Cognitive load

Category: attention concept

Summary: The mental effort required to hold, process, or manipulate information.

What it means

PKM can reduce cognitive load by externalizing memory, clarifying structure, and preserving context. It can also increase load if it becomes overcomplicated.

How it shows up in personal knowledge management

It connects to capture, trusted-system, attention-management, templates, and retrieval.

Common mistakes

• Adding too many fields, folders, or decisions to every note.
• Making capture so complex that ideas are lost.

Related pages

• capture
• trusted-system
• attention-management
• templates
• retrieval