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remember what we’re in the middle of more than what we’ve completed. In psychology
circles this phenomenon is called the Zeigarnik effect, after Bluma Zeigarnik, the first
person to study this concept. The Zeigarnik effect can b
e annoying when we’re trying to
focus, but the opposite is true when we scatter our attention. In fact, it leads to amazing
insights into the problems we’re incubating.
Chances are you’ve experienced a few eureka moments yourself. Maybe they struck
while you were making breakfast, getting the mail, or walking through an art gallery.
Your brain suddenly and unexpectedly found the solution to a problem you hadn’t
thought about for a few hours. In an instant, the puzzle pieces
satisfyingly slid together
and locked into place.
Two things were likely true at that moment: first, at that moment your insight was a
response to a problem you were stuck on. Second, your mind was likely wandering
while you were doing something that didn’t require your full attention.
Thanks to the Zeigarnik effect, we store any and all problems currently stumping us
at the front of our minds. Any open problem
—an unfinished report, a decision we’re in
the middle of, or an important email we’re responding to—is
an open loop that our brain
is desperate to close. As a consequence, we connect each new experience to these
unresolved problems in order to unearth novel solutions. Habitual scatterfocus brings
these connections into our attentional space.
When we’re in habitual scatterfocus mode, potential insight triggers come from two
places: our wandering minds themselves and the external environment. It’s best to
illustrate this with an example.
Let’s say I invite you to my secret productivity-experiment lair. I offer you a seat, set a
timer for
thirty minutes, and ask you to solve this seemingly simple problem: The
number 8,549,176,320 is probably the single most unique ten-digit number in the world.
What makes it unlike any other number? Let’s imagine you can’t solve the problem in
the allotted time
—not unreasonable, given that this is a particularly tricky one. You
leave frustrated, and the question continues to weigh on your mind:
What is so unusual
about 8,549,176,320?
By now you’ve reached an impasse and have encoded the problem into memory.
You’ve started to see those digits whenever you close your eyes. (Naturally, the better
you remember a complex problem, the greater your odds of coming up with a creative
solution.) This particular brain teaser would probably never actually cause a high level
of torment. But for
the sake of this example, let’s say it does.
Thanks to the Zeigarnik effect, your mind will automatically connect your new
experiences to this problem, whether you realize it or not. You return to work, still
frustrated, with the number imprinted on your brain. You find your mind returning to it
periodically, sometimes even against your will. In fact, odds are that your mind will
wander
more
often than usual
—our thoughts drift more often when we’re in the middle
of solving a complex problem
—which will cause you to make a higher-than-normal
number of mistakes in your work.
Later
in the day, you work on an activity that takes you into habitual scatterfocus
mode: organizing your bookshelf in alphabetical order. You’re putting away the book
The 80/20 Principle
by Richard Koch. As you do so, your mind processes where the
book will be shelved.
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Okay, ignore the word “the.”
First value is 8, so I’ll put it with the other books that start with a number.
Huh, the number in Chris’s experiment was also an 8.
Like a lightning bolt, the solution hits you. You feel dozens of puzzle pieces sliding
and locking into place in your mind.
8,549,176,320.
Eight, five, four, nine . . .
A, B, C, D, Eight, FIve, FOur, G, H . . .
The number in the experiment has every digit, arranged in alphabetical order!
As far as insight triggers go, this is
a fairly straightforward one
—usually they are
more subtle, nudging your mind to think in a different direction and restructuring the
mental dots that represent a problem. I designed this example to illustrate a simple
concept: habitual scatterfocus lets our minds connect the problems we’re tackling with
what we experience, as well as where our minds happen to wander.
Insight is a notoriously difficult subject to study. To do so, you have to lead people to
an impasse on a problem and maintain sufficient interest in it to make them want to
solve it later. Luckily, you don’t need the results of research to support these findings—
you probably have enough data at your disposal in the form of your own past
experiences.
I can’t stress enough how remarkable insight triggers are. You may see a bird picking
at a chip packet, which leads you to realize you should clear the chips you’ve been
snacking on out of the kitchen so you can lose those final ten pounds. Intentionally
daydreaming during your morning shower, you recall how you resolved a past work
dispute and realize you can use the same technique today. Walking through a
bookstore, you notice a cookbook, which reminds you that you were planning on
replacing your kitchenware set
—and that there’s a store around the corner that sells
them. The richer our
environment, and the richer our experiences, the more insights
we’re able to unearth.
Look back at some of the greatest eureka moments in history. In addition to reaching
an impasse with their problems, the famous thinkers arrived at solutions to them after
being spurred by an external cue. Archimedes figured out how to calculate the volume
of an irregular object when he noticed his bathwater overflowing. Newton came up with
his theory of gravity when he saw an apple fall from a tree
—probably the best-known
insight trigger in history. For his habitual scatterfocus routine, renowned physicist and
Nobel laureate Richard Feynman would sip 7UP at a topless bar, where he could
“‘watch the entertainment,’ and, if inspiration struck, scribble equations
on cocktail
napkins.”
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