Dear stress, let’s break up?

I first wrote about this phenomenon as far back as 2014 when I was preparing to speak at my first SXSW and then research for my book, and the ‘Zeigarnik effect’ seems to be more relevant now than ever, only in a completely unexpected context. Collective exhaustion from coronavirus restrictions has emerged as a formidable adversary for populations and governments around the world, and it’s something that has affected me a great deal over the last twelve months.

As an out-and-out contrarian and daydreamer, I’ve always struggled when ruminating about unfinished tasks. It’s caused me massive anxiety and kept me awake, or woken me up early, as I’m sure it does for many others. It’s why I believe the cognitive load of the last twelve months has been so impactful on people’s mental health — there is so much left unfinished and open-ended, or simply unknown with no clear answer.

Throughout the third lockdown, I’ve been so tired. Working, parenting, keeping the house going with my wife. The only time I get to myself is when the family are asleep, and that’s when I finish off some work stuff, clean up, catching up on emails, do the food shopping online, check in on friends who live alone, check in on family, play some PS4 so I can escape for a spell. But then I don’t sleep properly because my brain isn’t switching off, so I wake up exhausted, and try to do it all again. Sound familiar?

The Zeigarnik Effect

It all comes back to a really interesting phenomenon observed by a Lithuanian psychologist called Bluma Zeigarnik back in the 1920s. She watched as waiters in restaurants could remember a complex order, from a large table just so long as the order was in the process of being prepared and served, however, after it was finished they would lose all memory of the order completely.

One of Zeigarniks experiments was to give 138 people simple tasks to do, like puzzles and mental maths. She half of them in mid-task but allowed the other half to complete the tasks. An hour later, only about one in ten (12%) recalled the completed tasks, while 8% remembered the same number of each. However, a massive 80% were able to remember the interrupted tasks. Repeated experiments confirmed that individuals of all ages tend to remember uncompleted tasks far better than completed ones.

Her research showed that the human mind rebels against unfinished tasks. She was able to prove that incomplete tasks incite a kind of “mental tension” in us, which can be a persuasive impetus to complete the task. She went on to theorise that the brain has very little motivation to recall tasks we’ve finished, while there’s a substantial investment of interest in unfinished tasks that enhance our short-term memory.

If people leave a task or situation unfinished, our brains are in an uncomfortable position. It’s the same for relationships that breakdown that are never really concluded. The constant thoughts about the task or situation serve to remind our brain of what it needs to do to get “comfortable” again. Then, as soon as we complete the task, or resolve the situation, the tension is alleviated, and in so doing, our brain lets the mind release thoughts of the task from our consciousness.

In other words, we end up using a lot of mental effort when our tasks are interrupted or are still in the process of being completed. It’s why cliff-hangers in books or TV shows work so well in getting people to tune back in again to find out what happens next — it’s the mental itch you can’t scratch until you get that closure.

From a professional perspective, uncompleted tasks and unmet goals have a propensity for popping into your mind and worrying us persistently until the task is completed and the goal is reached. If you’ve found yourself waking up much earlier than usual or becoming more stressed since you’ve been juggling the balls of ‘working from home’ and ‘homeschooling’, on top of a global pandemic where everyday seems to be a cliff-hanger, it’s no wonder our brains are feeling more fried — We’re not getting anywhere, or actually progressing.

In the world that emerged over the last 12+ months, we never really complete what we’re doing — moving from one zoom meeting to another, sitting in the same place that we also happen to live in. Or having our concentration and task broken by something happening at home. Factor in that we’ve been in an almost perpetual Groundhog Day scenario, with the looming spectre of no job security, and it’s easy to surmise that perhaps our brains aren’t quite working out when to switch off properly.

Incompletion can be a severe hindrance to living fully in the present — It’s mentally exhausting, feeling bad about something you can do nothing about.

Zeigarniks was also able to prove that people tend to remember negative experiences and feelings much longer than positive ones. Moreover, people also feel a greater level of impact from negative messages than positive ones. So when what we perceive to be stressful situations never had a clear ending, then our brain doesn’t purge it properly, and hence we’re plagued by that niggling feeling that keeps us awake or never quite lets us live in the now.

I think this issue is particularly profound if you’re a startup founder trying to raise a round of investment that drags on, or senior executive with objectives for the shareholders to achieve but you have slow partners or poor team performance to contend with. It’s all going to keep you awake at night because you never feel like you have closure — lurching from one uncompleted task to the next.

What can we do about it?

The most practical thing to try and do is decrease your stress levels by managing your open task items. Write them down, cross them off, or eliminate them, to begin with, to reduce your task-based tension. Do it at the beginning and end of each day, to free up some cognitive bandwidth. Even just seeing a list with 10 out of 50 things crossed out can be enough to purge some of the negative energy. It helps us to counteract the effect and hack our brains to short circuit it.

When you’re on holiday or at home on the weekend, try doing something that takes some focus and forces positive short-term tasks into the consciousness. When I think I’m trying to relax, I’ve found that I still feel stress, but if I am actually playing or doing something like video games, I forget about work for a brief time. A focused activity might be the thing you need to stop thinking about all of those open tasks you’ve still got to get back to.

Summary

The wide range of uncomfortable feelings most of us experience reflects how much incompleteness weighs upon us and blocks our ability to live in the present. Creating closure and completion can become a significant avenue for lowering our stress levels and accomplishing more, all while developing a more substantial presence in every moment.

So try and find those routes through cloudy thoughts, and incomplete tasks by filling your mind with more positive, incomplete tasks and distractions.

References

1. Bluma Zeigarnik, “Uber das Behalten von Erledigten and Unerledigten Handlungen.” Psychologische Forschung 9, 1927, pages 1–85; research summarized in Robert M. Goldenson, The Encyclopedia of Human Behavior (New York: Dell Publishing Co., Inc., 1975), page 885.
2. Perry W. Buffington, Cheap Psychological Tricks (Atlanta, Georgia: Peachtree Publishers Ltd., 1996), pages 93–95.
3. Self-involvement interpretation offered in J. P. Chaplin, Dictionary of Psychology, Second Revised Edition (New York: A Laurel Book / Dell Publishing, 1985), page 498.
4. Saul Rosenzweig, “An Experimental Study of ‘Repression’ with Special reference to Need-persistive and Ego-defensive Reactions to Frustration,” Journal of Experimental Psychology, 32, 1943, pages 64–74.