Why Your Brain Dwells on Unfinished Tasks

 

What next?

This is a question on which the entire soap opera or the TV industry is based on. Other than the comedy show, interviews, song and dance shows, the soap opera - the endless serials beaming in day-in and day-out is based on this simple question "What next?"

The more you think about it, the more patterns you see. How does this apply to work? If you have unread mails, you start wondering - who is it from, what does it say? If there is a writeup, report or presentation half-finished, you can't relax until you have a plan for completion. Once the work is completed, if you are asked about it a few weeks later, you may have great difficulty in remembering the detailed facts about it, in comparison to the issues that are yet to be completed on your to-do list.

Curiosity is good. It is the curiosity that makes us seek more information to understand the phenomena. This phenomenon has a scientific name - Zeigarnik effect. This essentially explains fact that the failure to complete a task creates a cognitive tension, which makes you come back to it repeatedly and remember it. A more detailed explanation is something similar to this. 

Our brains stores information received from all our five senses in the sensory memory for a brief time. It moves into the short term memory when we process the information. many of them are forgotten quickly, but if there is some incomplete information/ task, our brains constantly refresh and keeps coming back to it and keeps it active. Once the task is completed it is gradually forgotten.

How can you put this to good use in our day to day life?

Reduce your tendency to procrastinate

If there is some task you have been postponing for a long time, start by doing a small part of it, lie open a document and write down the title of the report. Once this is done, the task will remain till you finish it and your mind will send you constant reminders to take small steps to bring you close to the outcome and finally complete it.

Get people to pay more attention t what you are saying

Start with a question. Use ellipses in the headline instead of a question. This is true especially in emails, and this will make the reader think that there is more to this and make him open the email to find out more.

Memorise more information

Whether you memorise your presentation or studying for exams, break it up into smaller parts and spread it over several days. This would help in retaining the information longer as the task is incomplete and it is not easily forgotten. Even before an exam while revising content take a break in between, which will signal to your brain that the task is incomplete, thereby help you retain it for a longer time.

Remember tough names

You might find names tough to remember. A good way is to learn them in parts, have interruptions. Learn one part, try and remember it, come back and learn the next part and so on. It will be easier to remember the names if you try it out this way.

You can put this Zeigarnik effect to good use and get things done that you would struggle with otherwise.

Why Your Brain Dwells on Unfinished Tasks
by Vasundhara Sawhney HBR 2020/10