Cognitive Flexibility
📋 What it is
Cognitive flexibility is switching between ideas or rules — seeing a problem a new way when the first way stalls.
🗣️ Coach says
Flexibility is your mental "switch". When one strategy isn’t working, it lets you drop it and try another instead of getting stuck. Switching has a small cost (a "switch cost"), so it is also smart to FINISH one thing before jumping — but when you’re truly stuck, changing the approach is the flexible, powerful move.
🧠 Memory hook
Stuck? SWITCH the approach. But finish one thing before jumping — switching costs a little time.
😂 Giggle
I have a photographic memory, but I keep forgetting to load the film.
😲 Whoa!
Rapidly switching between tasks ("multitasking") actually slows you down, because each switch has a hidden restart cost.
✅ Quick check: Your first way of solving a problem isn’t working. What does cognitive flexibility suggest?
Say your answer out loud first — then reveal.
Step back and try a different approach instead of repeating the stuck one.
Flexibility means switching strategies when the current one stalls.
🧪 Try it! (2 minutes)
Take a tricky homework problem and write TWO different ways you could start it. Pick one and go.