
The Zeigarnik Effect - zawaideh
http://blog.sandglaz.com/zeigarnik-effect-scientific-key-to-better-work/
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natural219
Another interesting way to interpret this is that perhaps the Zeigarnik effect
is a good description of the "psychological" cost of unpaid technical debt.
For instance, during any project at my job I run into at least 5 things --
bugs, code improvements, components I could build to make this task easier --
and I jot them down. When I finish, I move on to the next feature, and that
list grows to 10, then 15, then 30... the anxiety that "man I really need to
fix this shitty codebase" actually affects me psychologically in tangible
ways, and IMO is one of the under-talked about aspects of ignoring technical
and design debt.

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jhund
What the article doesn't mention is to use this effect as a tactic to get
going in the morning: Plan your day so that you stop in the middle of an
interesting task at the end of the day. I find it's effortless for me to pick
it up the next morning.

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JacobJans
I used this technique for my lunch break -- with great results. Before I took
the break, I was very motivated to finish the project I was working on. But I
decided to leave it unfinished. After lunch, I started right back again
without 'lost time' checking my email and such.

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wpietri
Given that the site is so engineered to make me click, share, and otherwise
engage, I have a hard time trusting the content. Is it written for accuracy?
Or for virality?

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alinavrabie
Hi there, I can assure you that a lot of research went into this article.

~~~
wpietri
Hi, Alina. This is not a dig on your work, but mainly a comment about the
site.

Sure, I believe you did a lot of research. But then the article could have
been written to maximize accuracy or to maximize virality.

I write a lot, and there's a big difference between the styles. For some
topics, that can translate into a big difference in the content of an article.

Productivity is definitely prone to that. There's a whole genre known as
"productivity porn", so called because some people feel compelled to look at
it far beyond actual utility.

Right from the title of the article, I was put on guard. The word "unlock"
indicates minor action will bring great improvement, freeing me from possibly-
unsuspected constraints. Who wouldn't want that? Then we get three awesome,
hard-to-reach states in a row. Next a mysterious sciencey-sounding effect
named after somebody I've never heard of but who has an intriguing name. It's
a perfect productivity porn title.

When I clicked through, my skepticism was increased. On my phone, the first
thing I saw was a bunch of share buttons with some needy, manipulative copy to
get me to click them. There's a big stock photo of a pretty woman that conveys
zero actual information. There were a modest number of short, upbeat
paragraphs broken up with large titles. There are what I'm sure were links to
other productivity articles in the body. There's relatively little subtlety,
and a concluding paragraph that dubiously hates on the 8-hour work day. Then
we get a paragraph trolling for comments, which increase stickiness. And then
more share buttons with the same manipulative copy.

I understand that this is a popular way to build a profitable content business
these days. But I also understand that "profitable content business" and
"reliable source of high-integrity, low-drama journalism" are poorly
correlated. No matter how solid your writing and how true your heart, the
context and the constraints of written-for-virality prose make me skeptical.
Too many other people writing for similar sites and with similar structures
have written excessively upbeat, low-thought articles for me to trust ones on
this site without doing a lot more due diligence than I normally will for a
quick morning read.

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hnriot
there's a lot of cynicism here!

there's no great mystery to any of this, and what the article is saying is
rather obvious (we remember the stuff we didn't finish yet - no shit!) but I
just don't see all these cynical intent concerns you have.

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wpietri
That's not cynicism. That's just reverse engineering a content business.

I worked in publishing in the 90s, including doing some print design. I've
done a fair bit of UI and information design since then. And I helped start a
successful modern content business. Plus I write pretty much every day.

I'm not saying anybody there intends to be evil. I'm sure they're all very
nice. I'm saying that they're embedded in a business context that shapes
behavior. The incentives work strongly against thoughtful, sober journalism,
and toward high-viral, high-click, high-engagement content that stimulates a
need without ever really satisfying that.

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aaronetz
I definitely notice that effect personally. The problem is, I often find
myself easily distracted (e.g. opening HN!) when faced with a hard problem or
a "mental wall". It really hinders my ability to finish tasks sometimes. What
do you do to help you focus on tasks, specifically hard ones?

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JacobJans
There are a number of things you can do to stay focused and on task. Some of
them you probably already do.

The first is to simply have a clearly defined goal. While this is obvious, it
is also easy to miss. If we don't have a clearly defined task, we don't know
whether or not we've completed it.

But even if you have a clearly defined goal, it can still be easy to get
distracted. There are two primary reasons for this. The first: If you don't
know what the next step is, it can be difficult to stay focused. The next time
you get stuck, ask yourself how clearly you know what your next step is. If
you're not sure what to do, then make sure you spend the time figuring that
out.

But what if you have a clear goal, and you know exactly what you need to do,
but you're still not staying focused?

Then you've probably got a motivation problem. The way to deal with this is
pretty straight forward. Simply spend time thinking about the reasons it is
important to complete the task, or achieve the goal. Don't try to trick
yourself here. Be honest. If you can't find any good enough reasons to stay
focused, then maybe you should be doing something else.

In summary: Have a clearly defined goal. Make sure you know exactly what
you're next step is. And make sure you have the proper motivation.

If you're interested in this stuff, I recommend reading about the "mental
contrasting" technique, as well as the book "Succeed" by Heidi Grant
Halvorson.

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RTigger
Related, I like to leave non-working code or tests at the end of a day so I
can easily find where I left off. For some reason when I try to build / test
and the errors pop up I'm able to immediately pick up where I left off. A
combination of a bookmark and the Zeigarnik Effect I guess?

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sp332
This probably explains "earworms" (songs that get stuck in your head) as well.
Usually the hook that repeats doesn't have a musical resolution, and/or you
can't remember how the song ends. Just hearing or imagining a single chord
that sounds final can help get rid of them.

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zawaideh
I haven't thought of this; maybe that's why I get annoyed when a song I'm
listening to gets interrupted.

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munificent
Great article, except for the last paragraph. The duration that you work has
little to do with your reward structure. If you had a _one_ hour workday, at
any time of your choosing, but were then paid cash afterwards, you'd still
nullify the effect.

If anything, I think the effect is an indictment of hourly wages, as opposed
to salary or some other outcome-based compensation.

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alinavrabie
Great observation! It's not about the duration of the 8-hour work day though,
but the concept of it. It's about doing something for a specific amount of
time and then receiving a pre-established monetary reward. You're right, it
could be a one-hour or five-hour workday. It just happens that in our days
it's an 8-hour workday/40-hr. work-week.

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wil421
I waited tables the whole time I was in college and I can say that these
observations are 100% true.

Sometimes I even have nightmares about bad experiences I had.

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mistercow
>The waiters seemed to remember complex orders that allowed them to deliver
the right combination of food to the tables, yet the information vanished as
the food was delivered.

That could use some elaboration. If she was just watching them, how did she
know the information vanished?

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hengheng
For those who understand German, you can read it up on wikipedia:

[http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeigarnik-
Effekt](http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeigarnik-Effekt)

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tvladeck
This effect is also a good reason to let the other side talk themselves out
during a contentious discussion (instead of objecting to every point).

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alinavrabie
Great insight! I wouldn't have thought about it this way, although I can think
of quite a few instances where this approach would have been more than
helpful!

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AsymetricCom
This is just another word for stored state for humans!

