How to Stay Focused and Productive
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Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I am your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another episode. And if you're out there and you want to get better at setting, planning, and achieving your goals, I just created a free ebook that you can download that will help you with that. Go to goals2025.com. Let's

Today, we're going to be talking about how to stay focused and productive and how to use different aspects of your brain to actually get more done. And I don't know about you, but have you ever felt like you're doing things all day long, but you get done at the end of the day and you're tired and you feel like you didn't really get a whole lot accomplished at the end of the day? Do you ever get more stressed out by your to-do list than you ever did at the end of the day?

than the actual accomplishment that you get from the to-do list? Well, today I'm going to kind of help you understand why that is. There's an aspect of your brain that really turns on whenever you don't complete a task. And I'm going to show you how to use this psychological effect to actually help you get more done.

So there's a thing that's called the Zygernik effect. And it's this phenomenon that was discovered by Soviet psychologist in the 1920s, Dr. Zygernik. And she observed that people tend to remember unfinished or interrupted tasks better than they remember the ones that are completed. And so those things can in turn take our own mental energy until they're actually completed.

And this effect is based on the idea that our brains are wired to focus on what's called an open loop, which is basically an unfinished task.

And I'll explain that a little bit more to you in just a second. But that open loop creates a sense of mental discomfort until it is completed. And this discomfort is actually what drives us to complete a task. And when it's finally completed, the discomfort feels resolved. They actually found that, you know, we can use this discomfort to drive us to take more action. And, um,

It's really interesting. Some of the studies that they've done was they found if you've ever gone to a restaurant and your server asks you what you want and they never write it down and you're like, man, this is pretty impressive. They remember everything. They find at the end of the day when they start talking to servers and there's not as many people there is that many times they can't remember past orders that people had when they were at the table, but they can remember the people who are currently sitting at the table that haven't gotten their orders yet. Because it's like once that order is delivered, that person

that's completely off my mind. It doesn't exist there anymore. And so most of the time, at the end of the day, you don't focus on all of the things that you've completed, do you? You focus on all the things that you still have to do and the things that you didn't get done. And when you wake up in the morning to go to the bathroom, you then remember all of the things that you didn't get done for the day. And now it keeps you up because you're thinking about it. Your mental energy is being used towards, oh my God, now I've got to do that tomorrow.

Undone work takes up a lot of mental energy. This is the reason why clickbait works. Clickbait titles on articles, clickbait on YouTube. The reason why is because the mind doesn't like open loops. So you see a thumbnail that says something and you're like,

I got to know what the hell they're talking about. Like, what is this thing that they're talking about? We want to close an open loop. What is an open loop? The news, local news is really good at open loops. It's like the killer chemical found in your tap water tonight at 10 o'clock. And you're like, what the fuck? What's in my tap water? Well, I've got to find out. So now I've got to show up in order to be able to find out what that is.

That's what an open loop is. And it makes you want to figure out what that thing is. It needs to close in order for me to have resolve. This is why the best shows in the world, whenever you're watching them, have cliffhangers. Yellowstone, Game of Thrones, their cliffhangers are making that something happens right at the end of the episode. And they're like, you're like, what the hell is going on? Like what I've, I have to wait a week to figure that out.

And you get all tense and you want to see the next episode. You want to close the loop. This is also why people binge watch shows. If you've ever done that before, where you just, you've got to go to the next one. You've got to see what happens. For me, this is this example of why I don't really start puzzles. Once I start a puzzle for some reason, like I've got to finish the puzzle. It feels like it's built into me. Like if I don't have five hours to do a damn puzzle, I'm not going to start it.

And so we have this feeling of being unresolved and our brain wants to solve it. And so this can hold you back if you don't know how to use it. If you know how to use it, it can propel you forward and actually help you be more productive. And that's why I love studying the brain and I love studying humans so much because I want you to be able to use your brain to drive yourself forward in life and become better.

So how can this all be bad? First off, let's talk about bad and then let's talk about how we can use it, right? When we don't complete a task, our brain is focused on it until it is done. It causes this mental tension. And this can cause us to, you know, when we think about all the things that we need to get done, it could cause stress, it could cause anxiety when you're not really aware of it.

And so when we have too many unfinished tasks on our minds, it can become really overwhelming. And it leads to this feeling of paralysis. Like there's so many things that I need to complete. I don't know which one to start with first. And so it turns into this like paralysis by analysis and it can make it difficult to focus on just one task because there's just so many things to focus on. But

It can also be used for good, which is what's good about it. One of the key implications of the Zygarnik effect is that it can be used to actually increase your motivation and increase your productivity.

And the bigger a task is, the harder that it can be to start to take action towards completing that task. And so what do you do? One of the things that makes it easier to start towards doing something is to take a big task and break it down into smaller tasks, more manageable chunks.

setting clear deadlines with it. And then we can tap into this natural tendency to focus on unfinished tasks to drive ourselves to complete them. And so if you have this big, huge thing, like you have to do a presentation for the company that you work for, and it's going to take you like a week to do, starting it can be really hard.

Why is that? Because you're looking at it, you're going, oh my God, there's so many things I've got to do. And it's so daunting for how big this task can appear. And so what do you do? You take the entire thing and you break it down into smaller tasks. Okay, well, I've got to do the research on X, Y, and Z. I've got to create the table to show revenue for the quarters every quarter this year.

And you break it down into smaller tasks and you use those smaller tasks to drive yourself to complete them. So if you have, like I said, like a large report, instead of just putting finish the report, break it down into the smaller tasks, finish the introduction, research the competition, break down the revenue goals, complete the plan to hit the goal, put it all in Excel spreadsheet, send to an assistant to make it look prettier and add animations. The shorter the task, the easier it will be to start it

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And now back to the show. But it's a lot harder to start something when it's just like finished presentation. And so the shorter, the smaller the task, the easier it makes us to start. And then once we start, we're going to want to finish it. It's still the same massive task, but it's just smaller, more manageable tasks that make it even easier to start. And so how can you take any task on our list and break it down more?

When you look at your to-do list and you look at some of the things in your to-do list are like real simple and real easy. You don't really have a whole lot of drive to just like, oh, finish the dishes. Maybe you do if you have guests coming over, but if you're like, oh, I've got to do the dishes, you don't really feel much of a pull on that. But then when you have something like I just said, like you've got to create a report,

You're like, oh my God, I really need to get this done. And you want to cross it off, but then you get that mental resistance as well when it seems really big. Take it and put it into a smaller task. So can you take as many tasks on your to-do list and break them down into smaller, more manageable ones? Each time you cross something off on your to-do list, it gives you a little bit of a sense of accomplishment. And what that does is it releases dopamine. And if you don't know what dopamine is, dopamine is the chemical of motivation. It is the one that drives you to keep going.

Once you get dopamine, you want more dopamine. We're all, there's been books written about this. We're all dopamine addicts in some sort of way. So once we get a little bit of dopamine, we want more dopamine. It's like a drug addict. Once you get drugs, you want more drugs. And so it's like, once you get that dopamine, because you cross one thing off on your to-do list, it feels good. You've got some positive momentum on your side. And now you're looking at the next small manageable task that is part of the bigger task that you have in front of you.

And so the best way to do this and to help you start to get things done is to use something called the Pomodoro Technique, which I've taught entire episodes on this podcast, the Pomodoro Technique. It's just basically a time management method that breaks all of the stuff that you do in an entire day down into 25 minute intervals with five minute breaks. And so what you're going to do is you're going to find one thing

One thing that needs to be done, and you're going to have a 25 minute timer. You're going to set the timer. You're going to put your phone away. You can put everything else away. And you're only going to focus on one task and one task only for 25 minutes. If you don't finish after those 25 minutes, well, guess what? The Ziegernick effect is going to make you want to complete it. So you just take a five minute break, build up that mental resistance that you have, and then you're going to want to go back into it and finish it. And if you do finish it, well, then now you can go on to the next most important thing.

Another thing that's really important is because of the fact that we know that with the Zygarnik effect, we're not going to pay much attention to our progress. We're not going to really celebrate our small wins because we're focused on these tasks that need to be done. It's really important for us to take a step back as often as possible and celebrate our own wins and reflect on the progress that we have had. And when you celebrate small wins, it can help you reduce the sense of cognitive loss

like the cognitive load that you have in front of you and increase your motivation because dopamine is a subjective chemical. And so when you celebrate yourself, when you're like, man, I'm so proud of myself. You're doing such a good job. Keep on going. I recommend talking to yourself out loud as often as possible. When you do that, your brain releases dopamine. And guess what? Now that you've gotten dopamine, the chemical of motivation, your brain wants more dopamine. So it's like, okay, I'm so excited that I completed this task. I'm so proud of myself for getting this done.

What's the next task? Because I want more of this dopamine stuff. And so it creates like using dopamine and knowing that you can celebrate yourself and you should. And the Zygarnik effect of wanting to make sure that you're getting all of your tasks completed that are not completed can actually drive you to take more action. And so when you take a step back and you acknowledge your progress, you start to feel more encouraged to

to complete the next task. It's really wild because you get momentum on your side, but all too often I hear people doing the exact opposite. They like have a list of, you know, let's say they take their entire report that they need to do and they break it down into 10 smaller, more manageable tasks. And they get the first one completed. And then instead of celebrating themselves, they just turn into an asshole and they're like, well, yeah, but you still have so much to do. So you just had an opportunity to celebrate yourself.

to give your brain a release of dopamine to get you more motivated, to get more momentum on your side, to get you more driven to want to complete the next one. But instead, you just canceled all the motivation and you're like, nah, but you still have so much to do.

And so you went into a little negative Nancy and you actually made it harder to motivate yourself versus motivating yourself because of the fact that you're going, you know what? You're doing so good. I'm so proud of you. You just crossed it off the list. That was a big task. Congratulations. Whatever it is you need to say to yourself, which will give you the dopamine, which will get you excited, which will make you want to go and complete the next task. When you have momentum on your side, become aware of the momentum that

Bring it up in your mind, celebrate yourself and keep the momentum going. Momentum is such an important task in all of these, such an important aspect of all of these tasks. When you get momentum on your side, ride the momentum because it's really hard to get that momentum. I always say like if you've ever pushed a car, it's really hard to get a car moving. Like the first few feet are the hardest feet.

But once you've been pushing a car for a little while, the momentum of the car, it's a three, four, 5,000 pound vehicle, that momentum that it has, you just got to kind of keep it on the road. It'll start to move itself almost. And you just got to not push as much, but push a little bit. So many people get the momentum on their side and then they turn into a negative Nancy and then they just kill the momentum. It's like the car stopping. Now you've got to get it going again.

And so what do we do at the end of the day when we have this entire to-do list and we're like, man, but I have so many unfinished tasks. When we have more unfinished tasks that have to go into tomorrow, we will have this feeling of being unresolved and our brain does want to solve it. And so what I always recommend to people is to basically simply write down the things in your mind at the end of the day, schedule when you wanna get them done tomorrow, and then take 15 minutes at the end of the day

in order to just put them all on your schedule, make sure you have all of it done so that you don't bring, and this is really important. So you don't bring that mental tension home with you after work. You don't bring that mental tension home with you when you're playing your child with your children. Right? So it's like, what do you do? You basically take 15 minutes to close out your day. And so what you do is because of the fact that you've now taken your to-do list, you've

you've taken 15 minutes, you've put it into your schedule for tomorrow, and you've started to actually feel like you have scheduled out the tasks that need to be done, you can kind of mentally clock out until you show back up again tomorrow. That way,

Like I said, and I've done this many times, wake up to go to the bathroom at three o'clock in the morning. And then you think about all of the things that you have to be done, have to be done for tomorrow. And then you stay up for 90 minutes thinking about all the stuff that has to be done. And so what I like to do is see all the stuff I need to be done, take 15 minutes, put in my schedule, write down my to-do list for tomorrow. And then oddly enough, what I say is I speak out loud to myself and I say, okay, I'm checking out for the day.

And when you speak out loud to yourself, it kind of gives your brain this opportunity to like disconnect. Okay, we're disconnecting. We're done for the day. We'll be back tomorrow. And it's a weird thing. It doesn't seem like it would work. It seems weird to talk out loud to yourself. But I promise you, if you use this, it will make it easier for you to just clock out for the day mentally as well as physically. And then when you show up tomorrow, be able to take some action on it. If for some sort of reason that the day still pops up tonight, right?

This is a thing I got from one of my coaches years ago and it works. I don't know why it works. Whenever your brain comes in and says, yes, but you know, you're playing with your children. Yes, but we need to think about work. You just simply say out loud to yourself, not right now. I'll do it tomorrow. Not right now. I'll do it tomorrow. And if you do this enough, your brain kind of like, it's really odd. I don't know why this, I don't know what effect this is, but your brain basically is like, okay, I'll bring it back to you tomorrow.

And you don't have to worry about it. If you want, you can send a text message to yourself, put it in your notes tab. Okay. Yes, I've got to do X, Y, and Z tomorrow. It is in my notes. I will not forget it. Okay. I'm done for this for the day. Thank you for bringing up in my mind.

We're not going to do this right now. And it's basically just a way to disconnect so that you can be fully 100% in your business, for instance, when you're in your business. But then when you're in front of your children and family, you can be fully present for them as well. So if you want to be more productive, use this mental tension to drive you forward just a little bit more.

So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories. Tag me at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And if you want to dominate your 2025 goals, go ahead and go to goals2025.com to download my ebook to show you how to set, plan, and achieve your goals. Once again, goals with an S, 2025.com.

And with that, I'm going to leave the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.

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