374. The Zeigarnik Effect Is Running Your Life

You don't have a productivity problem. You have a closure problem. The Zeigarnik Effect is running your life and you don't even know it.

I struggle not to check my phone at dinner.

Not because I’m expecting an urgent email. Just because… I have to check my phone.

I sometimes wake up at 4am thinking about that thing I need to get done. The thing I still haven’t done for two weeks now.

I used to think this was dedication.
I thought that caring about work meant I needed to think about it constantly.
I believed that to be a good leader, you have to be always on.

If you look at my life on paper, it sure looks like I have work-life balance. I’m home when the wife and kid finish their days. I cook all the meals for the family and we eat together every night.

I even try to stay clear of my computer on weekends.

But my mind never stops.
And I’m about to tell you why.

If you have the same active mind as me, get ready for an ice cold splash of water right up the wazoo.

The Zeigarnik Effect

In the 1920s, a Russian psychologist named Bluma Zeigarnik was sitting in a Viennese café when she noticed something interesting about the waiters.

They could remember every order that hadn’t been paid yet: the couple that ordered the garlicky goulash, who was still waiting for coffee, and which poet still hadn’t paid for yesterday’s strudel.

But the moment a bill was paid - woosh! - the waiter forgot everything about the order.

It just disappeared.
Completely erased from memory like it never existed.

Weird right?
Bluma thought so too.

So like any good, over-achieving Russian psychologist in the 1920s, she ran some experiments to test this phenomenon.

She gave people a series of tasks and let them finish some, while forcing others to be left unfinished.

And here’s what she found:

People remember incomplete tasks far better than completed ones.

This is now called the Ziegarnik Effect.

Our brains want closure.
When we don’t have closure, our brains hold onto the unfinished tasks until they’re complete. Then, buh-bye, they fly away.

Crazy right?
I know!

Oh, If You Had Only One Open Loop

This is the point where it would be super-easy for me to tell you to “just go complete that project, close that loop and your life will be perfect.”

Then I drop my mic and walk off stage.
Oh, if it were only so simple.
If only I had a mic and were on stage.

However, if I were a guessing man - which I am - I’d guess that you’re probably like me. You don’t have one unfinished thing on your mind, you have 47 of them.

There’s those projects you started but haven’t finished.
The challenging conversations you keep postponing.
The difficult decisions you keep delaying.

You’ve got lots of open loops.
And your brain is holding onto all of them, all the time.

It’s not because you’re so dedicated to work - though I’m sure you are. It’s because your mind literally won’t let go until something is resolved.

It’s not willpower, my friend.
It’s biology.

And it’s really fucking exhausting.

The Open Loops You’re Creating Without Knowing It

I work with hundreds of leaders, and none of my executive coaching clients are bad at their jobs. They’re all really good at them.

Yet even they unconsciously create dozens of open loops. Even the best of us do it without thinking.

In fact, here are ways you’re probably creating open loops and not even recognizing it:

• When you tell yourself you should delegate more - that’s an open loop.

• When you hand off a project but say “keep me updated” - that loop stays open.

• When you defer a decision, for whatever reason, including your conflict avoidance. Open loop.

And that’s just work.
Add in the laundry, cleaning the garage, the tickets you keep meaning to buy, and your brain is drowning in incomplete chaos.

Maybe you keep telling yourself it’s a time management problem.
It isn’t.

You think you have an efficiency problem.
You don’t.

Maybe you tell yourself that you’re great at compartmentalizing and you’re just going to let these unfinished things go. Out of sight, out of mind.

But it’s like that itch in the middle of your back. You tell yourself you’re not going to scratch it. You’re an adult. You have self-control.
Then suddenly it’s the only thing you can think about.

This Is What Leadership Actually Feels Like. And It’s Wrong.

If you’re like me, you think you’re being a good leader or an exceptional worker by staying on top of all the things you need to do.

But it wears you down.

• You can’t think clearly about tomorrow when your brain is chained to last week

• Your decisions get sloppy.

• You feel a low-grade hum of anxiety that never really goes away.

You assume that’s just what leadership feels like. Trust me, it isn’t.

Most of the time you’re treating your brain like a clown car. You shove one more incomplete idea into any open spot and tell yourself it’ll be fine. There’s always room for one more.

One more deferred decision.
One more unfinished project.
One more conversation you’ll have eventually.

But no vehicle is supposed to hold that many things. And neither is your brain.

Those unclosed loops are heavy. They add up to a heck of a lot of mental weight to carry around.

You’re not thinking about work all the time because you’re dedicated to it. You’re thinking about work all the time because you won’t finish anything.

You Don’t Need Better Time Management

You don’t need better time management.
You need to start finishing things.

It doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to be finished.

• The decision you haven’t yet made - make it. It’s probably just a first date anyway.

• The difficult conversation you kept postponing - have it. The CARE method will help.

Close your damn loops, kid.

In fact, while we’re focused on closing loops, you should probably change your daily To-Do List habit too. It’s better to finish 4 of 4 tasks in a day and feel complete, than it is to finish 4 of 9 and feel like the day just got away from you.

It’s not about quantity, it’s about the closed loop feeling of completion.

And that’s the basis of work-life balance.

One Loop. This Week. That’s It.

So here’s your challenge.

What’s the one loop you’ve been pushing down the road the longest?
Not all of them. Just one.

What decision have you been deferring?
What are the things you keep saying you’ll get to but never do?

Choose the one you can close the fastest.
Do it this week.

Just one loop. That’s your goal.

Then you’re going to go to the next.
Because you don’t have a productivity problem. You have a closure problem.

And it’s time to change it.
Your brain will thank you.

And so will your family when you’re actually present at dinner.

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If you want to figure out which patterns are keeping your loops open in the first place, that’s exactly what the free Leadership Diagnostic Workshop is for.

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PS — I wrote most of this article at 4:15am. Oh the irony.