How can restaurant workers teach us to be more creative and to procrastinate less?
Subject: Zeigarnik Effect - unfinished tasks more memorable
Event: Birthday of Bluma Wulfovna Zeigarnik, 1901
One day, while sitting in a cafe with her mentor, Bluma Zeigarnik -- who was born on this day in 1901 -- had an epiphany that provides insight into human thinking and memory.
At the time Zeigarnik was studying psychology at the University of Berlin under the direction of professor Kurt Lewin. As the two sat drinking coffee, Lewin commented that the waiters in the cafe appeared to remember the orders of customers who had not yet paid much better than the orders of customers who had paid their tab. The seemingly offhand comment got Zeigarnik thinking about how our thinking about completed tasks differs from our thinking about uncompleted tasks.
In a study that she completed in 1927, Zeigarnik gave 138 children a variety of tasks, such as puzzles, math problems, and clay modeling. For half of the tasks, she interrupted the children before they completed their assignment. Then, one hour after working on the task, she assessed the students’ recall of what tasks they had been given. The results revealed the wisdom of Professor Lewin’s comment about the waiters: One hundred and ten of the children remembered more of the interrupted tasks than those they had completed. In contrast, only seventeen were able to recall the completed tasks better; only eleven remembered both the completed and uncompleted tasks.
The Zeigarnik effect explains why we are often preoccupied by thoughts about a project or other unfinished task. An incomplete task creates cognitive tension which in turn generates more mental effort. In contrast, a completed task allows us to release the cognitive tension and let go of being preoccupied by it.
Television shows capitalize on the Zeigarnik effect to keep us watching: writers “end” each episode with some unresolved conflict that keeps us hanging and wanting to begin the next episode. Likewise, movie trailers are carefully crafted to get us hooked; this is accomplished by presenting some of the movie’s key dramatic moments with well timed interruptions.
Understanding how the Zeigarnik effect works can also provide us with new insights about how we can strategically use interruptions for our own benefit. For example, if you are working on some kind of creative problem solving, don’t be afraid to take a break or set your task aside for a day or two. Because your task is incomplete, you can count on the Zeigarnik effect to keep you engaged, either consciously or unconsciously. You might even have wake up at 3:00 AM with an epiphany. Don’t view the act of setting a task aside as a negative; instead, see it as capitalizing on what psychologist Richard E. Nisbett calls “the free labor of the unconscious mind.”
Furthermore, the Zeigarnik effect is a great method for fighting procrastination. The next time you are faced with a task that you are tempted to put off, don’t worry about having to complete it; instead, just spend five or ten minutes getting started. Having begun the task, you will be able to take advantage of the Zeigarnik effect to provide you with the necessary momentum and insight to finish it later.
Recall, Retrieve, Recite, Ruminate, Reflect, Reason: What is the Zeigarnik Effect, and how did the 1927 study with children test its validity?
Challenge - Unfinished Is Underrated: Often we praise the act of getting things done, but the Zeigarnik effect can teach us the advantages of leaving tasks unfinished. Write a short public service announcement, explaining why leaving some tasks unfinished might actually be a good thing.
Sources:
1-Goldberg, Philip. The Babinski Reflex. Tarcher, 1990.
Discovery of the Zeigarnik Effect
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