You know you have a project coming in 6 weeks. You don’t have the time to give it thought now. So, you wait.. until you realize there’s only a week left. At that point, you are stuck burning the midnight oil in a race to the finish line.
There is a better approach.
As soon as you know you have a project coming, open up the “Notes” app or its equivalent on your phone, title it with the project and add the first 2 or 3 thoughts that come to mind. Then, shut it down and move on to other things.
The effect of doing so – called the “Zeigarnik effect” – is that our brains consider the project as “incomplete” and will subconsciously look for ways to add to it/finish it over the next few weeks. Every time we get prodded, we just need to go back to that note and keep adding.
This approach works for a packing list for a future trip, for the slides for that big meeting, and even for that strategy doc you are thinking about. It bypasses the need for the last minute rush to the finish line and enables us to create better quality work.
Start early. Channel Zeigarnik.
PS: The Zeigarnik effect is why songs that we haven’t completed get stuck in our heads.
