Team Cognitive Health playbook/Module 3 · Cognitive offloading

Day 22 / 100 · Cognitive offloading · Good vs risky offloading

Hand off the chore, not the core.

Some work is safe to offload completely. Some needs a check. Some should stay in human heads. Decide by risk, not convenience.

Offload freely

Low Stakes · Easy To Check

  • Boilerplate and formatting
  • Test data and scaffolding
  • Summaries of things you know

Offload + check

Medium Stakes

  • SQL and migrations
  • Config and infrastructure changes
  • Customer-facing drafts

Keep human

High Stakes · Hard To Verify

  • Architecture and trade-offs
  • Security and PII decisions
  • Commitments to people

Source: POPIA ↗

Offload by risk, not by convenience.