The Zeigarnik Effect

It was an icy and lazy Sunday here in Fuquay Varina yesterday, so I took the opportunity to go through some old SD cards, files on my computer, and the drawers on my office desk. I want to prioritize getting more organized with my “digital stuff” and reduce unnecessary clutter around my workspace.  

A couple of hours of uninterrupted work, a trip or two down memory lane, and a pile of unnecessary papers later—suddenly, I was feeling a little bit better.

I felt lighter.

I even made a point to mention to my wife, “It’s crazy how even getting rid of this little bit makes a huge difference in how I feel.”

The more I thought about it, the more I was reminded of something I read about not too long ago—the Zeigarnik effect.

The Zeigarnik effect states that people are more likely to remember unfinished or incomplete tasks better than completed tasks. It was first observed by Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik, who took notice that waiters could recall the orders they had yet to deliver better than those they had already given.

Out of sight is not out of mind.

If you think about our brains like they are computers, it makes sense that certain unfinished business taking up too much space or too many tasks opened at once could bog us down and make us less present. It’s probably a good idea to finish our projects or goals and close things out before taking on new projects.

I think about specific big races I’ve attempted in the past but failed to complete, like the Old Dominion 100. I know I need to go back to finish it someday, and until I do, it will call me, and I will pay attention. Or I think about the book that I’m in the beginning stages of writing and how much I think about it during the week. If I’m not making progress on it, or if I’ve been avoiding it to do easier tasks, those thoughts only grow louder.

But, it’s also a good idea for us to audit our current opened tasks to see if there are some things we can scrap altogether to clear up some mental space. Not everything we start needs to be finished. But, until we take the time to discover what those things are, they’ll continue running in the background, draining us of our energy little by little.

I’ve got so many tasks, projects, and ideas that have landed in this bucket of “not necessary.” Things that, on the surface, sounded beneficial or fun but have quickly designated themselves as time-sinks and unnecessary tradeoffs.  

That’s what all of these things boil down to, though—tradeoffs. Every choice and activity we engage in is a tradeoff.  

So, I try and remember this quote by David Allen when I’m optimizing my life and auditing my open tabs of tradeoffs: 

“You can do anything, but not everything.”