 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 she never missed 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 gonna be teaching you how to use your brain to get more done We're gonna talk about how your brain can be used to help in propel you to get more things done in your to-do list to be More productive But also how this thing 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 Yeah, at the end of the day you go to sit down 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 gonna tell you something that has been found was found in the 1920s to help you understand and I'm gonna probably butcher this name But it was it's called the I've heard many different ways when I was researching this But I'm gonna say the Zegernick effect. So Zegernick defect is basically how you say it. It was First discovered. It's a phenomenon discovered in the 1920s by actual Soviet Russian psychologist Dr. Zegernick in the 1920s and she observed that people tend to remember unfinished or uninterrupted 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 or unfinished tasks So that therefore if you think about a hundred thousand years ago to when we were cavemen and cave women it makes sense like if Sometimes an unfinished task could have meant death and a lot of times they probably did mean death And so our in in our brains is hard-wired 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 your strategies that I'm going to teach you and This this discomfort discomfort is what drives us to complete 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 not 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 Former bites full former bites. You're like screw it. I'll just go for the former bites This is also what happens if you 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 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 want to see the puzzle get finished and This this tends to to be really good for us to complete tasks But it tends to cause 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 Chacked 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 a new to-do list and undone work Takes up a lot of mental energy And this is what can be this is why open loops so it works so well with people when you're a great speaker You learn how to open up loops and you you speak to 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 gonna teach you the four things to xyz that could be something right and then at the end You hear the fourth one you 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 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 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 resolve 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, like I don't I don't want to click this, but there's a part of me It'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 You know the news will pop up and it'll be in the middle of commercials And they're saying 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 to figure out what killer chemicals inside of my top water to make sure I don't kill myself and my children right? So it's like killer chemical found out it 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 yellow stone 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 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 unresolve 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 and to do more And so let's talk about the bad first How can it be bad and then 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? But when we don't complete a task our brain will usually focus on it at least a small percentage of our brain We'll still be thinking about it until it is done 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're you open up your chrome or your safari browser and you open up a tab You're starting doing something on they open up another tab and you open up 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 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 and I cause a stress and then that stress turns into anxiety Oh my gosh, you 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 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. 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 zegernick 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 I'm focusing on one task and starting that task 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 list Things 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 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 Um 10 pages, right? You have to do a 10 page research paper And you've already done the research and you 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, 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 the podcast long enough I'm going to use the palma d'oro technique and you use the palma d'oro 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 palma d'oro 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 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 palma d'oro 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 it's 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 zikronik effect to actually make your goal smaller Accomplish the small little tasks that add up to the big tasks And then what you do Is once you get done the first one 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 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 the next mile I can focus on the next mile That's where 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 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 a hundred 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 one and you break your goals down into smaller increments And use your brain to actually use it as your benefit versus 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 zikronik effect will actually start to badger me the entire night And I won't be as productive as I I won't be as uh, 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 They need to get done And so how do you close out your day so that therefore this doesn't bug you 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 the things that I got done that day and I will do a I was 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 running those 10 miles. That was awesome. And instead of focusing on all of 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 And we take that to-do list and all of the unfinished things And I I know that I will have a feeling 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 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 do 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 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 time frame And then I need to do this thing and I'm going to 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 The 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's 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 You're going to make them small incremental bytes 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 not a lot at least allow 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 allows you to actually use the zegernick effect to actually help you Get things done versus hold yourself back allow yourself and 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 rob dial jr. R o b d i a l j r We've been put up a lot of stuff on there that is going quite viral We had a video that did just over six 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 news feed 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 And i'm going to leave it the same way 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