NLP, the Zeigarnik Effect & the cost of 'Unfinished Business'

From our free The Pegasus NLP Newsletter

Unfinished issues...

Have you ever had a telephone argument with somebody at the end of which they slammed the phone down on you?

Have you ever been reading a chapter in a novel which ended on a cliffhanger and, even though you were so sleepy you could hardly keep your eyes open, you had to read the next chapter to find out what happened next? 

Have you ever left home to go to work and felt a nagging doubt that you had forgotten something - only to discover when it was too late to return that you had forgotten your wallet or purse or some other important item?

The common factor?

What’s common to all of these?  (Apart from the fact that they are all questions, that is!)  They all imply unfinished business - loose ends. And unfinished business tends to play on the mind.

That's why some of us wake up during the night and replay arguments that we'd had during the day and which ended unsatisfactorily. Or wake up during the night and mentally run through unfinished work projects. Or find our attention drifting in the middle of a conversation or TV programme.

We don’t like loose ends

The mind likes tidiness and the security of knowing that something has been completed – that it’s done and dusted! And if something hasn’t been completed and therefore isn't tidy we can find ourselves mulling it over again and again and again - partly to ensure that we don't forget about it. 

So if you have a lot of unfinished business, a lot of loose ends, in your life this can create a quite uncomfortable and stressful ongoing emotional and physical state - unless you are good at managing things.

The Zeigarnik Effect

Incidentally this "unfinished business" phenomenon has been christened the "Zeigarnik effect" and a paper was published on the subject by the Lithuanian-born Bluma Zeigarnik (1901-1988) way back in 1927 which demonstrated that adults remember unfinished tasks up to 90% better than finished ones!

Friend and foe

The Zeigarnik effect can be a double-edged sword – something which we explore in some depth in both parts of our in-depth NLP Practitioner Programme. It can be either friend or foe. It can account for tremendous creativity and productivity on the one hand.  And be responsible for tremendous uneasiness and pressure on the other.

If you have lots of unfinished business in your life, if you do lots of multitasking and/or have your finger in lots of pies at once then you can be very creative and achieve lots. But at a cost: it can affect your peace of mind, it can create physical attention, and it can affect your health. It can even affect your relationships since to your nearest and dearest you constantly seem preoccupied or "somewhere else".

Of course "can affect you" implies that this doesn't have to be so…

Managing unfinished business

You mind endlessly "goes over" things so that you can keep track of them and stay up to date with them, and so that you won't forget them. So the simple and almost cliched solution is the time-honoured "to do list".

Yes, sorry, it's no more cutting-edge than that! Though you can add a few little refinements to make the “To Do List” work even better.

Many people find that having a physically written list, on paper, works better than a digital list. Coloured pens can help.

(1) Redo the list daily. Crossing out and adding items every day is quicker but it makes for a very untidy list. And redoing the list daily reassures the mind that things are being managed effectively thus reducing the need to mentally "go over things".

(2) End of the day. Ideally the list should be completed just before you switch off at the end of your working day. For example, if you work at a desk one good practice is to leave your desk clear apart from your to-do list. That way you have a mental picture to reassure you if you find yourself slipping back into the old "mulling over" habit.

(3) Make it a habit. For the first few weeks, at least, this "mulling over" habit will likely keep recurring.  After all you've probably been doing it since school days. Immediately you find yourself doing so silently ask yourself "is this item on the list?"  If it is then remind yourself that it's taken care of.  If isn't then make a written note of it so that it can be attended to at an appropriate time.

The positive edge of that sword

We can use the phenomenon of the Zeigarnik Effect to ensure that we remember things better and to be more creative and productive in our lives. To take just two examples:

(1) If you are preparing a paper, writing a presentation, or even writing fiction you can use the phenomenon to avoid writer's block - by stopping writing in the middle of an idea or passage. That way it will play on the mind, in a pleasant and creative way, and it will be much easier to resume writing next time. 

(2) If you are a teacher, or are teaching your own children, change topics just when the students are getting excited about the topic.  Not only will they be looking forward to resuming it but their minds will be creatively playing with the concepts even while they are learning other things. Incidentally, Bluma Zeigarnik's paper went so far as to suggest that children only remembered interrupted tasks

An experiment...

Begin a list right away of all the bits of unfinished business that are existing in your life right now - phone calls to return, letters to write, things to purchase, things you've begun which need to be finished, etc.

Then consider how much energy is required in mentally, even in the back of your mind, keeping track of all these things…

Now consider what you will do with all that mental energy and released creativity once your "to-do list" is taking care of them!

© 2000-2012 Reg Connolly - copyrighted, all rights reserved - but you can freely pass this newsletter on to friends as long as you do so in its entirety, include this message and link: http://www.nlp-now.co.uk.

Please contact us for written permission if you would like to reproduce this article in your own newsletter, literature or web publication. 

Or, if you prefer, you can send a blank email to: subscribenl@nlp-now.co.uk

Click on these links for more information about NLP

NLP FAQ

Why learn NLP

How to learn NLP

Where to learn NLP - and how to choose a training provider

NLP Core Skills - our course in the New Forest

What's special about Pegasus NLP Trainings

What people have said about our courses

How we integrate NLP with outdoor activities