Simple decisions are best made using cold, hard logic. This way, we can work through the incremental steps that lead to an answer. But the same isn’t true for complex decisions, ones that require more creativity in meshing together a web of interconnected ideas. These decisions can be impossible to work through with logic and reason alone. That’s why we need to tap into the proven power of our subconscious mind.
We’re wired to remember what we’re in the middle of more than what we’ve completed, a phenomenon known in psychology circles as the Zeigarnik effect, named after Bluma Zeigarnik, the first person to study this concept. As a result, uncompleted tasks and decisions weigh more heavily on our minds than ones we’ve finished—focus comes when we close these distracting open loops. While annoying during attempts to focus, the Zeigarnik effect can do something stunning when we scatter our attention and let our mind wander.
Chances are you’ve experienced a few eureka moments. Maybe they struck while you were taking a shower, getting the mail, or walking through an art gallery. Your brain suddenly found the solution to a problem you hadn’t thought about in a few hours. In that instant, the puzzle pieces satisfyingly slid together and locked into place.
Two things were likely true in that moment: First, your insight was a response to a problem you’d been stuck on. Second, your mind was likely wandering while you did something that didn’t require your full attention. I call this mode of mind wandering “scatterfocus.”
Thanks to the Zeigarnik effect, we store any problems currently stumping us at the front of our minds. As a consequence, we connect each new experience to these unresolved problems, desperate to unearth novel solutions.
When doing something mindless and habitual, potential insight triggers come from two places: our wandering minds and the external environment.
Here’s an example.
