They think it will stymie their creativity or prevent them from being flexible with their working day. Some people resist this kind of structure, however. As Bechman notes: “Simply writing the tasks down will make you more effective.” However, when participants were allowed to make and note down concrete plans to finish the warm-up activity, performance on the next task substantially improved. The pair observed that people underperform on a task when they are unable to finish a warm-up activity that would usually precede it. More recently, a study by professors Baumeister and Masicampo from Wake Forest University showed that, while tasks we haven’t done distract us, just making a plan to get them done can free us from this anxiety. The deed was done and the brain was ready to let go. After the dishes had been delivered, their memories simply erased who’d had the steak and who’d had the soup. The so-called “Zeigarnik effect” – that we remember things we need to do better than things we’ve done – stemmed from observing that waiters could only recall diners’ orders before they had been served. Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik was perhaps the first to note the brain’s obsession with pressing tasks. In less harried days, our memories might have done the work. Cohen puts our love of to-do lists down to three reasons: they dampen anxiety about the chaos of life they give us a structure, a plan that we can stick to and they are proof of what we have achieved that day, week or month.Ī system is needed – and scribbled notes on hands won’t cut it.
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