Planning around working memory

The theory of working memory holds that most people can usefully think about and work with 3-7 concepts or things or chunks at a time. This isn’t the same as short-term memory—we’re not talking about remembering what your friend said five minutes ago, but rather what you’re actually thinking about right now.

Like most things in cognitive psychology, this is all theoretical. You can’t crack open your skull and see three to seven physical slots with a concept in each. We can’t prove any of this, or even disprove it.

But it remains an incredibly useful framing.

My own working slot inventory is probably 3. (It may have been 4, with one semi-permanently committed to the raising of young children.) And, knowing this limitation for myself, I can adapt accordingly. If there’s a growing list of things–tasks, concepts, people involved in a scenario, groceries–and it passes three elements, I know I need to start writing them down or I’ll drop some on the floor. Thinking on paper is slower than just doing it in my head, but having to rework missed items or rebuild lost context is slower still.

It’s worth considering: about where do you start having trouble keeping track of all your juggled concepts, tasks, people? Is it consistent across different types of thought-chunks? If so, you may have a good idea of how many working memory slots you’ve got to work with–and can make decisions to help yourself be more effective as a result.