What is the Zeigarnik Effect and How is it Messing with Your Head?
The Zeigarnik Effect is a psychological phenomenon in which people tend to remember unfinished tasks better than their finished ones.
In this post, we’re going to see what is the Zeigarnik effect and find out how it’s making us less productive and more angry with ourselves.
I’m sure you’ve just found a name for a feeling you’ve always had. I definitely did when I first heard of it.
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What is The Zeigarnik Effect?
The Zeigarnik Effect is always messing with my head. My to-do list is long enough, and at the end of every single day when I’ve hit completion on five tasks but not on three—my mood drops into a pit and I could participate in the Olympics of self-criticism.
If not now, then when is a very skewed concept of thinking. Society has a way of making some of us feel that if we aren’t going all in now, then that ultimate warrants that we won’t go all in later either—this idea promotes the “cool” hustle culture where people think being busy equals living a socially-impressive and individually-satisfying life. But—in truth—nothing guarantees that at all.
While at most times it might work in your benefit—pushing yourself to take action right now instead of postponing or procrastinating the thing for tomorrow is ultimate the good thing to do; but what about the psychological toll it takes on you sometimes?
What of the times when you actually can’t do it right now and thus postponing it is the only option, and then when you actually do postpone it, it frustrates you because…weren’t you adamant on completing it at time? Surely, you’ve got no self-control. Surely, you should be more disciplined.
A Reform in Thinking
Here’s the new way of thinking. If not now, then…tomorrow. Or later. Probably next week.
Isn’t that liberating?
Instead of pushing yourself to be so disciplined and so…stuck in your worries all the time, you should make it a point to take life as it comes, live every moment in the best way, make it the most important one, right now.
You need to just understand one thing and it is that…it’s not always gonna be perfect. The more you try to chase the perfection, the thrill of a busy schedule, the facade of continuous, unconditional productivity, the more you’re going to find yourself far away from it. That’s the truth, what I myself learned the hard way.
I’m not kidding, I’ve fallen prey to that feeling too where you think that having a long to-do list is going to give you what you’re looking for. That dopamine release where you believe you’re busier and thus more productive than everyone else you’re competing with—but the plot twist is when they end up ahead of you somehow and you realize that you never needed to be so harsh on yourself in the first place.
And in return, it just gives you more stress, more anxiety, more insecurity, more frustration, and yeah, more work too.
How to Overcome the Zeigarnik Effect?
The Zeigarnik effect is hard to let go of, especially when you’ve chased that kind of dopamine all your life, but that doesn’t mean it cant be beaten.
Everyday, look at what you’ve done. So much, as little as it is.
If there’s something you weren’t able to do today, shift it to tomorrow. If not now, then later. You’ve always got a new day, you don’t have to feel hopeless or worry that your life wont turn out as you wanted it to. You’ve got lot of time. Everything’s working out perfectly, isn’t it?
That being said, don’t count the hours. A week is made of so many hours. So is a month. A year is made up of so many months. Your life is made up of many, many years. Everything is going to bring something new. You just don’t choose one thing and then sign up for forever. That’s not how it works. Or rather, that’s not how it should work.
It’s a multi-volume mega-fantasy book series, your life. It’s not a boring college essay on the impact of single use plastic bags on the environment (which is what I had to write last Saturday for my class).
Relax. You’ve got it completely under control.
If not now, then later. That’s your mantra. The Zeigarnik effect can do nothing to trouble you. You don’t just have to look at the bad things, the tasks not done, the things not studied, the books not read—you have to look at the positive side of things or you’ll stay stuck in that in-between place of wanting to celebrate your achievements but at the same time feeling you’re not being enough.
Don’t panic.
(Also, did you know that the word panic comes from the name of the Greek god Pan? Weird, right? Especially because Pan is like, the sanest of the gods, as far as I can know—from reading the Percy Jackson series—and also because he’s the god of the wild, animals and nature.
But he’s also the god of sudden fear, startlement. The Greeks believed that Pan could cause sudden and irrational fear in the minds of both humans and animals when he himself was startled. This led to the term panikos—which is exactly what we are talking about: sudden, uncontrollable fear and anxiety.
The Stoic Philosophy
The Stoic philosophy tells us to only focus on what we can control, not stressing over things and opinions that are far out of our control in the first place. Isn’t that exactly what we need to master? What’s done is done. You can’t turn back time, so better just focus on what’s ahead of you instead of all the things you missed.
Another concept from the Stoic philosophy is that external events don’t disturb us. The way we react to them does. If only we master our emotions, nothing is worth stressing over.
You’re not worried because you were not able to do something. You’re worried because not being able to do something makes you feel worthless. You’re worried because the Zeigarnik effect makes you feel responsible for not being able to complete everything you had planned to.
If only you stop reacting that way to your procrastination, then the stress of not performing your finest and not fulfilling your “destiny” is not going to harm you at all. You’re going to be so productive the moment you stop letting it dictate you and decide to dictate your own daily routine and work instead.
Read more stuff about productivity and getting the best out of your 24 hours:
Let Me Hack Your To-Do List and Give You Something Better
5 Weirdly Personal Ways to Get Creative & New Ideas [And Be Productive]
