Writers as diverse as Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare and even J.K Rowling have demonstrated the power of cliffhangers in fiction, but why limit this device to stories? Apply the Zeigarnik Effect to improve your learning, productivity, relationships, and even your mental health. The Zeigarnik Effect describes your tendency to remember interrupted or incomplete tasks more than completed ones.   A TRIP TO A CAFE.  This model can be traced back to the 1920s when Bluma Zeigarnik, a Soviet psychologist, was sitting in an Austrian Cafe. Zeigarnik noticed that the waiters in the cafe consistently memorised complex food orders from patrons but, as soon as the order was delivered, the waiters seemed to forget the order. Zeigarnik’s resulting hypothesis was that, because our brains are so goal-focused, unfinished tasks would remain in our memory longer than finished ones. In a sense, such unfinished tasks create a ‘cognitive tension’ in our minds that demand ongoing focus and thought. See the Origins section below for how she researched and tested this hypothesis.  GOALS VS PLANS. While Zeigarnik’s original thesis focused on incomplete goals, recent research has discovered that making a plan to complete an unfinished goal will reduce the Zeigarnik Effect. In other words, simply making a plan or scheduling an unfinished task might be enough to create a sense of ‘mental completion’, allowing you to forget the unfinished task.  View Limitations below for other complicating factors with how this model plays out, including motivation and perceived difficulty of tasks.  APPLICATIONS. There are many potential applications of this mental model, including:  Learning. Use the Zeigarnik Effect to interrupt your learning and create an ‘unfinished state’ with important topics to better embed them into memory.  Innovation. Combine this model with Focused and Diffuse Thinking to consciously seed ‘incomplete’ problems and key questions into your subconscious mind for more diffuse and creative problem-solving. See the canvas at the bottom of this page for more.  Task motivation. Strategically interrupt important work at key moments to ensure that it remains front of mind and that you are driven to return and complete it as a result.   Mental health. Apply the mental model in reverse, working to close 'open loops' and achieve a sense of ‘closure’ that will support you to be more present and reduce overwhelm and anxiety.  Marketing and communication. Use cliffhanger styled storytelling techniques to ‘hook’ an audience and keep them engaged in your narrative. This might include posing a question, a problem or a surprising idea that you answer and address later.  UX. Create gradual goals and feedback for users to give them a sense of progress and encourage them to strive for completion, e.g. ‘Your profile is 40% complete, why not finish it now?’ Relationships. Remember that rule about not going to bed angry with one another? According to the Zeigarnik Effect, it’s a thing. You don’t even have to resolve everything, just identify a plan or a time where you can address issues and points of conflict. IN YOUR LATTICEWORK.  I’ve already mentioned how the Zeigarnik Effect is a wonderful companion model with Focused and Diffuse Thinking and Deep Work for innovation and problem-solving. In fact, see the canvas at the bottom of this page for a practical guide of combining these three models.  Beyond that, in a learning context, consider combining it with Spaced Retrieval. Apply your understanding of Activation Energy to this model for improved task completion, for example, consider interrupting work to keep it in your mind and ensure you return to it, even as you’re reducing Activation Energy by providing yourself with an easy re-entry point.  Continuing with the theme of tasks and productivity, use the Zeigarnik Effect to better understand the power of Kanban and other productivity methods that allow you to capture tasks while defining your focus. Compare this to a long list of unsorted tasks that will give you a constant sense of incompletion and potential overwhelm and anxiety as a result. Finally, consider how you will combine this model with Temporal Landmarks. Such landmarks can help you to develop a mental sense of completion, even if nothing else has changed. So leverage the 'fresh starts' that the morning, beginning of a week, or new year provides.  AND, JUST FOR FUN.