DEVELOPMENT
“ Research demonstrates that our brain hates unfinished business , so much so that it will hold onto the information until it gets closure .”
Let ’ s get going !
Do you struggle to get going first thing ? Here , Dr Amantha Imber shares a fail-proof trick that ’ s guaranteed to get you into the flow , ready for a day as a busy EA … continues . “ Get halfway through the paragraph , and then stop . Write the next sentence the following day because it makes it really easy to pick up . Days where you ’ ve completed something and you ’ re starting again ; they ’ re harder because you ’ re starting the engine from scratch .”
Organisational psychologist and professor Adam Grant uses a similar strategy . He refers to it as ‘ parking on a downhill slope ’, given the ease that this act brings to getting back into flow the following day .
Some people call this idea the Hemingway Trick because writer Ernest Hemingway once said : “ When you are going good , stop writing .” Indeed , he was purported to have stopped each day ’ s writing session halfway through a sentence . Author Roald Dahl used the same strategy to avoid the terrifying blank page confronting him in his morning writing sessions .
THE EXPERT
Dr Amantha Imber is the Founder of Inventium , Australia ’ s leading behavioural science consultancy . She also hosts an insightful podcast about the habits and rituals of the world ’ s most successful people , called How I Work .
Some days it can feel really hard to start work , especially when it is the kind of work that needs deep , focused thinking . When I was writing my latest book , I had a daily writing target to achieve but had many moments where I would , instead , sit staring at a flashing cursor for 20 minutes before something useful came out of my brain . Although ‘ useful ’ might be overstating things on some mornings ..! All I wanted on these days was to get into flow and write but my brain had other ideas .
Taking inspiration from others , I looked into Rachel Botsman , a world-renowned expert on trust and technology – and the first ever Trust Fellow at Oxford University – who used to love the 6 – 9am slot for her writing . She found she could do more work in those three hours than she could achieve during the rest of the day . But when she had kids , that slot disappeared .
While trying to find a new groove for work that took into account her family , she discovered one of the tricks to getting into flow was how she settled herself into work for the day : “ How you start is really key to the rest of the day ,” Botsman explains .
Don ’ t finish the paragraph “ A really easy trick I learned is : If you ’ re in flow the day before , don ’ t finish that paragraph ,” she
Other advantages Not only does finishing halfway through a task give us momentum , it has the added benefit of keeping the information in our brain . Psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik ran a famous experiment in 1927 where she observed that waiters were better able to remember complex orders when the order was interrupted or incomplete . However , as soon as the order was finished , it faded from memory more quickly .
Known as the Zeigarnik Effect , this research demonstrates that our brain hates unfinished business , so much so that it will hold onto the information until it gets closure . In the case of the Hemingway Trick , our brain continues to think about the unfinished task . And when we come back to it , our brain is primed to easily pick back up where it left off .
Put it into action When you are finishing work for the day , resist the temptation to reach a natural conclusion before clocking off . Instead , deliberately finish halfway through a sentence , a slide , a line of code , or whatever the type of work you are doing . By finishing halfway through , you ’ ll find it far easier to get started the following day . S amantha . com
Summer Issue 2024 | Executive PA 59