- What do I have to do today?
(voices)
(Intrusive thoughts) "You gotta send that email."
(piano plays)
- No doubt you know this feeling of open loops,
your subconscious nags your conscious mind
over and over again.
(Intrusive thoughts) "Hey man,
there's a bunch of stuff that isn't done".
- Over the course of a day,
these open loops can sap your mental energy
and rob you of the present.
Why does this happen and what is it?
Well, it's called The Zeigarnik Effect,
and it has some of the widest ranging implications
for a person living in the modern world.
Psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik discovered the effect,
studying under her mentor Kurt Lewin,
one of the pioneers of applied psychology.
They observed that waiters displayed an unusual ability
to remember complex orders,
but only until those orders were delivered.
Once the plates were down on the table,
and their task completed,
their memory of who got what disappeared.
In other words,
they remembered what they needed to do
much better than tasks they finished.
Open loop, heavy amount of recall,
closed the loop, very little recall at all.
It makes sense.
You remember an incomplete task
because your brain thinks it's important
and completing that task enables you to forget about it.
But that's not all Zeigarnik found
when it came to the effect.
In a further study, she discovered a strong relationship
between that memory of an incomplete task,
and a desire for cognitive closure.
That is, if there's an objective that we committed ourselves
to pursue, an open loop, we're highly motivated to close
that loop in order to escape the intrusive thoughts
and feelings it causes.
Now, these objectives can be incomplete narratives,
unanswered questions, unresolved problems,
or unachieved goals.
You can see the effect at work, everywhere.
What is a cliffhanger on TV, but a loop left open.
You see it in clickbait headlines.
They give you just enough to open a loop,
which motivates you to click on the link,
to close the loop by obtaining the full story.
Quest based video games are designed
so that your list of tasks is never done,
accept a quest, open a loop, close that loop, ad infinitum.
Perhaps the worst manifestation of the effect,
is a breakup with unresolved issues.
Your subconscious keeps reminding you to find closure,
but most of the time breakups with unresolved issues
go unresolved, forever.
And unfortunately The Zeigarnik Effect persists.
It's most useful to know about The Zeigarnik Effect
however, when it comes to productivity,
think of it as hacking your psychology
because your brain wants that closure.
My favorite example of hacking the effect
is from famous writer, Ernest Hemingway.
When he wanted to be done for the day,
he didn't stop writing at the end of a paragraph
or a chapter.
He cut himself off mid-thought.
Leaving that sentence only partly done,
functioned as a powerful motivator for him,
to come back to the page the next day.
I know this works,
because if I edit a section of a video,
and leave it unfinished it will follow me,
make me uncomfortable and anxious everywhere I go
until I get back to it.
A psychologist Roy Baumeister and Brad Bushman point out,
we're most motivated to close loops
on objectives we've started.
So to motivate yourself on a task,
it's best to do something small first, for example,
write the first sentence of an essay,
no matter how good it is,
just to move forward on an essay.
Or put on gym clothes, if you wanna go to the gym.
The further along in the loop,
the higher the motivation to finish it.
That's old cliche, it follows us everywhere doesn't it?
Just start.
But be careful not to open too many of these loops,
because it can end up overwhelming your brain.
Open loops, use a significant amount
of your mental resources,
even when you're not directly attending to them.
So it's much smarter to open two or three
important to-do's for the day,
instead of opening 15 and paralyzing yourself.
It's also why it's so important to have habits.
If you can brush your teeth,
meditate and exercise on autopilot,
that means you have fewer loops to open each day
and fewer things burdening your brain.
But even when you deliberately opened fewer loops
or develop habits,
new loops can suddenly spring to mind
in the middle of the day.
This is outside your control and it gets annoying.
Baumeister says, "The best way to manage this
and your multitude of open loops more generally
is to write everything down, whether they're longterm,
like learn guitar eventually, or if they come to mind
in the moment, like send that email."
Delegating open loops to paper,
significantly dampens the mental strain
caused by the effect.
In other words,
the simple act of planning lets your subconscious
chill out and stop intruding on your conscious mind.
So in cases where things are in your control,
such as daily tasks and goals,
your best course of action is well just to start
or at least to plan
- Just do it.
- In cases where things are out of your control,
like unresolved issues in a breakup,
you should shout at the sky and say, "Oh, Zeigarnik Effect,
why do you make me feel like a living void?"
Then realize that unfortunately
not everything's going to have closure, and that's okay.
I'll end with a more theoretical idea.
If a desire for cognitive closure
is one of our greatest motivators,
then it may be mystery itself
that holds the greatest power over the human mind.
A mystery by definition
is something that defies explanation.
And without an explanation, there is no closure.
Is a Zeigarnik Effect propelling us to answer
life's big questions?
I don't know.
But if there's an open loop,
like why are we on this rock hurdling through darkness,
you can be damn sure, we'll try to close it.
Hey most excellent people,
this episode was brought to you by NordVPN.
I've had a VPN for three years now.
I think it's something that everyone should have.
I mean, you don't even have to listen to me.
Here's my friend who's an actual cybersecurity expert.
- [Jim] The internet is trash,
and a VPN makes them smell, slightly better.
- [Will] (laughs) I think you once said like,
"If you've seen what I've seen, you'd get a VPN."
(both laugh)
- [Jim] I think that's very true,
if you've seen what I've seen,
you would definitely use a VPN.
So, you know whether it's an attacker,
whether it's a nation state,
whether it's you know, an advertisement company,
whether it's an internet service provider.
When they see that traffic that is encrypted with a VPN,
it all looks the exact same.
They can't determine that you're sending emails
to certain people.
They can't determine whether you're visiting
certain websites.
They can't determine whether your sending certain messages
or using different types of internet protocols,
because it all goes through that tunnel.
And that, provides you with a substantial amount
of protection against people
snooping on your internet activity,
whether that's for security or whether
that's for privacy.
Using a VPN is definitely something you should consider
doing because it will...
It is an effective tool
against offending,
and against a lot of different great actors.
- Now you can use NordVPN
across all of your devices,
which is huge for public wifi use.
There's no data logging,
and Nord is the only VPN to get a perfect score
from PCMAG.
I value my privacy and security online,
and I think you should too.
Go to nordvpn.com/willschoder,
to get 66% off a 2-year plan.
That's nordvpn.com/willschoder.
Link is in the description.
Peace.
- [Jim] Let me talk to you about seven layer proxies.
- [Will] (laughs)
- [Jim] For people who say six proxies are enough,
no, you gotta have at least seven proxies.