A few months after a significant cardiac event, I found myself thinking about weight loss…well the exercise physiologist delicately suggested it. My heart event was related to a virus and a crappy week that pushed my health to its limits. But when you are poked and prodded during assessment and long-term recovery, they’re going to… Read More It Was Never About Willpower: The Executive Function Cost of Getting Started
There’s a particular kind of optimism that comes with assigning someone a self-paced online course. From an organisational perspective it feels considerate. People can do it in their own time. There’s no scheduling pressure, no room to book, no calendar clash to navigate. It’s flexible, accessible, and respects people’s autonomy. And yet, if you’ve ever… Read More Self-paced doesn’t mean lower effort: the cognitive load of online learning
I’ve dived down a rabbit hole about cognitive load.. and I’m in here with neurons firing exploring ideas and concepts. I’ll move on soon, but for now there are a few more things I am pondering. So far my brain has gone in the direction of tool sprawl, the physical workplace, the sensory and environmental… Read More The cognitive load of showing up to live training
A few days ago I was at a specialist appointment with one of my kids. At some point the conversation turned to teen fatigue across the school week – the kind of bone-tired-by-Thursday feeling that a lot of parents will recognise. The specialist responded in a very matter-of-fact way: “It’s cognitive load”. I thought about that… Read More It’s Not Just the Tech: The Hidden Cognitive Load of the Physical Workplace
I’m trying to walk more at the moment, and walking means alone time, pondering, and ideas… and more writing. The concept of cognitive load has been on my mind, which I think was triggered by a small, unremarkable moment. I was trying to find a file. I couldn’t remember if it was in Teams, SharePoint,… Read More The Hidden Cost of Tool Sprawl: What It’s Actually Doing to Your Brain
There’s a conversation happening in many AI training sessions that I think is missing something important. It usually goes like this: here’s a framework, here are the parts, here’s an example, now you try. And the framework is genuinely useful. I wrote about why I use two of them and when to switch between them. Structures like… Read More Prompting as a cognitive skill, not a technical one
I’ve been thinking about this for a while. I use AI regularly and benefit from doing faster work, help thinking more clearly on hard days, and getting through content I’d otherwise struggle to start. But I’ve also caught myself wondering… am I building a crutch? Given how passionate I am about Executive Functions, and how… Read More AI and Executive Functions: Is It Helping or Harming You?
I’ve been doing a lot of work lately reviewing Microsoft 365 learning programmes at work, and experiencing learning Claude for my own curiosity. Videos, activities, the whole journey from “what even is AI or LLM” through to “here’s how to build a Skill or work with Agents.” And while mapping out the activities this week,… Read More Why I care about learning theory when designing M365 adoption
I was at the Digital Workplace Conference in Melbourne last week and kept hearing people talk about Skills in Copilot Cowork. It stopped me in my tracks. Not because the concept was unfamiliar, but because I’ve spent the last couple of months exploring and building Skills in Claude. And suddenly the same word was being… Read More Same word. Two very different things. My confusion with ‘Skills’ in AI
Last week was a big one.I moved through analysis, content, ideation… the kind of work that would normally take me days of circling, drafting, second guessing. By Friday I realised I’d pushed through what would usually be a week, or even a month. And instead of feeling proud, I felt… off. Not tired in a… Read More AI overwhelm: when the pace feels… off