Is your help full of 'stuff'? This should help.

One of the most common complaints I hear from clients is that their mind is busy with all the things that remain to be done and cannot be forgotten. Intrusive thoughts can affect every aspect of their lives, causing them to flit mentally (and sometimes physically) from task to task, or take their attention away from a conversation around the dinner table. A lot of people find that even long after closing the laptop for the day, their mind remains a whir with ‘stuff’.

There is a name for this phenomenon: The Zeigarnik Effect. About a hundred years ago, psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik noticed that waiters remembered unpaid orders far better than ones already settled. Once a task was complete, it seemingly vanished from memory, just like shaking an Etch A Sketch (showing my age, here, I know). The logical conclusion to draw from this is that if you want a clear, uncluttered mind, then you’re going to need to do everything. When is everything all done, though? That’s right: never.

Fortunately, there is evidence that there is something we can do that has the power to stop us thinking about yet-to-be-done tasks and things we must not forget. In 2011, psychologists E J Masicampo and Roy Baumeister gave study participants an unfinished task and then asked them to complete an unrelated reading task. As expected, the unfinished task kept intruding, with people performing worse and reporting more distracting thoughts.

But when participants were given a few minutes to make a specific plan for how and when they'd complete the unfinished task – critically, without actually doing it - the intrusive thoughts essentially disappeared. Their performance on the second task returned to normal, as if the original task had been completed.

The key thing here is that it appeared that the brain did not need to know the task was done to stop thinking about it; it just had to know it would be done.

My advice to people with minds that are a bit too busy is to first capture all tasks outside of their heads, say, in a notebook. But the critical next step is to prioritise these tasks and schedule them into the calendar.

This can be done on an ongoing basis throughout the day, but I have found with clients that one of the best times to prioritise and schedule is at the end of the working day. I’ve discovered over the years that this is the single most effective way for someone to mentally release themselves from work, so that they may enjoy some genuine downtime in the evening. It tends to work well as an antidote to the ‘just one more thing’ mentality that can cause the working day to stretch long into the evening and even cut into sleep time.

Looking now at your schedule, is it packed with meetings and calls? Because if so, this is something that probably needs addressing. Specifically, perhaps think about carving out a couple of hours or so in the working day for these scheduled tasks.

Of course, if a client or customer issue detonates without warning, you may want to give this ‘me time’ up. However, most people find that most of the time, they can fence off this time for themselves, and end the working day with less on their list. Plus, they have the comfort, security, and mental space that come from scheduling yet-to-be-done tasks into available slots over the next day or two.

If you're someone who carries a long mental list of ‘things I should be doing’, the discomfort likely comes not so much from the volume of tasks, but more from the absence of a plan for them. A vague intention ("I'll deal with that at some point") doesn't satisfy the brain. A specific one works much better.

IN SUMMARY:

1. Fence off time each day (if possible) for solitary work.

2. Prioritise tasks and schedule them into these slots.

3. Think about closing the working day with this process, to allow you to ‘close down your mind’ and be present for non-work priorities like family time, leisure and relaxation.