When working on a big project, is it better to focus on how much you’ve accomplished, or how much you have left to do? I recently ran across an interesting blog post about finishing things. In How to Become a Great Finisher the writer reports on studies by Minjung Koo and Ayelet Fishbach that compared to-date thinking (I’ve already written 10 chapters) with to-go thinking (I still have to write another 10 chapters).
The blogger, Heidi Grant Halvorson, says
Koo and Fishbach’s studies consistently show that when we are pursuing a goal and consider how far we’ve already come, we feel a premature sense of accomplishment and begin to slack off. For instance, in one study, college students studying for an exam in an important course were significantly more motivated to study after being told that they had 52% of the material left to cover, compared to being told that they had already completed 48%.
and
If, instead, we focus on how far we have left to go (to-go thinking), motivation is not only sustained, it’s heightened. Fundamentally, this has to do with the way our brains are wired. To-go thinking helps us tune in to the presence of a discrepancy between where we are now and where we want to be. When the human brain detects a discrepancy, it reacts by throwing resources at it: attention, effort, deeper processing of information, and willpower.
I tend to look ahead at how much I have left to do. I think it works, especially since I make schedules, but sometimes my brain reacts by throwing panic and terror at me, which isn’t the desired outcome.
This post doesn’t mention whether they’ve studied a time element. For me there’s a difference in motivational power between “I wrote half a chapter yesterday” and “I wrote half a chapter last month.” Or between “I have two chapters to revise tomorrow” and “I have two chapters to revise this week”.
What about you?