Consider it done: why a plan quiets an unfinished task
Unfinished goals intrude on unrelated work. Writing a specific plan for them removed the interference, even though the task was still undone.
The short version
Unfinished tasks nag at you. They intrude on your thoughts and drag down your performance on unrelated work. This series of experiments found that you do not have to finish a task to quiet it: making a specific plan for when and how you will do it was enough to eliminate those interference effects. Once the plan exists, the mind appears to let the goal rest until the planned time.
What the researchers did
E. J. Masicampo and Roy Baumeister ran several studies in which they activated an unfulfilled goal in participants' minds — something they wanted to get done but had not — and then measured how that goal lingered. Some participants were then allowed to write specific plans for their unfulfilled goals; others were not. The researchers measured the effect on unrelated tasks that followed.
What they found
- Unfinished goals intrude. They caused intrusive thoughts during an unrelated reading task, made goal-related words more mentally accessible, and led to poorer performance on an unrelated anagram task.
- Planning removed the interference. Letting participants formulate specific plans for their unfulfilled goals eliminated these activation and interference effects, even though the goals were still undone.
- The plan has to be real. The reduction was linked to how earnest the plans were: participants who went on to carry out their plans were the ones who showed no more intrusions.
- Not just a mood effect. Changes in goal-related emotions did not appear necessary for the effect.
Limits and caveats
The studies are lab experiments, mostly with university students and short tasks, and they predate psychology's push for larger, preregistered replications. The effect should be treated as well-reasoned and plausible rather than precisely sized. The finding that only earnest plans worked is a warning against writing plans you do not intend to keep.
What it means for how you work
When something unrelated pops into your head mid-task, a bare reminder may not be enough to stop it nagging. Write it down with a plan: what you will do and when — "Reply to the invoice question at 4 p.m." This is the mechanism behind the Pomodoro rule to record and postpone interruptions (the Pomodoro Technique), and behind the advice to leave a note on where you stopped before switching tasks (attention residue). Then honor the plan; the evidence suggests it only works if you mean it.