😵‍💫 Why you can't switch off (and how to use that to your advantage)

One of the most common complaints among entrepreneurs (and those they surround themselves with!) is that it is difficult to “switch off” from their business.

I have seen this myself numerous times - working 40 hours straight over one weekend when I first started my brewery years ago, or not really being “present” for family moments when managing my international teams with Global Digital Week.

When I finally realised that it was time for a change - that I didn’t need to feel overwhelmed or busy all the time - one of the first things I stumbled upon that genuinely helped me was called the Zeigarnik Effect.

Long story short your brain kind of opens “tabs” for each task you do, much like your internet browser. This can help or hinder, depending on how you use it.

The effect was first noticed with waiters in a restaurant having incredible memory for orders that haven't been delivered yet, but instantly forgetting what you ordered when it comes to paying the bill.

Here's how it works:

The Zeigarnik Effect occurs when you're interrupted in the middle of a task or you stop working on it before completion, which creates an “open cognitive loop” (like an open tab).

Entrepreneurs often fail to complete tasks due to their size or a distraction - 1001 different projects or tasks to complete, an “important” email, an urgent meeting, etc. As a result, we often have hundreds of open cognitive loops running in our brain at any given moment. This is one of the major reasons entrepreneurs feel overwhelmed and easily distracted pretty much all of the time.

There are two great, and very different, ways to use this effect:

1. To improve your focus and mental clarity, shut down unnecessary tabs.

Brain Dump all the tasks, thoughts, and to-dos swirling through your brain.

Once your brain knows these are safely stored somewhere, it has an easier time of letting them go. I like to write everything down on paper, remove tasks that I then realise don’t matter or don’t make sense, and then schedule the rest into my calendar.

Now that you've freed up some cognitive bandwidth, it's time to redeploy the Zeigarnik Effect, but this time, with intention...

2. To make tasks easier to start, intentionally keep 'tabs' open

I do this by intentionally stopping certain activities before they reach a natural "stopping point".

For example, everybody knows the hardest part of writing a book is staring at the blank page. One solution, therefore, is to never start with a blank page. This means never ending a writing session at the end of a chapter or a paragraph or even a sentence.

Social media uses this with the endless scroll, and some games employ this well like Civ 6 never really having a hard boundary that you can mark as a stopping point. There is always something you need to do…

You can do this with work you need to do but you find difficult to start. Keep the tab open, you will be more keen to just finish that little bit off and then it is easier to just keep going (thank you, consistency principle)

Example: The Zeigarnik Effect used to encourage referrals

🆕 This month’s resource for referrals has been updated - you can now earn my template “Easy Offers Summary Table”.

🎁 Receive rewards for referring your friends 🎁

1. 📩 A simple table to outline and improve your offers. This template is not sold anywhere, and is only normally available to those that work with me 1:1. I rotate these templates monthly. This template is only available in July.

   
   

Refer a friend

The Zeigarnik Effect cartoon: how to combat it

I shared this in my Work Smart Wednesday newsletter. Want the full set of related insights? You can read them here: https://worksmartwednesday.substack.com/p/work-smart-wednesday-july-10-2024

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