Saturday Serendipity
Quote,Mental model,Interesting find.
Hello!
Reading time: About 6 minutes
Quote
“Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings.” ~ Richard Feynman
Mental Model
Zeigarnik effect
Have you ever studied a lot for an exam and remembered everything or if you were like me you simply rote learned everything so you could get the highest marks. Before the exam you seem to remember everything and at the same time to an extent even understand it.
What happens after the exam is over?
Well, this might just be a case with me but I completely forget what I rote learned or learned normally after I finish the exam. I need to look up basic things to this day. I forgot what LCM means and how it works. I had to Google it to remember. Same case goes for most of my other subjects. I have forgotten a lot of it. Now you might say this is because it’s been a long time since I practiced or learnt it.
Which is a fair point but for me it is invalid as I have forgotten most of this as soon as the exam got over.
For me my memory was very sharp when the exam was coming up. But as soon as my exam got over my mind forgot most of the stuff. Instantly.
Have you ever been to any fast food restaurant in India?
Some waiters remember the orders without taking a note of it. It might be fully crowded and the same guy is taking 15-20 orders one by one. How does he/she remember every single thing without taking a note of it?Even the small changes. It might be because he/she has been doing this for a long time. Repetition has made him/her a master at taking orders. But here’s the interesting thing.After ur order has been placed and you have finished eating try and ask him your order. You would expect him to remember it. Some might. But most do not. They might not even recognise you.
Why?
Why have I forgotten everything I learnt for my exam which I scored decent marks in?
Why has the waiter forgotten me let alone the order even after he remembered all the orders before it was delivered?
Safal Niveshak wrote in his blog,
“In the 1920s, a Soviet psychiatrist Bluma Zeigarnik first observed this phenomenon. She noticed that a waiter had better recollections of still unpaid orders. However, after the completion of the task – after everyone had paid – he was unable to remember any more details of the orders.
Zeigarnik theorized that when we are holding things in short-term memory, we have to rehearse them otherwise they disappear, like a light going out. This requires cognitive effort and the more things we are rehearsing the more the effort. The waiter’s trick is thus to keep spinning the plates of the open orders whilst letting those which are completed fall.
This behavioural quirk was later named as Zeigarnik Effect which states that people remember incomplete or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks.”
Basically we have a great recollection of uncompleted tasks and a bad one of completed tasks. I can guarantee you would remember while reading this post some task that you have to do. It can be anything. Reading, assignments, some project, exercise, etc. We will constantly think about these incomplete tasks.
I think a lot about the gym when I have not gone to the gym in the day. If I finish my workout in the morning I would not even spend a moment to think about the gym for the rest of the day. If I have to go at night the whole day is spent as to what to do in the gym, how will the workout go, etc.
Now in our lives we have a lot of things. I might have multiple assignments, a personal thing to work on, workout, cricket and a few other small things that I need to do during the day. How do we use this effect of recollection to maximise efficiency?
Shane Parrish from Farnam Street, writes –
If you have 150 things going on in your head at once, the Zeigarnik Effect leaves you leaping from task to task, and it won’t be sedated by vague good intentions.
If you’ve got a memo that has to be read before a meeting Thursday morning, the unconscious wants to know exactly what needs to be done next, and under what circumstances. But once you make that plan— once you put the meeting memo in the tickler file for Wednesday, once you specify the very next action to be taken on the project— you can relax. You don’t have to finish the job right away. You’ve still got 150 things on the to-do list, but for the moment the monkey is still, and the water is calm.
Your aim with this unique cognition trick is not completely avoid it but to smartly use it to your benefit. If for instance you want to read a book which is 1000 pages long. The best way to start a tough project is not to think of how to complete it before you start. It is simply to start reading. If you have unfinished projects your brain will focus on it and the book which is very long will be something you would want to finish.
Basically we can use it as an antidote to procrastination.
In Investing
I’ll be completely honest with you. I am a very lousy researcher. I spend a lot of time doing stupid things which give me dopamine. I don’t really go deep into annual reports. I don’t listen to the company conference calls properly. I am not a perfect reader as well.
One hack I do though is, whenever I am interested in a company that I see on screener and the ratios or just the nature of the company interests me or I think it is at a good valuation. I buy a very small portion of the company. Maybe one or two shares. What my brain thinks then is I own this company. I need to know more about this company. This then incentivises me and at the same time acts as a motivator to properly study the company. If I like it I buy more. If I see something which is a red flag, I instantly sell.
Now of course buying a stock without adequate research is bad. You could hold on to it even if it is a mediocre company due to confirmation bias. You don’t like to be wrong. But I try my best to avoid these biases.
Buying a few shares makes me feel like there is an incomplete task for me. That makes me do my job.
Conclusion
If I were to describe this mental model in simple words and in the shortest way I can it would be like this,
Zeigarnik effect says that your brain has better recollection for incomplete tasks than it does for complete tasks.
Interesting find
That’s it!
Enjoy your weekend!