The Zeigarnik Effect

This is a theory that says activities that were interrupted before completion as easier to recall than activities we have completed. Uncompleted activities occupy our thoughts more easily.

This is why we ca obsess about something until it’s done. A task which is unfinished keeps popping back into our heads until we complete it. When that happens, we can more easily forget the information.

Why I Looked It Up

This was hinted at (but not named) by Dave Allen in Getting Things Done. He said that we need to “close the loop” on tasks to get them out of our heads.

More recently, a friend posted to LinkedIn about what she called “stress-laxing.” She wrote:

Relaxing makes you more stressed because you’re not working on what’s making you stressed.

I commented:

I get paralyzed when something is hanging over me. I avoid working on it, but can’t work on anything else because I should be working on the other thing. I researched it once, and the only description I could find was something called “executive function disorder.”

She responded:

I believe this is called The Zeigarnik Effect. The more you try to ignore it the worse it gets.

I’m not sure if she was right, but that’s where I was exposed to the phrase.