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How a Simple Note Can Harness the Zeigarnik Effect to Help You Sleep Better at Night.
Give yourself the gift of the First Thing and make your brain shut up.
The Zeigarnik effect may not be real, but it can be useful.
Almost one hundred years ago, Dr. Bluma Zeigarnik was dining with friends when she noticed something about their waiter.
He was somehow able take a large table’s complex order, with substitutions and special requests and such, and remember it completely. At least — until the check. Once the bill was settled, it left his brain and he couldn’t remember much of anything about it.
This led to Dr. Zeigarnik doing research and coming up with her eponymous Effect: humans tend to think about unfinished tasks more than finished ones. It’s why performers “always leave ’em wanting more” and why cliffhanger stories work so well.
It’s also why many people like myself lay awake at night, thinking of all the things left undone.
But while our brains are hardwired to be this way, we can find ways to hack the Zeigarnik Effect to make it work for us.
