Expanding Cognitive Bandwidth for the Busy Entrepreneur

I'll never forget one of my best students in the Magnetic Memory Method Masterclass leaning close and whispering...

"I've lost my mojo. It's like my mental capacity is shrinking."

"We'll fix that," I said.

And indeed, he'd already started the process by reaching out to talk about what he was experiencing.

We're all cognitively overloaded, after all. As this study suggests, one of the best things we can do is offload the overload across a team.

Talking together, we formulated a plan, one that reminded me to keep going with my own activities for boosting cognitive bandwidth.

But before that, a quick definition.

Cognitive Bandwidth Defined

Basically, we're talking about your brain's ability to access the resources needed For:

• Focused attention, ideally with the ability to weed out distractions using the strategy discussed in my previous newsletter.
• Memory (short-term and long-term retrieval).
• Processing speed
• Decision making
• Problem solving

When these skills falter, business success and quality of life go with them.

So what to do?

5 Activities that Expand Your Bandwidth

As you look through these, you might instantly sigh, "All good, but how will I find the time?"

That's a natural response.

But as we all know, deep down inside, no one finds time. We make it.

Case in point: I "made" the time I needed for some of these activities by simply sitting in an empty room before I turned the computer on.

It only took 5-10 minutes to complete one of the most important activities. It's easy to skip, but it's also not that hard to carve out a session by simply choosing to sit on the floor instead of picking up a device.

Time control aside, let's dig in.

One: Meditation

That's the sitting on the floor part.

You might meditate standing up or while walking.

The key is to enhance your ability to concentrate and remember by practicing the present.

Literally just focusing on the present moment. And when your mind wanders, the practice is to simply return focus to the present.

The benefits of daily practice can be profound.

But if you're like me, you might need an additional bit of help. I found adding a bit of chanting and hand movements helpful to help settle my busy mind.

Here's one of my favorite resources for that, a simple two minute routine that will help settle the mind.

And it's proven to help with memory, courtesy one of my favorite meditation teachers and authors, Dr. Gary Weber:

Two: Continually Learning New Skills

One of the easiest ways to build ongoing skills development into your life is studying at least one musical instrument.

The reason music is so profound is simple:

You cannot exhaust the new things to learn.

There's always a technique you can learn better and millions of songs you do not know.

Personally, I work on 3-5 new songs at the same time.

One is way above my skill level. Another is about intermediate. And the third is just easy and fun – but because I don't know it yet, learning to play it becomes a skill.

There are other skills, of course.

Learning to write in a poetic meter, carpentry, pottery, painting... you name it. The point is to spend time on something skills-based.

Three: Regular Exercise

This one is fairly straightforward.

But notice that you can also insert the learning of new skills within your fitness routine.

I'm still brutally bad at it, but I've been doing some animal flow moves lately.

I can feel my brain stretching along with my body every time!

Four: Memory Games

Matching cards is not just for kids.

It's fun, functional and helps improve the neural pathways associated with memory.

Just shuffle a deck of cards, turn them face down and look for the pairs.

I often play with a tiles-game variation called "Street Art Memory Game."

The key point is that it's off-line so that your brain (and bandwidth) get some time to focus on solving physical problems in a physical space.

One reason so many of us are drained is that we've spent decades now focused on small screens with very little depth or dimension.

I'm not saying abandon digital games completely. Just make time for offline games that help reduce the phasic dopamine spikes and exercise your memory at the same time.

Five: Use Memory Techniques

There are many ways to use memory techniques.

I combine them with meditation, which makes for a power-packed morning routine.

But I also regularly learn new poems while carrying on with language learning.

You can also remember names on a daily basis. Here on LinkedIn, for example, there are thousands of them streaming by.

Taking a moment to memorize just one new name a day will provide you with at least some exercise.

The trick is to not just memorize information.

Practice recalling it too.

Such as using the names you've memorized by mentioning interesting posts you've read by naming their author.

And rather than scrolling on an app in bed, turn off the lights and wander a Memory Palace filled with information you've memorized.

There are quite a few different ways to practice recall.

And if you're looking for help with memory, send me a message or leave a reply.

My "Inner Circle" of memory enthusiasts in the Magnetic Memory Method Masterclass meets once a month.

We'd love to see you at the next session.

Just shout out if you're interested in joining us next week for the first session of the year.