The Zeigarnik Effect

In the early first half of the 1900s Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik ​discovered, well the Zeigarnik Effect. 

​The way the story goes, a waiter takes down the orders of a party without using any pen or paper - all memory. Minutes later he returns the orders and serves the dinner without missing a hitch. After the meal, the customers leave but end up returning upon the realization that one of the members of the party has left their umbrella. When they ask the waiter for help, who is sure to know where the umbrella is with his impressive memory, the waiter responds by saying he doesn't even really remember who the customers were. "As soon as I return the bill for the meal, I forget everything about what customers actually ordered," says the waiter. 

​According to Zeigarnik, when you finish a task, your brain allows itself to in a way "forget" about the task. But if you leave a task pending, your mind is wired to remember that something isn't yet finished and demands attention. 

​Incidentally, this is the way songs get stuck in our heads. If you ever find that a song is stuck in your head, it's most likely because you were listening to a song but you didn't get to finish it. Next time you find yourself humming to the same tune again and again, try listening to the song from start to finish and see if the song still remains.*

Here's another quick example: when a television show ends on a cliffhanger, we're more inclined to watch the next episode to see the conclusion. 

​So if you're intimidated by a daunting task, the easiest and best thing you can do is simply just start. Sounds like overly simple and obvious advice, but in moments where I find myself procrastinating on something it's easy to forget that I'm more inclined to finish something that I've already started. 

Just another reason why taking the first step is the most important one. 

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​*This may not work for the most infectious and powerful of tunes (e.g. Call Me Maybe, Gangnam Style)

Genius is Patience

Scottish 19th century author Samuel Smiles​ is credited as one of the oldest writers in the self-help book genre. He is perhaps most well known for his point of view on the role of patience, as evidenced by his popular quote - 

"Genius is patience."

​The quote comes from his book, appropriately titled Self-help. I haven't actually read the book but I was introduced to it in the opening pages of Roy Baumstein and John Tierney's Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength.* 

Now, granted, I'm a huge sucker for self-help books and positivity quotes. But I found Smiles' statement, although short, to be one that holds plenty of truth. So much truth that it appears that Smiles wasn't the only person to find importance in the virtue. Other renditions of the "genius is patience" quote include Michelangelo's "Genius is eternal patience" and French scientist George-Louis Lecler de Buffon's claim that "Genius is only a greater aptitude for patience." I believe this last quote dovetails quite nicely with the importance of perseverance, which I've also acknowledged when discussing Ira Glass' take on the gap between our taste and work. How? Because recognizing the need for a higher aptitude for patience means knowing that in order to be truly great one must be willing to opt in for the long haul, the toil, and the more than occasional self-doubt. 

Taken another way, Smiles' view on genius is actually a simplification of all the glory and intangibility we associate with genius work. While it's true that most people we strike as geniuses are brilliant, innovative, expressive, and hard-working, according to Smiles the common denominator is simply having the patience to continue after the first days, months, years, or even decades. 

So yeah, being genius is just as easy as that. ​

* more on this book to come in a later post