The Mindset Mentor - How To Use Your Brain To Get More Done

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast. And if you love this podcast and maybe you want to see it live, well, I guess see my face as I'm doing it, you can always go to YouTube. Go to YouTube and type in Rob Dial. We have a ton of videos, over 400 videos that are on there to help you improve your life even more than just what we do here on this podcast. So if you love the YouTube and you love me, you can go ahead and follow me on the YouTube as well. Today, I'm going to be teaching you how to use your brain to get more done. We're going to talk about how your brain can be used to help and propel you to get more things done in your to-do list to be more productive, but also how this thing,

Starting point is 00:00:52 if you don't use it correctly, can actually stress you out when you have a to-do list. I'll give you an example. Have you ever been in the point before where you feel like you're working all day long and you're doing things and you're doing things and you're doing things. And at the end of the day, you go to sit down and you're like, damn, I don't feel like I got anything done. And you feel like you weren't productive at all. Like maybe you were just busy spinning your wheels. Or do you ever get stressed out when you start thinking about your to-do list and you feel like you're not getting a sense of accomplishment from your to-do list? Well, if that's the case, I'm actually going to tell you something that has been found, was found in the 1920s to help you understand. And I'm going to probably butcher this name, but it was, it's called the, I've heard many different ways when I was researching this,

Starting point is 00:01:39 but I'm going to say the Ziegernick effect. So Zygarnik effect is basically how you say it. It was first discovered, it's a phenomenon that was discovered in the 1920s by actual Soviet Russian psychologist, Dr. Zygarnik in the 1920s. And she observed that people tend to remember unfinished or interrupted tasks better than the ones that are completed. And they actually start to focus, we tend to focus on the things that have not been done versus the things that are done. And so what happens is those things that are not quote unquote done can actually own our mental energy until they are completed, or at least until we use them the correct way, which is what I'll teach you today. And this effect is based on the idea that our brains are wired to focus on open loops

Starting point is 00:02:28 or unfinished tasks so that therefore, if you think back 100,000 years ago to when we were cavemen and cavewomen, it makes sense. Like if sometimes an unfinished task could have meant death. And a lot of times it probably did mean death. And so in our brains is hardwired that when something is not completed that needs to be done, that we tend to focus on it a whole lot more. And it can also give you a real sense of mental discomfort if you don't use this correctly and use the strategies that I'm going to teach you. And this discomfort is what drives us to complete

Starting point is 00:03:02 a task. And when it's finally completed, the discomfort is resolved and the task is then forgotten because there's no reason to think about a task once it's forgotten. Makes sense, right? We need to focus on only the things that need to be done, not the things that have been done. And so this is why, you know, you could be sitting down at the dinner table, you could be eating some food and you're looking at it and you're like, man, I've probably got like four more bites, but I'm so damn hungry. I'm so, I'm so, I'm so damn full, but I need to get rid of these four bites. And so you're full, but you also want to finish the task of just eating all the food. And so you're sitting there and you're like full, four more bites, full, four more bites. And you're like, screw it. I'll just go for the four more bites. This is also what happens if you

Starting point is 00:03:43 sit down and you start a puzzle. I don't know if you guys are like me, but if I sit down and I start a puzzle, we did this when I was back home over Christmas. We started a puzzle when I was at my sister's house and it went from, hey, let's just all put a puzzle together to three hours later, we're still doing the damn puzzle because we all just wanna see the puzzle get finished. And this tends to be really good for us to complete tasks, but it tends to cause

Starting point is 00:04:08 mental discomfort if we're not getting things done that need to be done, or if we just have such a big to-do list that there's just still things that have not been checked off to do this. And most of the time when you get to the end of the day and you're like, oh my God, I still have so much to do. The reason why is because you're not focusing on the things that you've done and what you have completed. You're focusing on all of the things that you did not get done or that you still have on your to-do list. And undone work takes up a lot of mental energy. And this is what can be, this is why open loops work so well with people. When you're a great speaker, you learn how to open up loops and you speak to

Starting point is 00:04:45 people. And if you look at it, you will like one of the best that I've ever seen do it was Tony Robbins. I've seen people and I've done it myself when I'm speaking, you will open up a loop because people then want to hear the thing get changed and the thing get finished is what they want. So you say, I'm going to teach you the four things to X, Y, Z. That could be something, right? And then at the end, you hear the fourth one, you're like, resolve, feel better. But I remember one time I was watching Tony Robbins speak and he opened a loop and then he opened another loop. So he opened loop one, he opened loop two, he closed loop two, he closed loop one. And I was sitting there going, oh my God, that was like a master at speaking. And that's why this is why, you know, for me, like, I don't know about you,

Starting point is 00:05:28 but if I start a movie, I have to finish the damn movie, right? Like I can't start a movie. Like my wife will fall asleep in the middle of movies. I can't do it. My brain is like, I've got to see this. I've got to feel resolved. But this is also why clickbait works for us. If you're ever on YouTube and you see someone's thumbnail and it says something, you're like, oh my God, I don't want to click this. But there's a part of me that's like, I got to see what this is about. And then you click it and you watch it. We want to close the loop. This is also why the news uses these. The news will pop up and it'll be in the middle of commercials and they'll say, there's a killer chemical found in your tap water tonight at 10. You're like, what the fuck? Now I've got to watch tonight at 10 and

Starting point is 00:06:07 figure out what killer chemicals inside of my tap water to make sure I don't kill myself and my children. So it's like killer chemical found in your tap water tonight at 10. You're like, oh my God, I've got to see it. It's an open loop. Our brain wants it to be finished. This is why cliffhangers work so well. If you watch like Yellowstone or Game of Thrones, when they end an episode, it's like, oh my God, I've got to see the next episode. They do this. And then you realize four hours later, Netflix pops up and it's like, are you still watching? And you're like, you son of a bitch. Yes, I'm still watching. Don't make me feel bad of myself for still watching this four

Starting point is 00:06:39 hours later, right? It's because those cliffhangers keep us wanting to watch more and wanting to watch more. So we have to understand the way that our brain works and why we do this. And when we feel this feeling of unresolved, our brain wants to solve it. And so you can use this can hold you back if you don't understand it. But if you know how to use it can actually propel you forward. And that's why I love studying the brain. And I love studying humans so much is because I want to learn all of these things. And then I want to teach it to you so that you can understand how your brain works. And instead of being held back by your brain, be able to use your brain to propel you to do better

Starting point is 00:07:15 and to do more. And so let's talk about the bad first. How can it be bad? And after that, we'll talk about how can it be good, right? That's an open loop. We just did it. So now you're like, damn, I want to hear how it can be bad, but I also want to hear how it can be good. So how could it be bad? Well, when we don't complete a task, our brain will usually focus on it. At least a small percentage of our brain will still be thinking about it until it is done.

Starting point is 00:07:41 And what can happen though, is it can also start to stress us out. We start to think about how big our to-do list is and we start to get stressed about it. And we start to get anxious about it. And we actually can start to procrastinate because our brain is focusing not on one thing on our to-do list. It's focusing on 12 different things on our to-do list. And we can get paralysis by analysis. When we have too many unfinished tasks in our mind, it can be overwhelming. And it's like going to your computer and you open up your Chrome or your Safari browser and you open up a tab. You start doing something and they open up another tab and you open up another tab,

Starting point is 00:08:15 another tab, another tab, another tab. And by the time you realize you have 20 tabs that are open and the more tabs that you have that are open, the more it's going to slow your computer down. The same things happens with your brain. When you have a massive to-do list, there's so many things that you feel like they need to be done. And it's like that feeling of this stuff has to be done. Oh my gosh, there's so many things. It's so many things at one time that it actually slows you down. And so what happens is you start to get stressed. And when you start to get stressed, oh my God, I don't know if all this stuff, I have so many things that I have to do

Starting point is 00:08:47 and that causes stress. And then that stress turns into anxiety. Oh my gosh, I have so many things I need to get done. What if I don't get them done in time? What if I don't get any of them done? And you start getting really anxious around it. And then what happens, you have so many things that are open,

Starting point is 00:09:01 so many tabs that are open, your brain seems to slow itself down. You procrastinate, you don't get anything done because you're focusing on all of the things that need to be done versus just getting one done at a time. And it can lead to procrastination. So that's how it can be really bad. Some of you guys are out there listening and you're like raising your hand like, holy shit, this guy's speaking directly to me, right? That's what your brain will do. So if that's how it leads to the bad, is it possible for us to use this exact effect for the good? The answer is yes, we can do it.

Starting point is 00:09:31 So let me teach you exactly how to do it. How can this be used for good? Well, one of the key implications of the Ziegernick effect is that it can actually increase motivation and productivity if you use it correctly. Because if you think about it, if I'm focusing on one task instead of 12 tasks, and I'm focusing on one task and starting that task

Starting point is 00:09:52 and not doing anything else until that task is finished, I want it to get finished. And so I am more motivated and driven to get that one thing finished versus focusing on all of them. And so one of the easiest ways to do this is to take the most important task that you have of the day. What I always recommend is you look at your to-do list, and I'm going to tell you what to do in a second with all of the to-do lists, things

Starting point is 00:10:13 that are extra at the end of the day. See, another open loop, right? So I'm going to teach you in a second of how to use all of the things. Let's say you have 10 things on your to-do list. I want you to find out number one, that's the biggest priority. Number two, the second biggest priority. Number three, your third biggest priority. And then what you do is you take your first task, your first priority, and you break it down into smaller increments. So let's say that you need to, you have to write a research paper and that research paper has to be 10 pages, right? You have to do a 10 page research paper and you've already done the research and you've gone through and now you need to take it and you need to write that 10 page research paper of exactly what you learned in your research. Well, what you do is this, you take the 10 pages,

Starting point is 00:10:53 which could take you hours to write, right? And what you do is you break it down into smaller increments. So in this case, an easy way to do it would be a time increment. And so what you say is I'm going to use, and you've heard me say this if you've listened to the podcast long enough, I'm going to use the Pomodoro technique. And you use the Pomodoro technique to actually get more done. And so this 10 pages is probably going to take me three hours to write. I'm going to take these three hours, and instead of focusing on all of the three hours, I'm going to focus on the next 30 minutes. I'm going to use the Pomodoro technique, which is 25 minutes on, five minute break, and only one thing for those 25 minutes. So 25 minutes on, five minute break, 25 minutes on, five minute break, 25 minutes on, five minutes break until

Starting point is 00:11:36 that task is done. Because I'm trying to go for my most important one first, right? And so what you do, you take your 25 minutes and you go for it. And what happens is by using the Pomodoro technique, it's the time management method to allow you to take these big tasks and make them smaller so that therefore you want to finish the 25 minutes. Because at seven minutes, you're like, yeah, we got to finish these 25 minutes. Let me just get done. I know that there's light at the end of the tunnel and in 18 more minutes, I know my alarm's going to go off and then I can have my break. And then what happens is you actually start to get more done by using the Zeekernik effect to actually make your goals smaller, accomplish the small little tasks that add up to the big tasks. And then what you do is once you get done with the first one,

Starting point is 00:12:22 use the exact same strategy on the second most important thing for the day. And you get the second most important thing done, however you can do it, whether it's you can need to break it up into time, or you need to break it up into a number. So like a number would be, hey, I've got to do, I'm training for a marathon, I've got to run five miles today. Okay, so all I'm going to focus on is I'm going to run one mile. And then after that one mile, I can focus on the next mile. And after that one mile, I can focus on the next mile. And after the next mile, I can focus on the next mile. That's why they always say one of the best ways to run long distances is not focus on the distance, but look at the next tree that's ahead of you.

Starting point is 00:12:54 Like there's a tree that's in the distance. Okay, I'm just going to get to that next tree. That's all I'm going to focus on. Okay, there's a mailbox about 100 years away. I'm just going to focus on that mailbox. Okay, there's another tree that's off in the distance. I'm going to focus on that mailbox. Okay. There's another tree that's off in the distance. I'm going to focus on that one. And you break your goals down into smaller increments and use your brain to actually use it as your benefit versus

Starting point is 00:13:12 your biggest enemy. And so the way that you do this is then you get number two done and you get number three done. And then what you do is by the end of the day, you take your to-do list. And if you're like me, to-do lists are never done. Like there's always a freaking to-do list. And if I don't get a to-do list done and I don't close the day out, the Zekernick effect will actually start to badger me the entire night. And I won't be as productive as I, I won't be as, not productive, I won't be as disconnected as I could be when I turn off away from work and from getting the things done that need to get done. And so how do you close out your day so that therefore this doesn't bug you?

Starting point is 00:13:48 And this is what I do. I've never seen anybody else talk about it, but this is what helps me by using this. And so the first thing is, I will look at all of the things that I got done that day and I will celebrate in a small way. Man, I'm so proud of myself for getting that 10-page research paper done. That was awesome. I'm so proud of myself for getting that 10-page research paper done.

Starting point is 00:14:05 That was awesome. I'm so proud of myself for running those 10 miles. That was awesome. And instead of focusing on all the things I have to do, I focus instead on all of the things that I did get done for the day, which then gives me a sense of accomplishment. Then what I do is I look at the things that did not get done done and we take that to-do list and all of the unfinished things. And I know that I will have a feeling of unresolved if I don't close today out. Our brain wants to solve the rest of those seven things that are on our to-do list. What you do is this.

Starting point is 00:14:38 You take a pen and paper and this is how you're going to close out your day. It's going to take you 15 minutes, but it's going to save you a ton of mental energy when you get done with work and you've got to close out and go and attend to your kids and eat dinner and live a life and have fun and all those things and not think about work. Simply write down the things that are in your mind that need to be done tomorrow. So maybe anything that popped up or anything that happens to be popping up, you add to your to-do list. And then you look at your schedule and you ask yourself, what are the most important things out of these things?

Starting point is 00:15:10 And you actually schedule when you're going to get them done. Okay, tomorrow I need to do another research paper, a five-page research paper. Okay, I'm going to do that from 10 o'clock until noon. And I'm going to get that five-page research paper done in that timeframe. And then I need to do this thing and I'm gonna get this thing done from here to here. And what happens is you're closing out your mind by assigning a time and a date for the to-do list,

Starting point is 00:15:38 the items that are still on your to-do list, which makes your brain feel like, okay, I can close this out right now because that will be completed tomorrow. Versus like, I don't know when this is going to be completed. Hopefully I complete this sometime. It takes maybe 15 minutes at the end of the day, but it will save you a ton of mental energy because you can mentally clock out when you use it this way. So what you're going to do just to kind of use your brain to what it can do is you're going to use your brain to actually complete tasks the way that you want to get tasks completed.

Starting point is 00:16:10 You're going to make them small incremental bites, get the most important thing, the number one priority, the next biggest priority, the next biggest priority, get as many of those things done as possible, and then close your day out every single day by scheduling and figuring out what you're going to do tomorrow to complete the next round of tasks. And that at least allows your brain to be like, okay, they'll be done tomorrow versus just allowing yourself to ruminate on when are they going to be done? I don't know if they're ever going to be done. Are we ever going to complete this stuff? And you get stressed and you get anxious and then you don't do anything. This

Starting point is 00:16:41 allows you to actually use the Ziegernik effect to actually help you get things done versus hold yourself back, getting yourself stressed and anxious, and then you procrastinate and you get nothing done. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. We've been putting up a lot of stuff on there that is going quite viral. We had a video that did just over 6 million views that we put up last week that was not talked about in this podcast. So if you want to go on there and see some of the stuff we've been putting up, go ahead and do that. And once again, it's going to fill your newsfeed with some extra motivation, inspiration, and mindset techniques as well. So it is Rob Dial Jr. R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R.

Starting point is 00:17:24 And I'm going to leave it the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.

The Mindset Mentor - How To Use Your Brain To Get More Done

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.