The Zeigarnik Effect: Turns the Stress of Unfinished into Efficiency
The Zeigarnik Effect exists in all of our lives. In essence, completing a job depends on the limit you set in your brain. We all have a love we can’t forget, right? Or the phrase “I wish I had said this” after an unsuccessful job interview… What about eagerly awaiting the new episode of the series we watch with pleasure? Of course, we can diversify the examples more, but the subject I want to mention is what lies at the center of all this. In other words, the common point of all of them is that they are incomplete or unfinished… Brainusermanual owners also know how to use the sense of impetus from unfinished business.
In this way, we can remember them more clearly, and most of the time, we cannot erase them from our memory. This has a name in the literature, the Zeigarnik effect. This idea, put forward by the Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik, argues that unfinished and unfinished works are easier to remember. Zeigarnik discovered this while sitting in a restaurant. He observed that the waiters clearly remembered the orders before they were served and erased them from their memories after the service. Underlying this effect is a sense of responsibility. The responsibility we feel towards any job or someone pushes the mechanism in our brain towards completing what has emerged. The servers understand that completing the job is the delivery of orders. Therefore, for this reason, the effect on their minds to finish this work is revealed. If the task of the waiter who took charge of the customer was to tell the waiter who would deliver it to the customer, the process of taking the order in their brains is finished. In addition, while this feeling of incompleteness creates a sense of tension in our brain and inside, it becomes difficult to erase it from memory. However, Zeigarnik is also a way to increase productivity. Let’s quickly explain how:
The tension created by unfinished work also facilitates cognitive access. The relief after the task is over motivates you to complete the job.
Many of us tend to procrastinate on tasks that must be taken care of. If you have a business in front of you that you are reluctant to start, try to make a start, no matter how small. A simple start has a powerful effect on motivation.
When our brain constantly reminds us that we haven’t done anything, this can lead to anxiety and tension and destroy productivity. To control the negative potential of the Zeigarnik effect, write a list of all unfinished tasks at the end of the day.
Especially if you are going to make a presentation, try to take a break at a vital point to keep the subject in the foreground in the minds of the audience you are addressing.
We want to move forward and keep working during our break when we’re still going. However, this causes the Zeigarnik effect to be very tiring. So that’s why you need to take some breaks.
