Everything we do (thinking and doing) occupies some bandwidth. Some things occupy a little and others a lot. Examples of things that occupy a little, for most people, are walking, drumming your fingers, or tapping your foot, and things that we are expert at because we have done them often. Examples of things that occupy a lot are talking, listening to information, doing anything we have to concentrate hard on, doing things that we are not expert in because we have not done them before.
Driving a car is a good way to envisage this. When we were learning to drive, we had to concentrate extremely hard. We would not have been able to hold a conversation while driving. Almost all our attention was involved in trying to drive. Now that we are an expert, we do not usually have to use so much of your attention. Of course, we still must use a fair amount, but we could also have a conversation while driving. But then, every now and then while you’re driving along, something happens that means you have to focus more: the traffic increases, you come to a part of the journey where you have to look out for a turning, roadworks happen, the weather becomes difficult. Then you will find that you tend to stop conversation; you might turn the radio off; you have instinctively realised that you need more brain bandwidth for the driving.
A few more interesting examples:
1) If someone is walking at their own pace while being asked simple but increasingly difficult mental arithmetic questions, or questions that need concentration, they will begin to walk more slowly as it become harder. Eventually, they usually stop.
2) When someone is working while listening to music, they will almost always voluntarily turn it down or off when they come to something, they need lots of concentration for.
3) Air force pilots practise managing disasters repeatedly because the least amount of bandwidth should be used, freeing the rest for reacting to the unexpected. Such unexpected takes a lot of bandwidth, so as many as possible scenarios must become “expected” or at least practised and automatic.
What is Mental Bandwidth (or Cognitive Bandwidth)?
Bandwidth is what allows us to reason, to focus, to learn new ideas, to make creative leaps and to resist our immediate impulses. Bandwidth refers to our cognitive capacity and our ability to pay attention, make good decisions, stick with our plans, and resist temptations. Cognitive bandwidth is the maximum amount of thinking that is available per unit of time. It can be simplified a step further. We use the term ‘bandwidth’ to refer to two broad, related components of mental function:
1) Cognitive capacity: the psychological mechanisms that underlie our ability to solve problems, retain information, engage in logical reasoning, the ability to think and reason abstractly and solve problems.
2) Executive control: our ability to manage our cognitive activities, including planning, attention, and initiating and inhibiting actions.
Time Scarcity Vs Mental Bandwidth
Scarcity creates a powerful goal that inhibits other considerations. By constantly drawing us back to that urgent unmet goal, scarcity taxes our bandwidth and our most fundamental capacities. Busy people all make the same mistake: they assume they are short on time, which of course they are. But time is not their only scarce resource. They are also short on bandwidth. For instance, although the room seems quiet, it is full of disruptions—ones that come from within. Such internal disruptions stem from scarcity. An unrealized need can capture our attention and impede our ability to focus on other things.
The impacts of scarcity on mental bandwidth can be a vicious cycle. Feelings of scarcity, whether money or time, prey on the mind, thereby impairing decision-making. When you are busy, you are more likely to make poor time-management choices – taking on commitments you cannot handle, or prioritising trifling tasks over crucial ones. A vicious spiral kicks in, your feelings of busyness leave you even busier than before.
This scarcity mindset consumes ‘mental bandwidth’ — brainpower that would otherwise go to less pressing concerns, planning ahead and problem-solving. This deprivation can lead to a life absorbed by preoccupations that impose ongoing cognitive deficits and reinforce self-defeating actions. When you focus heavily on one thing, there is just less mind to devote to other things. We call it tunnelling — as you devote more and more to dealing with scarcity you have less and less for other things in your life.
A Cognitive Bandwidth Formula
A simple but different approach to cognitive bandwidth can be demonstrated by a formula that we can all use to find mental balance:
(Cognitive Throughput + Cognitive Overhead) ≤ Cognitive Bandwidth
1) Throughput: The actual amount of thinking done per unit of time…the throughput depends on the complexity of the stuff we are working on.
2) Overhead: Overhead is the cost of doing stuff where we must care about organization, task switching, etc, and is paid against the bandwidth limit.
3) Bandwidth: The bandwidth is fixed at some level which we can barely change.
The idea is to try and always make sure your throughput and overhead do not exceed your perceived total bandwidth. If you know your overhead is going to be high one day, try to plan for a reduced throughput (and vice versa).
Why is this brain bandwidth theory so relevant to wellbeing, stress and performance?
1) Stress and preoccupation. Three main disadvantages (among others) are:
a) That you can have too much adrenalin and have a sense of panic instead of simple alertness.
b) Cortisol has a habit of building up and over time causing problems with sleep, mental health, focus, mood, performance, and physical illnesses.
c) Preoccupation. This describes the fact that if our brain bandwidth is occupied, then we have less available to focus on the task in hand.
2) Things that occupy a lot of bandwidth:
a) Worries, anxieties, intrusive negative thoughts – if we are worried about something or someone, it’s hard to focus on our work; we’ll make more mistakes; and we’ll be snappier.
b) Processing information or tasks – such as things we are trying to learn, understand or remember
c) Anything new and unfamiliar
d) Other people being around us – they could be distracting us or making us feel unrelaxed; other people are hard to ignore
e) Working on screens – because when we are using a screen there is almost always competing information on the screen, adverts and icons and notifications designed to attract our attention away from what we are doing.
3) The consequences of that:
b) Mistakes and forgetfulness – the times when we have “a lot on our mind” are the times when we make mistakes.
c) Loss of executive control –the times when you snap, say and do things you don’t mean.
d) Loss of cognitive ability – it is harder to learn new things if we can’t devote our full attention.
Tips for managing your mental bandwidth
A) Ignore the Generic Methods and Experiment
There are several conflicting philosophies. For instance, a penny saved might be a penny earned, yet we're also told not to be penny smart and pound foolish. The same holds true with advice for mental bandwidth, where one source might encourage multitasking, while another demand absolute singularity of focus. Rather than trying to adapt your working style to someone else's, experiment with different techniques and keep those that are functional for you, while casting aside those that do not.
B) Actively manage your mental bandwidth
Perhaps the biggest mistake many people make is allowing their mental bandwidth to be managed for them. The beeping phone, meeting request, or act performed for ritual or obligation all rob our limited mental bandwidth, and many perform these actions unquestioningly. If you allocate your focus as you see fit, and actively choose what you want to focus on, you'll be in command of your mental bandwidth.
C) Do a bandwidth cost/benefit
Most of us are awash in meeting requests and accept without question. Everyone complains about excessive meetings, yet it's often a guilty pleasure to summon a group at your whim, or join a discussion under the assumption that your input is necessary and valuable. Simply asking yourself whether requesting or attending is worth the cost in mental bandwidth is a great start.
There are tasks that require great focus, whether performing precision or dangerous manual work, or designing a complex system or bit of code. Or, you may need to spend some time with a small group, free from distraction. Book a block in your calendar, shut off your phone, move to a different physical location, or do whatever is required to create the right circumstances to have the necessary focus to get the job done.
E) Know when to throw in the towel
For many of us it can be tempting to put in the extra hour at the office, or delay vacations for what's perceived as a critical set of meetings or deadlines. Trying to squeeze out the last ounce of mental bandwidth can be tempting in the moment, but it's ultimately an effort with rapidly diminishing returns. Calling it a night, taking that long-delayed vacation, or even the simple act of a quick walk around the office will recharge your mental energy and make you more effective in the long run.
F) Don't make assumptions about your team
It can be tempting to assume that what works for you will be effective for others, even to the point of designing your physical spaces and policies around what you assume will allow your team to best manage and deploy their mental bandwidth. Rather than assuming, ask your team how you can help them be most effective. Allow your teams to experiment and find what works for them, and use the end result as the benchmark for success.
Content Curated By: Dr Shoury Kuttappa
