The flip side of interrupting someone is when you get interrupted. Have you ever noticed the effort it takes to get back your train of thought? Ever noticed how hard it is to regain your rhythm?
The problem with context switching is not just that you have to pack up what’s in working memory, and stash it somewhere else, for a while. It’s not enough to remember what you were doing.
To get back to the previous task, you have to be able to find it again, on command, so that you can restore it to working memory once more.
And for that, you need breadcrumbs – the tip of a thread – that cues you in to the previous context, a pointer to the original task, even as you proceed with the new one.
And the pointer too, you have to keep in working memory.
And that’s a drag.
Even after you’ve finished switching contexts, you still end up having fewer working memory registers available for the new task. That’s because you now have to keep track of the breadcrumbs too, in the same place.
And when you have only a handful of registers to begin with, losing one or two in overhead is a high price to pay, indeed.
In a real sense, you’re left to tackle the new task with fewer cognitive resources – with lower effective intelligence – than your potential. Is it any wonder that we feel less effective when there’s too much on our plate?
But, sometimes we have no choice but to go down the rabbit hole,
and lose working memory capacity to overhead,
just as we need it most.
