The limits of working memory dictate that we can only focus on five to seven separate pieces of information at one time. Beyond that, it all starts turning into a blur.. which is why long strings of apparently unrelated information, or a long to do list, can feel so overwhelming.
But we can’t just whack our to do lists off at the roots, or only learn a fraction of what we are supposed to learn.
The solution is to group related items together, so that instead of say, 32 unrelated separate items, we end up with 4 groups of 8 items.

Learn and Get Smarter community member Rob Ruder demonstrated this principle at the community meeting last week, by teaching us 32 computer shortcuts in literally five minutes.
Rob promises to share how he accomplishes that amazing teaching feat, in the Facebook group soon, so stay tuned!
Effective teaching, like Rob’s, relies on this chunking principal extensively to group related items together and make them much easier to learn.
When staring down a long list of things that have been causing stress, it’s helpful to chunk the list into categories.
One of the first questions to ask is, what categories will be most useful?
In case of a list of stressors, it makes sense to create action categories, such as:
Not only does creating categories shorten a long list into manageable segments, but it also suggests actions you can take to reduce the overall size of the list and cope with it better.
For a to do list, it helps to create action-based categories like “do”, “pay”, “buy”, and “call”.
That way you only have to DO a few different types of things… and can easily make all the calls, or pay all the things that need paying, at one time.
What long lists of seemingly unrelated items are causing YOU stress right now?
Whether it’s a holiday shopping list, a long to-do list for your business, or ALL THE THINGS you want to teach in your course, it can feel completely overwhelming to look at them all at once without having an effective structure to help you organize them.
Join the January 2021 cohort
of the Course Design Formula® Master Course.
Space is limited.
Enrollment is via private interview only.
The course Design Formula® uses research into how people naturally learn different types of material , to give you pre-configured containers for chunking the material in your course.
If you’re teaching a complex how-to skill with many components,for example, it simplifies things to know that you only need to focus on four big categories of things:
Let’s take a completely overwhelming task for online course creators: teaching ANYTHING (in the whole world) to ANYONE (ever).
That’s a huge job, right?

I read somewhere that if a job is really difficult, somewhere there is a tool that will make it really easy.
It’s just a matter of finding that right tool.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed about how to set up your online course, or entire online school, the Course Design Formula® is that right tool that can cut through the stress and overwhelm.
Instead of an overwhelming and unlimited number of ways to set up your course, you’ll learn the five BEST ways and how to determine which ONE of those is optimal for YOUR specific material and course learning goal.
(So actually, as it turns out, there is ONE best way to set up any particular online course, depending on the transformation you want your course to deliver).
And there is also one best way to learn how to USE this amazing tool, which is to reserve yourself a seat in the Course Design Formula® Master Course cohort starting January 12th, 2021.
If you’re interested in exploring whether the course is right for you, book time on my calendar (before it’s all gone!) and let’s talk.
I’d love to help you reduce the stress and overwhelm involved in designing and developing your online course (or your whole online academy).
Let's take the stress and overwhelm out of structuring your ideas into an effective and engaging online course.
The Course Design Formula® helps you sort your expertise into research-based containers (schema) that are ready and waiting to help you transfer those ideas to your learners' minds as efficiently as possible.
The Course Design Formula® is like a day spa for your mind--- because it takes the stress out of online course design.

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Take the stress and overwhelm out of setting up YOUR online course