- What do I have to do today? (voices) (Intrusive thoughts)
"You gotta send that email." (piano plays) - No doubt you know this
feeling of open loops, your subconscious nags your conscious mind over and over again. (Intrusive thoughts)
"Hey man, there's a bunch of stuff that isn't done". - Over the course of a day, these open loops can
sap your mental energy and rob you of the present. Why does this happen and what is it? Well, it's called The Zeigarnik Effect, and it has some of the
widest ranging implications for a person living in the modern world. Psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik
discovered the effect, studying under her mentor Kurt Lewin, one of the pioneers of applied psychology. They observed that waiters
displayed an unusual ability to remember complex orders, but only until those
orders were delivered. Once the plates were down on the table, and their task completed, their memory of who got what disappeared. In other words, they remembered what they needed to do much better than tasks they finished. Open loop, heavy amount of recall, closed the loop, very
little recall at all. It makes sense. You remember an incomplete task because your brain thinks it's important and completing that task
enables you to forget about it. But that's not all Zeigarnik found when it came to the effect. In a further study, she
discovered a strong relationship between that memory of an incomplete task, and a desire for cognitive closure. That is, if there's an objective
that we committed ourselves to pursue, an open loop, we're
highly motivated to close that loop in order to escape
the intrusive thoughts and feelings it causes. Now, these objectives can
be incomplete narratives, unanswered questions, unresolved problems, or unachieved goals. You can see the effect
at work, everywhere. What is a cliffhanger on
TV, but a loop left open. You see it in clickbait headlines. They give you just enough to open a loop, which motivates you to click on the link, to close the loop by
obtaining the full story. Quest based video games are designed so that your list of tasks is never done, accept a quest, open a loop,
close that loop, ad infinitum. Perhaps the worst
manifestation of the effect, is a breakup with unresolved issues. Your subconscious keeps
reminding you to find closure, but most of the time breakups
with unresolved issues go unresolved, forever. And unfortunately The
Zeigarnik Effect persists. It's most useful to know
about The Zeigarnik Effect however, when it comes to productivity, think of it as hacking your psychology because your brain wants that closure. My favorite example of hacking the effect is from famous writer, Ernest Hemingway. When he wanted to be done for the day, he didn't stop writing
at the end of a paragraph or a chapter. He cut himself off mid-thought. Leaving that sentence only partly done, functioned as a powerful
motivator for him, to come back to the page the next day. I know this works, because if I edit a section of a video, and leave it unfinished it will follow me, make me uncomfortable and
anxious everywhere I go until I get back to it. A psychologist Roy Baumeister
and Brad Bushman point out, we're most motivated to close loops on objectives we've started. So to motivate yourself on a task, it's best to do something
small first, for example, write the first sentence of an essay, no matter how good it is, just to move forward on an essay. Or put on gym clothes, if
you wanna go to the gym. The further along in the loop, the higher the motivation to finish it. That's old cliche, it follows
us everywhere doesn't it? Just start. But be careful not to open
too many of these loops, because it can end up
overwhelming your brain. Open loops, use a significant amount of your mental resources, even when you're not
directly attending to them. So it's much smarter to open two or three important to-do's for the day, instead of opening 15
and paralyzing yourself. It's also why it's so
important to have habits. If you can brush your teeth, meditate and exercise on autopilot, that means you have fewer
loops to open each day and fewer things burdening your brain. But even when you deliberately
opened fewer loops or develop habits, new loops can suddenly spring to mind in the middle of the day. This is outside your control
and it gets annoying. Baumeister says, "The
best way to manage this and your multitude of
open loops more generally is to write everything down,
whether they're longterm, like learn guitar eventually,
or if they come to mind in the moment, like send that email." Delegating open loops to paper, significantly dampens the mental strain caused by the effect. In other words, the simple act of planning
lets your subconscious chill out and stop intruding
on your conscious mind. So in cases where things
are in your control, such as daily tasks and goals, your best course of action
is well just to start or at least to plan - Just do it. - In cases where things
are out of your control, like unresolved issues in a breakup, you should shout at the sky
and say, "Oh, Zeigarnik Effect, why do you make me feel
like a living void?" Then realize that unfortunately not everything's going to
have closure, and that's okay. I'll end with a more theoretical idea. If a desire for cognitive closure is one of our greatest motivators, then it may be mystery itself that holds the greatest
power over the human mind. A mystery by definition is something that defies explanation. And without an explanation,
there is no closure. Is a Zeigarnik Effect
propelling us to answer life's big questions? I don't know. But if there's an open loop, like why are we on this rock
hurdling through darkness, you can be damn sure,
we'll try to close it. Hey most excellent people, this episode was brought
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