Cognitive load management: Keeping your head above the data deluge

As if the daily flood of email and IMs wasn’t enough to send workers running for shelter, they may soon endure a new information storm. Broader data harvesting, search engine alerts, social media, and other inexpensive feedback systems will enable continuous information capture. Workers could soon get instant updates on online purchasing trends, corporate social media accounts, and even factory equipment at customers’ facilities.

Those who can stay cool while transforming these data into successful sales, customer service, and safety measures will give their organization a profound edge. Cognitive load management—the ability to filter information for importance, while maximizing cognitive functioning using various tools and techniques—will help workers adapt. It’s one of 10 crucial workforce proficiencies revealed in Future Work Skills 2020, a report by the Institute for the Future for Apollo Research Institute.

Researchers note that our distraction-plagued workplace—where we switch tasks every three minutes—harms efficiency. To stay focused, we’ll rely on tagged community content, metadata, and curation by trusted network members. New online media tools like Wordle and Visual.ly will help us portray data as captivating infographics that reveal patterns and convey meaning. And software like RescueTime can bar access to tempting websites when deadlines loom.

In the future, look for automatic workload monitoring, as computers adapt the volume and content of incoming data to what we can handle. For example, stock traders using biofeedback equipment can improve profits by recognizing the physical and psychological responses that market moves provoke. Such systems might help anyone who processes and responds to multiple data streams under stress. Consumer and office versions of these prototypes will become vital for efficient workflow—and for keeping our personal lives orderly, as the endless tide of texts and “likes” swamps us at home, too.