to do.

Because your working memory is full.

Imagine trying to cook dinner while holding five plates in your hands. The problem isn’t knowledge. It’s capacity.

That’s cognitive load.

Why everything feels harder when cognitive load is high

When cognitive load increases, a few predictable things happen:

• Decisions take longer.

• Starting feels heavier than it should.

• You revisit the same thoughts repeatedly without resolving them.

• Small tasks feel disproportionately difficult.

• You become more reactive and less deliberate.

None of this is dramatic. It’s subtle. But it changes how the day feels.

You can still function. You can still produce work. From the outside, everything looks normal. Internally, though, thinking feels crowded and progress becomes harder to see.

This is why “being busy” and “moving forward” don’t always feel like the same thing.

The mistake most people make when overwhelmed

When thinking gets harder, most people respond by trying to think harder.

They:

• make longer to-do lists

• open more tabs

• gather more information

• plan more extensively

• attempt to solve everything at once

This makes sense emotionally. It rarely helps practically.

Adding structure to an already overloaded mental system often increases the load instead of reducing it.

Trying to organize everything simultaneously is like cleaning a room by pulling more things out of the cupboard (we’ve all been there and ended up with the pile of random cables that end up dumped into that ‘miscellaneous’ drawer).

The relationship between cognitive load and control

There’s a reason people describe these moments as feeling “out of control.”

Control isn’t about eliminating responsibility. It’s about containment.

When the number of active mental items drops to a manageable level, thinking becomes clearer. When thinking becomes clearer, decisions become easier. When decisions become easier, movement resumes.

That sequence matters.

You don’t regain control by solving everything. You regain control by stabilising the situation enough to move forward again.

One contained step changes how the entire landscape feels.

Reducing cognitive load in practice

There’s no shortage of productivity advice in the world, but most of it focuses on efficiency. Cognitive load reduction is different. It focuses on mental capacity.

A few principles consistently help:

• Externalise what you’re holding in your head.

• Reduce the number of active decisions.

• Stabilize one area before addressing others.

• Prioritize clarity over completion.

• Create visible progress quickly.

None of this is complicated. But it does require stepping out of the mental loop long enough to reorganize what’s being carried.

That’s usually the hardest part.

When thinking clearly matters more than working harder

People often assume they need motivation when what they actually need is space to think.

There’s a difference between effort and traction. When cognitive load is high, effort increases while traction decreases. That’s why long days sometimes feel strangely unproductive.

The solution isn’t pushing harder. It’s restoring enough mental capacity for thinking to work properly again.

Once that happens, competence tends to return.

A short process for regaining your bearings

This is exactly the moment tools like Clarity Trail exist for.

Not as a life system. Not as a productivity overhaul. Just as a short, structured way to reduce cognitive load, restore order, and get your footing back when thinking feels crowded.

It’s designed to be completed in one sitting. With a pen. Ideally away from your phone.

Because sometimes the fastest way forward is to stop juggling everything at once and take one deliberate step that changes something real.

That’s how breathing room returns.

And once you’ve experienced that shift, you can create it again whenever things start to pile up.