Thinking About How My Brain Works (Or Doesn’t)
So, I bumped into this name again recently, Baddeley. Alan Baddeley, the guy who talked about working memory. You know, how we juggle stuff in our heads. Got me thinking, I should probably try to, like, actively use these ideas. Seemed practical, right?
My big plan started simple enough. I just wanted to see if understanding this stuff – the phonological loop for sounds, the visuo-spatial sketchpad for images, that central executive thingy directing traffic – could actually help me get less scatterbrained. Especially at work, trying to keep track of a million little things.
So, what I did was, I consciously tried to break down tasks. When someone gave me instructions, I’d repeat them silently (that’s the loop, I guess?). If I was planning something physical, like rearranging furniture or even just packing a bag, I’d try hard to picture it in my head first (sketchpad, yeah?). Sounds easy on paper.
Well, the reality? It was messy. Sometimes repeating stuff helped, sure. Other times, my mind just wandered off anyway. Trying to visualize? Half the time the picture was fuzzy, or I’d get distracted by something else shiny. That central executive part? Mine felt more like a sleepy intern, not a sharp boss. It felt forced, you know? Like trying to manually shift gears in a car that wants to be automatic.
And this got me thinking bigger picture. It’s like all these models and theories, they sound neat. But day-to-day life, especially now? It’s just a firehose of information. Emails, notifications, news, people talking. Trying to neatly compartmentalize things using Baddeley’s model felt like trying to sort grains of sand in a hurricane.
It reminds me of this project I worked on a while back. We had this super complex workflow all mapped out on fancy charts. Looked great in the meeting room. But when we actually started doing the work? People just did what felt natural, what worked for them, shortcuts and all. The fancy chart got ignored pretty quick. It wasn’t useless, it gave us a starting point, but the real process was way more organic, way messier.
Maybe that’s the deal with this working memory stuff too. It’s good to know the theory, helps you understand why you can only juggle so much. But trying to micro-manage your own brain based on it? Maybe not the best use of that limited mental energy. You just gotta find your own way to cope with the chaos, I suppose. Baddeley gave us a map, but we still gotta drive the car through the real world traffic.
- Tried visualizing tasks more.
- Attempted silent repetition for instructions.
- Tracked how often I got distracted anyway.
- Compared the theory to messy real-world work situations.
End result? I’m probably still just as scatterbrained. But hey, at least now I have a fancy term for why I can’t remember where I put my keys while thinking about dinner plans. It’s all about that limited capacity, right? Or maybe I just need more coffee. Yeah, probably more coffee.
