How To Boost Productivity And Get Things Done
Picture this: Vienna in the 1920s, a bustling restaurant and a curious psychologist named Bluma Zeigarnik. She's sipping on her coffee and watching the waiters go about their business when she notices something interesting: they would expertly remember long orders, but after their customers paid, they struggled to recall the same orders. This observation stuck with her, and she conducted studies that she eventually published in her 1927 paper titled "On Finished and Unfinished Tasks".
Fast forward to today, and we know this phenomenon as the Zeigarnik Effect. We tend to remember unfinished tasks far better than completed ones. Unfinished tasks create tension in our minds. This makes recalling information related to our work easier. But, most of us have multiple pending tasks, and this mental tension can lead to overwhelming stress and anxiety unless we can get it under control.
There is a way to harness the power of the Zeigarnik Effect, boost our productivity and improve our mental health. We could feel more motivated, achieve better results at work or exams, decrease procrastination and unlock our full potential.
How? By following two simple steps:
- Step 1: we need to get the tasks out of our heads, capturing and organising them in a task manager like Todoist, or pen and paper, if we prefer "old school" productivity.
- Step 2: we need to break our tasks into smaller, more manageable chunks. This makes the tasks less daunting and frees up our minds from constantly thinking about the steps needed to complete them.
The benefits don't stop there! Seeing our tasks written down lets us prioritize and focus on what's truly important. Any tasks that keep popping up in our minds even after writing them down are the ones our subconscious mind knows are important - so we need to prioritise them.
So, next time we're overwhelmed with endless tasks, let's remember the Zeigarnik Effect and the two-step formula to relieve our mental tension, freeing us up to enjoy our cup of coffee and watch waiters go about their business.
Until next week,
Ric.
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