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Complete Your Goals 10x Faster with My Start-Stop-Finish Framework
This simple framework will make you an unstoppable completion juggernaut
Joe Rapoza
June 06, 2024
Complete Your Goals 10x Faster with My Start-Stop-Finish Framework
This simple framework will make you an unstoppable completion juggernaut.
You’ll get more done in 5 days than others can in 5 weeks!
The Completion Juggernaut
Are you working hard everyday and not seeing results?
It’s not what you’re doing, it’s how you’re doing it.
This new 3-step method will get you the results you need.
Let’s get into it. 👇
The Start-Stop-Finish Framework
This method works well because it’s based on real brain science.
The Start-Stop-Finish framework will help you:
Master your time
Reduce overwhelm
Be 10x more productive
Let’s see how and why it works so well…
The 3 Key Ingredients
These psychological phenomena are all you need to get started:
The Fresh Start Effect — the reason why you start a New Year’s resolution.
The Zeigarnik Effect — why you remember unfinished tasks better than completed ones.
The Goal Gradient Effect — the reason why your pace and motivation increase as you get closer to a goal.
A fresh perspective is how you start.
1. The Fresh Start Effect
Why do you start New Year’s resolutions?
Because your mind craves a fresh start.
Benefits
The Fresh Start Effect uses temporal landmarks to bring excitement to your day.
Temporal landmarks are unique times or events, such as:
The start of a new week or month
Moving to a new city
Starting a new job
Your birthday
How It Works
Temporal landmarks create mental separations between your past and present self.
This helps you overcome past failures and shed limiting beliefs and habits, allowing you to focus on positive futures, instead of a regretful pasts.
It’s a method of renewing your sense of self-worth and determination.
How to Use It
Use Mondays to start a new project or a micro-goal of a larger one.
Break your project into sub-goals and write each of them down on their own index card.
Then, write all the tasks you need to do for that milestone on its card.
The physicality of the cards allows you to see the big picture.
You can sort them any way you want, and see results in real-time all in one place.
When you’ve completed a milestone, rip up that card and recycle it. Yes, destroy it.
This next effect is what gives you momentum.
Stop before you finish to achieve more.
2. The Zeigarnik Effect
Why do you remember incomplete tasks better than completed ones?
Because your working memory is for thinking and processing, not remembering.
Benefits
By stopping in the middle of a task, you prime your mind to remember that task.
This frees up the energy your brain uses for that task, relieving mental fatigue.
This kickstarts the Zeigarnik Effect, first observed by Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik in the 1920s.
How It Works
The Zeigarnik Effect states that you’ll remember unfinished tasks better than completed ones.
This keeps the task in active mode, driving you to remember to complete it later.
This is why some waitstaff at restaurants can remember what you ordered without writing it down and whether your food has arrived.
How to Use It
At some point during each day, you’ll stop working.
But don’t stop after completing a task; stop before.
Leaving an active task unfinished will keep the task active in your mind.
This creates a memory crumb, promoting recall when you come back to finish it tomorrow.
This next effect will pull you into the finish line.
Run faster to the finish line.
3. The Goal Gradient Effect
Why do runners have a burst of energy on the last lap?
Because they can see the end, which drives their desire for completion.
Benefits
Separating larger projects into micro-goals creates shorter distances to the finish line.
This is the power of the Goal Gradient Effect.
The Goal Gradient Effect states that you’ll increase effort towards a goal as you get closer to the end.
This motivation-boosting effect was first described by behaviorist Clark Hull in 1932.
His research demonstrated that rats in a maze run faster as they approach the food reward at the end.
How It Works
Perceived progress towards a goal increases motivation.
Seeing tangible signs of completion boosts output and focus.
For example, a progress bar filling up or a countdown of remaining tasks guiding you to completion.
It anticipates the feeling of freedom from that task and the satisfaction from the energy you used to get there.
How to Use It
By slicing projects into smaller micro-goals, you’ll gain the benefits of these 3 effects.
But that’s not all!
The real power comes from the Start-Stop-Finish feedback loop!
As you complete a micro-task, you get closer to finishing each project milestone.
After completing a milestone, destroy the index card.
Destroy when complete.
This frees your working memory, resets your focus, and boosts your energy, not to mention the excitement and reward of crushing a goal.
Completing a micro-goal re-triggers the Fresh Start Effect.
This repeats the cycle until all your milestones are finished.
As you remove more and more index cards, the Goal Gradient Effect takes over at the global level.
The more cards you destroy, the faster you move to project completion!
This is the power of the Start-Stop-Finish method.
Try implementing the Start-Stop-Finish framework in your next project and experience the powerful synergy of these cognitive principles.
Turning small steps into incremental progress will lead to ultimate success.
Please reuse and recycle this story.
Thanks for reading. Reach out if you need to chat.
Do you feel like you’re sinking in quicksand?
Book a call with me and let’s pull you out.
