# Cognitive Momentum May 8, 2025 I've noticed something weird about solving tough problems: you can't just chip away at them for 30 minutes here and there between Teams notifications and expect magic to happen. The good stuff only shows up when I get borderline obsessed, letting a problem take up residence in my brain for days. "Cognitive momentum" is kinda like how your car needs more fuel to get up a steep hill than to maintain speed on flat ground. Each time I context-switch away from a hard problem, I burn massive mental energy just getting back to where I was. It's this invisible tax that nobody talks about, and it kills any chance of breakthrough thinking. What helps me is creating super predictable routines around the edges of my day. Not because I'm disciplined (I'm not), but because when my morning coffee and evening wind-down run on autopilot, my brain doesn't waste power deciding what to eat or when to sleep. I can stay loaded with the problem that actually matters. Society really hates this, by the way. The constant pings, meetings, and manufactured urgencies are perfectly designed to keep you productive-looking but permanently stuck in shallow thinking. I've had to get comfortable with appearing "checked out" during deep problem phases, knowing the solutions will eventually justify what looks like unproductive obsession. The game-changer has been building systems that extend my thinking across multiple days. My Obsidian vault isn't just for remembering stuff; it's a view back into my previous mental state so I don't pay that massive reentry fee. Voice memos while walking capture those fragile connections before they disappear. With these external supports, I can make multiple passes through a problem with sleep in between, letting my unconscious do its thing. The breakthrough never happens in a single heroic session but emerges from sustained cognitive momentum that compounds over time. The hard part isn't working more hours; it's creating the conditions where my brain can actually work differently on the problems that matter.