Work Culture - Reduce Workplace Stress by Understanding the Zeigarnik Effect - Just another Journalhome blog- JournalHome.com

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Work Culture - Reduce Workplace Stress by Understanding the Zeigarnik Effect

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It was named after the Soviet psychologist and psychiatrist who discovered it, Bluma Vulfovna Zeigarnik. She discovered the effect in the 1920's while sipping coffee and noticing that the server had an amazing ability to remember the customer orders, until he had completed them. She published her findings in a paper in 1927.

So how can you use this information to help you improve your memory? Rotate activities and take strategic breaks. Take breaks in the middle of tasks rather than after finishing them.

For example, let's say you wanted to learn the meanings of a list of words. Learn the first few, then either change study activities or take a break. Leaving the learning of the words incomplete will improve your memory of them. It will also give you a compelling urge to continue to learn them.

If taking breaks and changing activities in the middle of things seems disorganized and worries you, or you are concerned that you may not actually go back and finish your study tasks, take a few minutes to plan your study session before you start. This feeling is actually part of its power to help you improve your memory, but it is okay to organize it. Planning your study session is a good idea anyway, and you can use your plan as a safety net to make certain that you do the tasks you need to cover.

Here's to your success!

Copyright © 2005-2006 by Teresa Bolen. All rights reserved.

References:

Schiffman, Noah and Suzanne Greist-Bousquet. 1992. 'The Effect of Task Interruption and Closure on Perceived Duration' in Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 1992, 30 (1), 9-11 accessed online.

Wikipedia, June 2006, 'Bluma Zeigarnik' accessed online at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluma_Zeigarnik

There is an ever growing number of sites where you can submit your content to be rated by users. This can be an amazing way to generate traffic to your website. I created a new twitter account yesterday, and with in 24 hours was able to get over 500+ click-through on my links. Just think about that for a second. On just one social networking site where all you do is update your status, I was able to generate 500 targeted leads to my websites.

How Did I Drive Traffic Using Twitter?

I used another website called Hoot Suite to schedule posts to my twitter account ever 5 minutes, and then once an hour when I got tired of typing. I followed as many people with similar interests as I could, and I made my posts very intriguing and mysterious. I also used a method called the "Zeigarnik effect."

Let me share with you the Zeigarnik effect. In all likelihood several thoughts came rushing to your mind all at once.

Now...

Once again, think of what you consider to be your job or occupation. Now think of all those projects that were completed 3 to 6 months ago. Sure you will come up with something, but doing so takes a bit more brain-power effort does it not?

Bluma Zeigarnik termed the difference in thought process the Zeigarnik effect. Another way to look at this is to consider which movies stay in your mind longest. zeigarnik effect, zeigarnik effect

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