In the evening, do you sometimes think about an unfinished task at the office? At the weekend, you can't completely disconnect? It's normal, you are a victim of the Zeigarnik effect!
This phenomenon creates stress and mental burden for many. However, once mastered, it is a powerful ally in solving complex problems and an anti-procrastination tool.
On a personal note, understanding this effect has allowed me to better disconnect during my downtime and has helped me become more productive. The purpose of this article is to help you do the same.
To better understand the Zeigarnik effect, let's go back to its discovery by the Russian psychologist of the same name in the 1920s. As is often the case, it was a trivial observation that led to an important discovery. While sitting at a café, Bljuma Zeigarnik was impressed by the memory of a waiter. But she noticed a surprising fact: once the orders were placed on the table, the waiter instantly forgot about them.
Zeigarnik then identifies a key characteristic of how our memory works: unfinished tasks are retained more easily. Conversely, completed tasks fade more quickly. The explanation is simple: the brain mobilizes its resources on current actions, which are considered more important than past tasks. As a result, your attention will remain focused on what has not been completed. This is called residual attention.
Impact on productivity. The Zeigarnik effect represents a challenge for professional life. Indeed, it applies when you are suddenly interrupted in a task in which you are involved, and you start another one. Example: A colleague cuts you off in your activity to ask for your help.
1. The residual attention we talked about earlier will remain frozen on the previous task. Does your mind wander when he talks to you? This is the Zeigarnik effect: an unfinished task interferes with your thoughts. You will not be efficient in helping your collaborator.
2. When you return to your task, your brain will need several minutes to recover the same level of concentration as before.
Impact on mental health. Since the brain only keeps unfinished tasks, this creates a bias. At the end of the day, we will have the impression that we have more unfinished tasks than finished tasks. This has the effect of generating stress, in addition to a lack of recognition for the work accomplished.
Organize your week so that you have an overview of the tasks to be done and the tasks accomplished. Use a Kanban (see illustration below) rather than a to-do list with empty boxes.
Take a time slot at the end of the week to review all the activities you have accomplished and the tasks that could not be completed. This allows you to have an unbiased vision of your work, and to highlight the completed actions. We know that it is not always easy to think of doing this systematically. Axel's team has therefore implemented a management solution to automate this weekly review routine.
The Zeigarnik effect kicks in the moment you are interrupted. Just seeing that you have a notification on your phone without checking it has an effect on your attention. Turn off all notifications and set up deep work sessions when you are engaged in an important activity. According to Carlson's Law, we are 20-30% more productive when we are not interrupted. Following this principle, we could do 4-day weeks, with the same results as a 5-day week during which we are constantly interrupted in our tasks.
Memory. To learn a text or a presentation, keep your learning sessions short and sequenced. Stop in the middle of a section so that your memory fixes the information better. Use the Zeigarnik effect to memorize important things.
Complex problems and creativity. To solve a mathematical problem or produce a cultural work, interrupt your work after a short session. The Zeigarnik effect becomes your ally. You start to think about your work at different times of the day and you will make connections with elements that seem non-intuitive.
Motivation. Do you have a big project, like writing a first novel or writing a business plan for an entrepreneurial project? Take the plunge, write a first part and stop. The residual attention will always bring you back to your task! Hemingway, Nobel Prize winner for literature, always stopped writing in the middle of a sentence to make sure he would return to the work the next day.
Now that you understand the Zeigarnik effect, you can use it as a productivity and creativity tool while avoiding its harmful effects! The Zeigarnik effect is also a call to action. It explains why regrets make us much more miserable than remorse. Regrets are like unfinished tasks that continue to haunt us for years. So dare to launch your projects even if you fail, you will be happier!
