The non-productive period of “remembering where you were”.
💡 Context Loading is mental Setup Costs.
Context Loading is the non-productive period of pulling the contextual info around whatever is the topic at hand before you can move forward with it. For new things you’re learning, it’s understanding what the the words mean, what the scope is, and what filters are in place. For things you’re picking back up after a break, it’s “remembering where you were” when you left off.
Context loading is what makes terms like “that thing” and “him” actually make sense. When writing code, context loading is especially time consuming and important. It is what tells you what direction you were going in, how you were getting there, and what var myFlag = true; was supposed to do.
Context loading is why context switching is so harmful to productivity.
It takes time and energy to get to a context-loaded state. The efforts spent to get there are only as useful as the result you produce while you’re there. This is the benefit of Monotasking and is the bread and butter of Deep Work.