Regardless of whether it was a weekday or a weekend, I was simply always tired.
No matter how much I slept or ate, I never felt truly recovered. Even when I tried to refresh myself by enjoying my hobbies, I couldn't seem to enjoy them properly. I was constantly enveloped in an inexplicable sense of guilt and self-loathing.
At first, I suspected my lack of "stamina."
"Maybe my concentration is failing because my stamina has dropped," I thought. "If I exercise more and improve my sleep quality, it should get better." But for some reason, only anxiety grew.
Even during time spent resting without doing anything, I felt restless and unsettled. The cause of my fatigue was not "low stamina."
Back then, I didn't understand what was really causing my exhaustion.
But later, I realized something.
What was exhausting me were the "unfinished events" lingering in my head.
These weren't urgent crises. They were tiny "incompletions" clinging to the gaps of daily life—unnoticeable yet steadily draining my mental capacity.
For example:
- An awkward email I need to reply to on Monday
- A project left hanging after saying "I'll consider it"
- Consumables opened in browser tabs that I meant to buy
- SNS messages where I dismissed the notification but forgot to reply
- Words I failed to convey to someone due to missed opportunities
In psychology, it is said that we remember unfinished tasks and interrupted events more strongly than completed ones. This psychological phenomenon is known as the Zeigarnik Effect.
Looking back, even when I had depression, I would be at home after work but still rolling "unfinished tasks" around in my head.
The guilt of leaving things undone. And the disgust toward myself for being unable to start. That weighed down my mind and body, making me exhausted.
◾️ The True Nature of the Suffering Caused by the Zeigarnik Effect
If unfinished items are the cause of fatigue, maybe we should just finish them quickly. But if it were that easy, we wouldn't be struggling.
We are likely already trapped in a "vicious cycle."
As long as there is even one unfinished item, people remain in a state where it is "on their mind" somewhere in the corner of their heads. This is neither focused work nor true rest.
It is a state where attention resources are continuously drained halfway. This act of "keeping attention directed" generates fatigue (a sense of tiredness).
Here lies the problem.
When fatigued, people estimate the cost of all actions as higher.
Things that usually take five minutes feel like "enormous hassle" when you are tired. Actions with high estimated costs are postponed. "I don't want to do it now," "I'll do it when I have more energy"—while thinking this, tasks remain unfinished and untouched.
Unfinished tasks continue to consume attention the longer they are neglected. As attention is consumed, fatigue increases. As fatigue increases, action costs are estimated even higher. Thus, tasks become increasingly impossible to tackle.
This is the true nature of the suffering caused by the Zeigarnik Effect. Incompletions create fatigue, and fatigue solidifies incompletions. You are tired because you can't finish, and you can't finish because you are tired.
How do we break out of this vicious cycle?
The root cause of unfinished tasks sticking in your head is not "the fact that they are unfinished," but rather "not having decided anything about them."
In other words, what the brain craves is not "completion" but "resolution."
[→ [Continuation in note article] The Zeigarnik Effect: Keeping Unfinished Tasks in Mind — Specific Solutions for This Exhaustion](https://note.com/tsumugi_utatabi/n/nf514ce7733cf
