Current research shows that the average person has to make more than 1,600 decisions a day // They have to decide when to pick up the kids/ what to feed them for dinner / what to say to their spouse / when to call their mom / They're keeping track of when the next time is to put out the trash / and they're keeping track of when the next time is to mow the lawn // There are an overwhelming amount of tasks // that you have to carry out every single day // and the same thing happens to us when we are operating in the foreign field // It's something that we call task saturation // When there's more tasks that need to be done // then you feel comfortable carrying out / with any sort of effective capacity // And task saturation is a very dangerous thing because it can result in decreased cognitive ability / increased stress / increased anxiety // and an overall sense of unproductive success // You can learn to identify / and manage / your own threshold for tasks //so that you never enter a position of task saturation // We have a very simple rule of thumb at CIA / that says that however many tasks you think you can confidently carry out simultaneously // subtract two. So if you think you can do seven tasks simultaneously // just do five. // If you think you can only do three tasks simultaneously // cut down by two / so you just do one. // What happens when you take this simple rule of thumb / and you reduce the number of tasks that you're trying to accomplish by two / you are essentially increasing your resources / for fewer tasks // which increases your productivity with each of those tasks. / And as you become more productive / you gain momentum with the other tasks. // And above all // you have this very positive mindset / and this very positive attitude / that allows you to continue being productive. // In contrast // when you allow yourself to reach a place of task saturation / the opposite effect happens. // You start to feel like you're not being productive // you start to feel like you're overwhelmed // and you develop a negative mindset / that actually starts to create more problems / that keep you from being productive.