Emails. Slack messages. Simple decisions.

And I kept asking myself: "What is wrong with me?"

The more I paid attention, the more I realized this wasn't laziness.

It was overload... cognitive overload.

And I don't think I'm alone in that.

We're living in a moment where information is being produced faster than human beings can realistically process it.

More podcasts. More videos. More newsletters. More AI-generated everything.

I came back from Memorial Day, opened Slack, saw twenty messages, flipped over to Gmail, saw thirty emails... and immediately found myself doom scrolling.

We're asking human beings to process more than ever before.

And most of us haven't fully acknowledged it yet.

Too many inputs. Too many decisions. Too much context switching. Too many unresolved thoughts running in the background at the same time.

And oddly enough... I've been noticing it most while using AI.

I use ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude daily. When used with intention, they're gamechangers in the creative workflow.

But lately I've been frustrated by the output; not because the responses are bad... because they're too much.

Too much context. Too many options. Too many paragraphs. Too many ideas at once.

I've resorted to prompting: "Can you just give me the simple version?" "TLDR this." "Shorter."

I see the same pattern with clients.

A lot of people over-explain because they want to be understood; which makes complete sense.

"If I just give them all the context, they'll finally get it."

But what often happens is the opposite.

Too much information creates cognitive friction.

It's a little like walking into a restaurant with a fifty-item menu and suddenly wishing there were five. At some point the problem isn't the options... it's that you can't absorb any more of them.

And when people are overloaded? They delay decisions. They stop responding. They freeze. They move on.

Not because they don't care... because their brain is tired.

Confused minds delay decisions.

That's why clarity matters so much right now.

It's not about dumbing things down; it's about helping people understand you without making them work so hard to get there.

I think of it like painting a picture.

You want to give people enough that they can see themselves in it... but not so much that the picture becomes muddy.

AI has made it incredibly easy to generate endless content, copy, ideas, and drafts.

We can produce more information than ever before; but more information does not automatically create more clarity.

Sometimes it creates the opposite.

Sometimes the kindest thing we can do for another person is reduce the amount they have to process.

And maybe when we feel ourselves shutting down over small tasks... that's not weakness. Maybe that's feedback.

Maybe part of leadership, communication, and marketing now is learning how to reduce the noise... for ourselves and for the people around us.

How can we make it easier for people to understand us?

How can we make it easier for people to take the next step?

Not because people are incapable... because everyone is carrying a lot right now.

Clarity is compassion.

In a world already drowning in information, simplicity is a form of care.

If you've been feeling this too... struggling to explain what you do, overwhelmed by options, or finding yourself stuck between too many ideas and not enough clarity; you're not alone.

A lot of my work starts there. Helping people simplify, clarify, and communicate what matters.

If that sounds familiar, send me a reply!

I'd love to hear what's been creating the most cognitive friction in your world lately.

Until next time,