Team Cognitive Health playbook/Module 3 · Cognitive offloading

Day 25 / 100 · Cognitive offloading · Verify before you trust

Verify, then trust.

Checking everything the same way burns people out. Checking nothing is how mistakes ship. Scale the check to the stakes.

Low stakes

A Sanity Read

Internal notes, drafts, scaffolding

  • Read it once
  • Does it make sense?
  • Fix obvious errors

Medium stakes

Spot-Check & Test

Code, queries, config

  • Run the tests
  • Check key facts at source
  • Try an edge case

High stakes

Independent Check

Security, customers, PII, money

  • A second source or reviewer
  • Test in staging first
  • Named human sign-off

Match the check to the stakes.

Read this day in the full version