Zeigarnik effect

People aren’t overlooked by accident. They’re forgotten by design.

One of the hidden culprits is the Zeigarnik effect - our brains cling to what’s unfinished and quietly discard what’s done.

In performance reviews, that quirk becomes a bias. The quiet finishers lose to the loud "incompleters". Completed work vanishes from memory. Half-done projects stay alive in meetings and inboxes.

• The people who look busy get attention.
• The people who deliver get ignored.

Even year-end discussions can’t fix it - by then, the story’s already written in memory, not merit. The only defense is discipline: short, regular snippets, written proof, and managers who actually read them. Otherwise, memory rewards noise over results and workplaces keep mistaking visibility for value.