It’s Monday morning and you are rearing to go. You fire up your computer and get started on a new project. Just then, the loud ring of the intercom jolts your verve. It’s your boss calling to discuss a new client. You leave what you are doing and head to his room. Once you are done, you get back to your desk to take down notes from the meeting.
You are barely halfway through when your colleague jumps at you, pleading for an update on a looming deadline. You once again leave what you were doing and give him a low-down. Minutes turn into hours and you are ready to drop dead. You decide to take a break. But as you sit to relax with a hot cup of coffee, you feel restless. The weight of all the pending tasks makes your head spin. There is a name to this feeling—the Zeigarnik effect.
It is the human tendency to remember and brood more over unfinished tasks. It kicks in automatically and lingers till there is closure. The Zeigarnik effect was first noticed in the early 1900s by Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik, who while dining at a restaurant, observed how waiters were able to monitor and keep track of seemingly complicated orders but once the orders were tabled, they were not able to remember much of it. That to Zeigarnik was something worth perusing. She decided to dig deep and found that humans had a strange penchant for remembering pending tasks more than those that had reached completion.
“Our minds are hard-wired to signal discomfort when something has been left halfway. It keeps taking us back to the same task. It’s the inherent human need to move away from ambiguity and bring clarity,” says Delhi-based productivity and habit building coach Rachel Aryan. The Zeigarnik effect comes with a major evolutionary advantage. “Our brains flag off things that need to be taken to the finish line. It’s a survival mechanism that looks at uncompleted tasks as a disturbance, abnormality or a threat,” says Mumbai-based behavioural psychologist Rachna Rao.
Having said that, this little-known psychological phenomenon is the biggest enemy of productivity, according to Aryan. “When people experience intrusive thoughts all the time, they tend to leave tasks unfinished.
Then there are external factors such as work and home environments where you’re surrounded by people and digital distractions. But the good news is that we can use the information we have today to beat the Zeigarnik effect at its own game and regain control over our time.”
Begin by ditching procrastination, suggests Aryan. Delaying or chronically putting off things kicks in this psychological effect. It causes lethargy. As the list of tasks builds, so does mental fog. You’re sucked into a whirlpool of inaction. “Procrastination is a self-regulation failure. Many times you put off things without any good reason. By doing so, you are allowing your mind to ruminate and it is only getting more restless and tired,” she says.
Next, rethink multitasking. Considered the gold standard of productivity, this prevailing notion is an inaccurate measure of your capabilities. A study published in Psychology Today showed that only about two percent of people can multitask successfully.
The rest think they can but cannot. “Switching on and off from different tasks at the same time wears out your brain. In the end, it’s too jaded to do anything efficiently,” says Aryan. Instead, stay on one task and tick it off your list.
Limit distractions. This is easier said than done but proves to be an extremely useful resource when trying to stay clear-headed. One way to achieve this is by practicing asynchronous communication. This is when the sender provides all the necessary information to the receiver and then waits to hear back from them. “There is a time lag. It is a good thing because it lifts the pressure of responding immediately, thus letting you finish what’s at hand. You don’t have to be available all the time,” shares Aryan.
Total engagement with a project is another necessary step and can be built with practice. “The easiest way to do this is by putting away your phone for a set period every day. Allow yourself to look at it only once in the middle for anything urgent. Another thing you can do is, tell your colleagues you’re going into a ‘work bubble’ (you decide the time depending on what’s feasible). Alternatively, work from an empty meeting room in the office and come out only once the task is completed. While you do this, log off from your mail, don’t just minimise the screen. A good exercise for later when you have more time is to look into the nature of urgent and unplanned enquiries that come your way. Is there a way of finding a permanent solution or managing these with problem-solving approaches? This way you’ll eliminate distraction from its source,” suggests Aryan. The Zeigarnik effect is not your enemy until you let it become one. You simply have to not let it get the better of you.
Make use of it
Psychological well-being
The Zeigarnik effect is not our enemy until we make one of it. As soon as it kicks in, use it as a reminder to overcome procrastination and just get started with unfinished tasks. Start with something small to finish and then move on to difficult tasks.
Once done, a great sense of accomplishment prevails. The resultant feeling promotes self-esteem and confidence. When you tick things off your list, there is closure. This improves psychological well-being. You soon get into the groove of things and notice a huge improvement in productivity.