@nev @gaditb I guess really, my question is so banal it's a little silly. Examples of said "Simple mental machines" include writing lists instead of trying to remember everything on the spot, writing out your math a bit at a time instead of trying to do it all in your head, etc. Really, these are both variants of "make a task easier by breaking it into smaller tasks and writing them out, thereby trading time and a whole lot of simple tasks versus a single complicated gask."

Though, banal or not, I kinda want to write out an article on said "Simple mental machines". Just to see where it takes me. :/