In a world filled with electronic devices, I still get great satisfaction by crossing out items on a handwritten to-do list. In fact, I find that I am more likely to complete a task if I write it down on a piece of paper. Much more likely than if it’s on an electronic list or an email reminder.
There is scientific evidence that the act of planning activities through to-do lists reduces the burden on the brain. The most famous example is from Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik. The so-called Zeigarnik effect was apparently inspired by observing waiters could only remember the details of orders before they had been served. Once completed, the details disappeared from their memory.
In the 1927 (!) experiment, Zeigarnik asked participants to perform numerous simple tasks, like stringing beads and solving puzzles. For some of the tasks, the participants were interrupted while for others they were allowed to complete the tasks. Afterwards she asked which activities the participants remembered. The participants were twice as likely to remember the tasks during which they’d been interrupted than those they completed. This supports the notion that crossing off items on a to-do list frees up our brain to focus on other things.
More recently, Professors Baumeister and Masicampo verified the Zeigarnik Effect by showing that people performed worse on a brainstorming task when they were unable to finish a warm-up activity. Because they hadn’t crossed the warm-up off of their mental to-do list, it interfered with the subsequent task. However, if the researchers allowed people to make concrete plans on how to finish the warm-up activity, performance on the brainstorming task substantially improved. The written plan seemed to remove the distraction.
The implications are clear. Even when you are overwhelmed with tasks, the most important thing you can do is make a plan on how to get them done, starting with a to-do list. Simply writing the tasks down will make you more effective.
For a very effective and popular system based on this science, check out David Allen’s book Getting Things Done.
