Let us speak together of the Zeigarnik Effect. But only after I\u2019ve made a cup of tea. See, that\u2019s the nature of the Zeigarnik Effect.<\/p>\n
In addition to having a rad name – seriously, I feel like I\u2019m revealing mysterious secrets from the Eastern Bloc, which I technically am – the Zeigarnik Effect tracks a quirk of human cognition that can, once properly hacked, increase productivity by making procrastination work for you.<\/p>\n
Bluma Zeigarnik\u2019s original study, which has had its results repeatedly replicated, states that an interrupted task, or a task the subject knows is not yet complete, stays in the back of the mind while they do other things.<\/p>\n
The original subjects were waiters.<\/p>\n
Bluma Zeigarnik found that service professionals remembered details of a given order when that order was still open, even if they were busy working on something else, but once it had been completed, the details vanished.<\/p>\n
What might seem like a procedural consequence of waiting tables – not like you have to remember the doneness of the cheeseburger you gave somebody who left the restaurant an hour ago – has since been demonstrated in tasks from jigsaw puzzles and flatpack furniture to WoW and SimCity.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not a job thing. It\u2019s a brain thing.<\/p>\n
When you leave something undone, and you know it\u2019s undone, there\u2019s still a little mental RAM whirring away, working at it.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s awesome.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m going to go out on a limb here and say some of you do not spring out of bed Monday morning singing like a Disney protagonist and throw yourself into every task set before you with motivational poster vigor. I mean, I didn\u2019t, and I like my job.<\/p>\n
Hence my cup of tea. I literally wrote those two sentences, then went and made a cup of tea.<\/p>\n
Field test. It works.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the Zeigarnik hack – do what needs doing for 5 or 10 or 15 minutes, then stop. Aquire your legal stimulant of choice, or talk to coworkers, or do anything else your workplace allows that isn\u2019t the particular task you\u2019re aching to procrastinate on.<\/p>\n
The Zeigarnik Effect won\u2019t do the work for you, but when you set yourself to that job again, you\u2019ll have more ideas and more energy than you did when you started.<\/p>\n