The Zeigarnik Effect
blog.sandglaz.com
blog.sandglaz.com
Reading through this and a couple of other articles (presumably yours)... yes, I see that research was done; but that it was largely superficial, summarizing marginally interesting content from a few different sources.
As GP noted, it seems more focused on link-garnering than providing in-depth information.
</brutal-truth>
Sure, I believe you did a lot of research. But then the article could have been written to maximize accuracy or to maximize virality.
I write a lot, and there's a big difference between the styles. For some topics, that can translate into a big difference in the content of an article.
Productivity is definitely prone to that. There's a whole genre known as "productivity porn", so called because some people feel compelled to look at it far beyond actual utility.
Right from the title of the article, I was put on guard. The word "unlock" indicates minor action will bring great improvement, freeing me from possibly-unsuspected constraints. Who wouldn't want that? Then we get three awesome, hard-to-reach states in a row. Next a mysterious sciencey-sounding effect named after somebody I've never heard of but who has an intriguing name. It's a perfect productivity porn title.
When I clicked through, my skepticism was increased. On my phone, the first thing I saw was a bunch of share buttons with some needy, manipulative copy to get me to click them. There's a big stock photo of a pretty woman that conveys zero actual information. There were a modest number of short, upbeat paragraphs broken up with large titles. There are what I'm sure were links to other productivity articles in the body. There's relatively little subtlety, and a concluding paragraph that dubiously hates on the 8-hour work day. Then we get a paragraph trolling for comments, which increase stickiness. And then more share buttons with the same manipulative copy.
I understand that this is a popular way to build a profitable content business these days. But I also understand that "profitable content business" and "reliable source of high-integrity, low-drama journalism" are poorly correlated. No matter how solid your writing and how true your heart, the context and the constraints of written-for-virality prose make me skeptical. Too many other people writing for similar sites and with similar structures have written excessively upbeat, low-thought articles for me to trust ones on this site without doing a lot more due diligence than I normally will for a quick morning read.
there's no great mystery to any of this, and what the article is saying is rather obvious (we remember the stuff we didn't finish yet - no shit!) but I just don't see all these cynical intent concerns you have.
I worked in publishing in the 90s, including doing some print design. I've done a fair bit of UI and information design since then. And I helped start a successful modern content business. Plus I write pretty much every day.
I'm not saying anybody there intends to be evil. I'm sure they're all very nice. I'm saying that they're embedded in a business context that shapes behavior. The incentives work strongly against thoughtful, sober journalism, and toward high-viral, high-click, high-engagement content that stimulates a need without ever really satisfying that.
Or that the effect was even the exact opposite in some experiments?
Why? Till now, nobody knows, but to write a blogpost, that does state this effect as fact is quite a stretch, when saying a lot of research went into it.
Sorry to be that harsh, but what I told my students oftentimes is, that time of research does not always equal quality of research.
[Edit]: Typo
Except I took a different take away, if they were intelligent enough to use their advice for their own practical matters, their advice must have some relevancy to it.
The first is to simply have a clearly defined goal. While this is obvious, it is also easy to miss. If we don't have a clearly defined task, we don't know whether or not we've completed it.
But even if you have a clearly defined goal, it can still be easy to get distracted. There are two primary reasons for this. The first: If you don't know what the next step is, it can be difficult to stay focused. The next time you get stuck, ask yourself how clearly you know what your next step is. If you're not sure what to do, then make sure you spend the time figuring that out.
But what if you have a clear goal, and you know exactly what you need to do, but you're still not staying focused?
Then you've probably got a motivation problem. The way to deal with this is pretty straight forward. Simply spend time thinking about the reasons it is important to complete the task, or achieve the goal. Don't try to trick yourself here. Be honest. If you can't find any good enough reasons to stay focused, then maybe you should be doing something else.
In summary: Have a clearly defined goal. Make sure you know exactly what you're next step is. And make sure you have the proper motivation.
If you're interested in this stuff, I recommend reading about the "mental contrasting" technique, as well as the book "Succeed" by Heidi Grant Halvorson.
If anything, I think the effect is an indictment of hourly wages, as opposed to salary or some other outcome-based compensation.
Sometimes I even have nightmares about bad experiences I had.
That could use some elaboration. If she was just watching them, how did she know the information vanished?