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How to Escape the Zeigarnik Effect

Have you ever found yourself unable to fall asleep during a trying time at work? Or distracted in the middle of a conversation or meeting by thoughts about other stuff you still need to do?

If so, you may be a victim of the Zeigarnik Effect. Its exotic name comes from the Russian researcher who discovered it in the 1920’s while observing the behavior of waiters in a restaurant. Their ability to recall pending orders, but not the ones they had just delivered, caught her attention.

The disparity relates to the effect which bears her last name. It’s the nagging feeling you get once you mentally create a “time demand”: an internal, individual commitment to complete an action in the future. Your subconscious, which stores each one for later retrieval, does more than sit back and wait for you to act. Instead, it begins to ping your conscious mind with a stream of reminders.

If this were to take place on rare occasions, it would be a cute phenomenon. However, if you are someone who is ambitious, you may find the reminders increasing until you start to experience a sense of overwhelm. After all, her research states that the way to get rid of the Zeigarnik Effect is to complete the task. For busy people, it’s impossible – they create hundreds. Like everyone else, they can only finish one at a time.

So, is there an escape? Fortunately, there is, according to recent research conducted at Baylor University.

Dr. Michael Scullin and his team compared two bedtime behaviors in laboratory experiments. Before falling asleep, one group of subjects wrote their to-do list for the next few days. The other recorded the tasks they accomplished during that

day. The result? This small change in technique helped the first group fall asleep faster by over 9 minutes. Why did this happen?

To understand the underlying reason, we must visit the University of Florida. Drs. Roy Baumeister and Ed Masicapmo added to Zeigarnik’s research, showing that the effect disappears when a person has a trusted system in place to manage time demands. This makes intuitive sense. There’s no need for your subconscious mind to interfere if it believes that all your tasks are being properly managed.

How does this apply to falling asleep faster? Well, offloading your tasks to a written to-do list is one way to assure your subconscious that you are on top of all your commitments. In other words, it trusts a piece of paper more than your ability to remember. Satisfied, it leaves you alone, allowing you to doze off.

But what if you possess a high IQ, genius-level memory? Can’t that be used? The answer is short but elegant – “Sure… if you happen to be a kid.” While I doubt that any readers of this column are under 12 years old, we should understand why they are an exception. The fact is, they only have a few time demands to recall. Plus, they have teachers, parents, friends, and siblings reminding them what to do.

It’s only later, when they get older, that problems occur. But they aren’t caused by age which is not a factor until their retirement years. Instead, long before then, the challenge is to find a method to cope with the relentless swell in time demands our generation faces.

What else can be used beside paper? Digital devices also work. In addition, some people offload their tasks to other folks, like their children. “Remind me to pick up your cake tomorrow, Junior.”

But the only approach which succeeds in the long term isn’t a single technique or tool but a mindset of continuous improvement, plus specific knowledge of how humans use such tools. Start by getting committed to implementing ongoing upgrades. Then, understand that your choices need to follow a pattern.

While researching the latest edition of my book I found that improvements happen in serial fashion, but they all start with an attempt to use mental reminders. When that technique fails, we graduate to better skills one step at a time, following this sequence.

Level 1 – Memory

Level 2 – Paper Lists of Tasks

Level 3 – Simple Digital Apps

Level 4 – Complex Task Management Apps

Level 5 – Digital Calendars of all Tasks

Level 6 – Administrative Assistants / Autoscheduling Programs

As you look over this list, identify your current level. With this knowledge, you can prepare yourself for the next upgrade – the one that will help you stay abreast of your dreams and aspirations.

However, be aware: the Zeigarnik Effect shows up at any level. It’s a fantastic warning mechanism which lets you know when a change is overdue. Unlike your friends, colleagues and even your conscious mind, it can’t be fooled. It will do its job, preventing you from falling asleep quickly until you wake up to its incessant, nagging call for greater personal productivity.

Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. Missed a column? To receive a free download with articles from 2010-2016, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com

http://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/business/20180128/francis-wade-how-escape-zeigarnik-effect

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The Science of Surviving Large Volumes of Email

While there are lots of different ways to manage email at low volumes, there is a convergence of research findings underway. Altogether, studies show that as email volumes increase your choices become more limited if you hope to remain effective.

science of surviving large volumes of emailThe Science of Surviving Large Volumes of Email

It’s likely that you are facing a rapid increase in the number of email messages you receive. What should you do in the future if you decided to take on a new project or accept a promotion? How will you cope then?

The solution isn’t to avoid email. Some people tell others “I’m not good with email,” “Call me instead” or “I don’t have time for email.” Some just lie – “I didn’t get your message…” All these responses are fast becoming signs of incompetence.

However, it’s not our fault. We were never taught how to manage large numbers of incoming messages. In the absence of proper training, most of us defaulted to snail-mail techniques. In the post office world, mail is meant to be read slowly, leisurely and passively. It’s an approach that worked when you received 20 or 30 email messages per week. Now, as you approach the average of global 150 messages per day, it fails because it just doesn’t scale. Here is a way that you can cope.

The Real Problem: Triggers
The first realization is that the problem isn’t the number of bits and bytes hurtling at you via email in cyber-space. It’s your response to the triggers lying within each message that creates an issue.

To explain: we read email, looking for triggers for new time demands (i.e. self-generated tasks.) This conversion is normal, but it’s a mechanism you can manage.

What you can’t control is the number of incoming messages. By design, your email address is an open invitation to the general public to send you an infinite number of potential triggers. This has created a problem over time.

Today, you are probably trying to process large numbers of messages using the same techniques you used to process small numbers. Now, you are faced with a scaling error which can only be avoided by learning to switch between two different modes of thinking and feeling.

Mode One – Skepticism, Deletion and Emptying
This is the mode to adopt when you first open your Inbox. It’s one of sprinting, as you empty your Inbox as fast as possible. To help focus your attention, use a kitchen timer with a loud ticking sound – it will help you stay in the ultra-focused state that’s required.

As you process each message, imagine acting like a skeptical, rigid quality inspector at the end of a production line. Your job would be to accept only a handful of items, continuing until the last one has been processed. In factories, there’s only a single exception allowed. If you discover a bonafide emergency that risks a loss of life, limb or property, then you can stop everything, rectifying the situation before production is resumed, taking as little time as possible.

In the case of email, you should also pause to handle emergencies. Once handled, return to your sprint to process and remove all the messages out of your Inbox as fast as you can.
You should opt for one of the following:

– If an email has no triggers, immediately delete the item or save it to your archives, far outside your Inbox.

– If it includes a valid trigger (and, therefore, passes your inspection), also remove it from your Inbox. Store it safely for later execution in Mode Two in one of the following ways. Either add it to a To-Do List, put it in your calendar, give it your auto-scheduler or store important information in the right database (such as an address book.)

At the end of this mode, your email Inbox is empty.

(N.B. The technique of leaving email messages in your Inbox, marking them as unread, only works for small volumes.)

Mode Two – Thoughtful Action On Your Time Demands

In Mode Two you are no longer sprinting. Now, you can execute delayed time demands which were safely stored.

As you do so, notice that the act of completing time demands relieves stress. This occurs because it rids us of the nagging feeling that something is incomplete, a phenomena psychologists call the Zeigarnik Effect. The two-mode approach works to alleviate that feeling because recent research shows that it also disappears when you manage your time demands well.

To keep stress away, you must commit to entering Mode One on a scheduled basis, rather than randomly. Turning off your PC, tablet or smartphone’s email reminders is a start.

Another technique is to stay in Mode One as long as you can, without being distracted by non-emergencies such as Facebook or the news. This ensures that all potential triggers have been handled, relieving you of the Zeigarnik Effect.

Let colleagues know you are answering email on a schedule.  If someone insists on immediate responses, politely hand them a copy of my June 12, 2012, Gleaner article: “How Executives Unwittingly Turn Employees into Morons.”

Handling large numbers of email has now become a matter of professional competence. Sound techniques are the only solution to a challenge that will never go away.

Francis Wade is the author of Perfect Time-Based Productivity, a keynote speaker and a management consultant. To receive a free summary of links to his past articles, send email to columns@fwconsulting.com

 

Here is the link to the original article on the Gleaner website