Understanding cognitive control can help your working life, says David Badre.

Hard tasks

  • solve a methodological hurdle
  • design an elegant experiment
  • make sense of a puzzling result
  • work on a new model
  • write a paper or grant proposal

Make space

In practice, returning to a hard task in this way comes with a ‘restart’ cost.

Switching frequently between tasks makes producing quality work harder.

Be consistent. We should try to reserve a consistent time and place for our hard work and be protective of it.

Minimize distraction and never multitask

Even cues that we simply associate with other tasks, such as seeing our phones on the table, can distract us. As much as possible, we should keep our space and time for hard work clear of other distracting tasks.

Beware the allure of easy tasks.

Engage in good problem-solving habits

In general, we can get better at structuring hard problems with experience.

Interact with others. Just like taking a break, interacting with others can help us conceptualize a problem in new ways. Talking to people with diverse backgrounds, perspectives and viewpoints that differ from our own can be a powerful way to break out of a rut and make progress, as well as get some perspective.

Personal comments

  • don’t get overwhelmed by the entire task, do it step by step
  • maybe step back a level of abstraction and ask yourself, what is the goal