Forgive the intrusion
I’m interested in two questions today that might seem unrelated: why do we lie awake at night worrying about the future, and how can we help our teams have more focus? The answer to both questions lies partially in what happened to a young psychologist in a cafe in Berlin in the 1920s. Bluma Zeigarnik as a young psychology student found herself amazed at her waiter’s ability to recall his tables’ bills and orders from memory. She was even more astounded that when she left a bag behind the waiter didn’t recognise her. He gave the explanation that he promptly forgets about order once they have paid. And then they got married! Ok they didn’t get married. This story might have happened or it might be apocryphal, in any case it doesn’t need to be true to be true . This encounter led to Zeigarnik studying the psychology of unfinished tasks, and though they didn’t wed, this encounter did give birth to the Zeigarnik effect. Bluma hypothesised that unfinished tasks occupy an...