You’re Not Crazy. You’re at Capacity.
When capable, driven people start feeling stuck, the instinct is to manage time harder. But the real issue often isn’t the calendar — it’s cognitive load. When your mental system is overloaded, clarity, creativity, and momentum disappear. This piece explores what’s really happening and how to reclaim space.
Over the last few weeks, a clear theme has surfaced across my coaching sessions and client conversations. Highly effective, creative, driven people keep saying the same thing:
“I feel like I’m running in mud.”
These are professionals who are used to moving with velocity. Yet they’re describing a very specific kind of stuckness — a mix of low-grade anxiety, brain fog, and a noticeable drop in their usual A-game output.
Their first instinct is predictable: double down on time management. Audit the calendar. Delegate a few projects. Wake up earlier.
But the calendar isn’t the problem.
The problem is that their internal power grid is redlining.
Your Brain Is Not a Calendar — It’s a Power Grid
We treat our days like a game of Tetris: if we can just fit the blocks together, we win. But your brain doesn’t care how many white boxes you have on your calendar if your compute capacity is already blown.
Think of your brain as a high-performance CPU with a finite battery.
Cognitive load is the total wattage being pulled at any given moment.
It’s not just the task in front of you — it’s the background processes:
unfinished decisions
mental monitoring of your team
worry loops
personal logistics
strategic planning
creative thinking
family, board work, friendships, obligations
When that load exceeds capacity, the lights flicker. Strategic thinking drops. Creativity narrows. Judgment weakens. You stop leading and start reacting.
And this isn’t just a functional problem — it’s an identity one. The “mud” and the “fog” begin to distort how capable people see themselves. Confidence erodes. Doubt creeps in. Frustration grows. And that emotional load adds even more strain to an already overloaded system.
The Three Power Drains on Your Battery
Foundational work in cognitive science (John Sweller) breaks cognitive load into three buckets. Knowing which one is leaking is how you reclaim energy.
1. Intrinsic Load — The Work Itself
The energy required for the task. Solving a complex organizational or strategic problem is inherently heavy. This is the high-wattage work you want to be doing.
2. Extraneous Load — The Noise
Poorly defined emails. Slack pings. Context switching. Disorganized workflows. This load adds zero value — but drains your battery relentlessly.
3. Germane Load — The Upgrade Layer
The energy your brain uses to synthesize information, see patterns, and build long-term wisdom. This is where learning, insight, and innovation live.
The problem: most leaders are buried in extraneous load, leaving no capacity for germane load — the very thing that creates vision and momentum.
Why "Organized" People Still Feel Overwhelmed
You can have a perfectly color-coded calendar and still be cognitively redlining. This happens because of two invisible energy leaks:
1. The "Ownership" Leak
If you delegate a task but still feel responsible for monitoring it, you haven't actually cleared any load. You’ve just moved the task. True delegation—the kind that creates velocity—requires delegating the ownership, which shuts down that background process in your brain's RAM entirely.
2. The Zeigarnik Effect (The Open Loop)
Our brains are hardwired to keep "open loops" running until they are closed. Research shows that uncompleted tasks create persistent "intrusive thoughts" that degrade performance on unrelated work. However, simply writing down a specific plan for an unfinished task can offer the same cognitive relief as completing it (Masicampo & Baumeister, 2011).
The Switching Tax: Research from the APA highlights that multitasking and constant interruptions can consume as much as 40% of your productive time because of the metabolic cost of "re-loading" your focus (American Psychological Association).
Action: Reclaim Your Compute Capacity
If you’re feeling the "stuckness," stop looking at your clock and start looking at your RAM.
Close the Windows: Use a "Shutdown Ritual." At the end of the day, externalize everything. Move it to a trusted system and tell your brain: "We are not processing this until tomorrow." This kills the Zeigarnik loop and lets your battery recharge.
Audit the Friction: What is pulling "vampire power"? Be brave enough to cut the noise—whether it's a recurring meeting that yields no fruit or a communication channel that creates constant interruptions.
Protect Your High-Wattage Space: High-level strategy requires massive capacity. Research from 2022 proves that when cognitive load is high, we stop having original ideas and start relying on stereotypical, safe bets.
The Bottom Line
Cognitive load management isn't about being "more efficient." It’s about protecting your brain's ability to do the work that actually matters. You aren't losing your edge—you’re just out of RAM.
Close some tabs. Recharge the grid. Get back in motion.
Verified Research & Deep Dives:
The Foundational Theory: Cognitive Load Theory (Sweller, 1988)
The Metabolic Cost: The Organized Mind by Daniel Levitin — Explores how multitasking burns oxygenated glucose (your brain's fuel).
Creativity & Load: Does Cognitive Load Affect Creativity? (Rodet, 2022)
*This video features neuroscientist Daniel Levitin explaining the biological cost of information overload and why "switching" is so draining for high-performance brains.