End Procrastination with the Zeigarnik Effect
Sleep by DonBLC 123 from The Noun Project
Simply starting a project can be the biggest barrier to productivity. Enter the Zeigarnik Effect, which can be used to accelerate your creative process. Alina Vrabie, a writer for Sandglaz’s blog, explains the effect:
The Zeigarnik Effect means good news for procrastinators: you are less likely to procrastinate once you actually start a task. You’re more inclined to finish something if you start it. So how do you actually get started? It depends on what kind of procrastinator you are. If you’re likely to procrastinate because you’re faced with a big project, then don’t think about starting with the hardest chunk of work. Start with what seems manageable in the moment. You’ll be more likely to finish the task simply because you started.
It’s human nature to finish what we start. Gregory Ciotti, author of Sparring Mind, adds that the resulting dissonance from an incomplete experience is precisely what happens when we become engaged in a story in a compelling book, movie or TV show – “we want to see how it ends.”
Vrabie ends by stating that the Zeigarnik Effect shows us that the key to beating procrastination is by “starting somewhere…anywhere.”
Read her full post here.
