A Powerful Cognitive Strategy for High Performers |
What Is Compartmentalization?
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Compartmentalization is an important cognitive strategy. There are times when we need to set aside problems, stressors, and competing priorities and focus on an important task at hand. In public safety occupations like law enforcement, aviation, medicine, and the military, the ability to focus on what is important can mean life or death. We would all agree that we want our pilots, firefighters, emergency medical personnel, surgeons, air traffic controllers, bomb disposal personnel, and our police officers (to name a few) to be completely locked on. This level of attentional focus is difficult to maintain on a good day; on a day with external stressors, it can be more challenging.
Compartmentalization refers to the use of a dedicated mental space as a means to keep outside concerns from interfering with or distracting us when we are trying to focus on something specific. Essentially, compartmentalization is a cognitive strategy consisting of consciously placing the task at hand into its own compartment or box, which separates that task from everything that is outside of the compartment. An air traffic controller going through a divorce, for example, must keep the divorce outside of the compartment (the mental space needed to successfully perform in the control tower), and away........