Why Can’t You Focus?

Have you ever heard of the Zeigarnik effect?

Prob my one of my favorite pieces of psychology that explains so much of my and others' behaviours.

This effect is always described in the waiter example.

Any good waiter is good at remembering their table's orders and is attentive to that table — they can remember their orders with high accuracy. However, something interesting happens when that table pays and leaves.

The waiter is much less likely to recall what that table ordered once they leave and they have to move to the next.

Why is this relevant to you?

Every table is an ‘open loop’ while they are serving them, and that loop is only closed once they finish their meal and leave.

We can spread this out to loads of things that you do, and once you understand how it fits, we can use it to identify what triggers bad habits, use it to get people to buy more stuff and it’s just pretty amusing to see it in everyday life

Let's go.

The brain HATES open loops.

Let me tell you about one of the most frustrating issues that comes from being shadow-banned from buying products from Nike — I promise, it’s relevant.

As I’ve discussed previously, I used to resell high-ticket designer shoes — it even technically landed me a job.

in the early days the best place for this was the Nike SNKRS and the normal Nike app. SNKRS was where the money would be made in winning raffles for sought-after shoes, and in the normal Nike app, you could pick up a couple of highly discounted pairs that would sell well because of the discounted price.

I’d been on this for about 3 years during uni until I realised my purchases were no longer going through — I still to this day do not understand why, but them’s the breaks.

So fast forward to 2 weeks ago, I visited the Nike outlet store in London for some much-needed race shoes for a marathon I’ve been training for.

Nike Vaporflys — the shoe model that Kipchoge ran the sub-2-hour marathon in and all the elites wear — are notoriously expensive at full price, and previous models — the ones I like — are pretty hard to come by.

I’ve had the open loop of trying to not open a mortgage to get a pair for a very long time as I need to run in them for a couple of weeks before I run the marathon.

I just so happened to be in London so visited the store and to my absolute amazement, the colourway, the model and my size were there. I asked to get a pair and to my amazement, they said they had 2 pairs and they were a 1/3rd of what I would pay at full price — yes, please.

Here’s where it gets upsetting for me to write this. I go to the counter, ready to pay and scan my Nike member QR code, basically telling the server ‘This man cannot buy from us, we don’t have a reason why, just don’t sell them to him’.

So my £140 for 2 pairs goes all the way up to £400 and he asked me if I was happy to pay. No was the answer to that.

Thus, this loop stayed open.

In that brief second, I had the shoes I was looking for, I felt: relief, happiness and a lot calmer that this loop was finally going to be closed.

But it wasn’t and I tried my absolute best to close it as it was bothering me so much. Even if I would do something else for the day, it’s still there nagging away at me.

I wouldn’t be satisfied until it was closed since it was still open, this caused me discomfort.

How businesses use this

Watch out this Christmas for how the adverts are structured. Many will be trying their absolute hardest to open a loop in your mind that you need this product by emphasising a ‘lack’.

That’s one of the things adverts boil down to, opening that loop.

See Amazon’s suggested items list that is scarily relevant to what you’ve just bought — ’ Oh yeah, I guess I could use a sports running watch to go with my running trainers.

How to solve it

When you run around with a load of stuff in your head, it’s highly likely there are too many loops open here.

That’s why lists with checkboxes are great as it gives the brain a huge dopamine boost when you ‘close that loop’ for it.

You can leverage it too, though.

By being aware that too many open loops are chaos for your brain, make sure that you are solving the solvable ones and not flip-flop to any others in the meantime.

You can also do this for clients too. Imagine that an open loop for them is not having a good short video editor. To remove that discomfort for them, become one!

You can apply this to many areas.

How to apply this practically

Realise our brains hate open loops and want them closed as soon as possible.

Make it your mission to not open many more loops until you’ve closed the solvable ones.

Be aware you can leverage this to your advantage, such as in business for example.

It helps to note all of your loops down that you can recall and use checkboxes for an added dopamine hit once you’ve closed the loop.