Stop when you’re almost finished

Friday, November 2nd, 2018

Performance psychologist Noa Kageyama recommends harnessing resumptive drive, or the Zeigarnik effect, to get yourself to practice when you don’t feel like it:

Bluma Zeigarnik described a phenomenon way back in 1927, in which she observed while sitting in a restaurant that waiters seemed to have a selective memory. As in, they could remember complicated customers’ orders that hadn’t yet been filled, but once all the food had been served (or maybe when the bill was paid?), it’s as if the order was wiped from their memory.

Back in her lab, she found that indeed, participants were much more likely to remember tasks they started but didn’t finish, than tasks that were completed (hence, the Zeigarnik effect).

Another form of the Zeigarnik effect — and the one more relevant to what we’re talking about here — is the observation that people tend to be driven to resume tasks in which they were interrupted and unable to finish.

Researchers at Texas Christian University & University of Rochester ran a study on this form of the Zeigarnik effect.

Subjects were given eight minutes to shape an eight-cube, three-dimensional puzzle into five different forms. They were told to work as quickly as possible, and given three minutes to complete the first two puzzles as practice.

Then they were given five minutes to solve the last three puzzles.

The researchers deliberately made the second practice puzzle difficult — one that was unlikely to be solved within the time available. And just as they had hoped, only 6 of the 39 participants solved the difficult puzzle.

After their time was up, the participants had eight minutes of free time to do as they wished while the researcher running the experiment left the room to retrieve some questionnaires they accidentally forgot to bring, saying they would be back in “5 or 10 minutes.” This was all a ruse, of course, to see what the participants would do when left alone.

Despite there being other things in the room to do (e.g. a TV, magazines, newspaper, etc.), 28 of the 39 participants (72%) resumed working on the puzzles.

[...]

Of the six who completed the difficult puzzle, only one (17%) resumed working on the puzzles (and did so for one minute and 18 seconds).

Of the 33 who did not complete the challenging puzzle, 27 (82%) resumed working on the puzzle, and on average, spent more than two and a half times as long (3:20) working on the puzzles.

So, when interrupted in the middle of a task, not only were participants more motivated to resume working on that task, but they also continued working on it for much longer.

[...]

So instead of thinking about practicing for an hour, or having to work on 10 excerpts, or memorize a concerto, just tune your instrument. Or play a scale really slowly. Or set the timer for five minutes and pick one little thing to fix. And if at the end of five, you don’t feel like continuing, put your instrument away and try again later.

Don’t feel like studying? Just crack open the book. Work on one math problem. Write three sentences of your essay. Create two flash cards.

Second, once you’ve finally gotten yourself into the mood to practice or study, try stopping in the middle of a task. Meaning, if you’re working on a tricky passage that has you stumped, test out a few solutions, but leave yourself a few possible solutions remaining before taking a practice break. Stop when you’re almost finished solving the math problem. Or in the middle of a sentence.

Comments

  1. Harry Jones says:

    The flip side: if you want to get something out of your mind, finish it. Closure reduces mind clutter and thus reduces stress.

  2. CVLR says:

    These productivity-psychology posts are great.

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