At the end of the day you finish a section and close the laptop, and the next morning you open an empty page and wonder where to begin. The alternative is to stop in the middle on purpose.
The trick
Ernest Hemingway described always stopping his writing when he knew what was going to happen next, so that starting the following day was easy because he already knew the next line. Many writers still do this, and it works for essays, problem sets, code and long reports. End today at a point where tomorrow already knows what to do.
Why the blank page is the hardest part
Starting feels heaviest when you have to decide where to start before you can start, and a finished section leaves you with exactly that decision. If you stop midway, you sit down, read the half sentence, finish it and you are already moving. The first minute, which usually feels like pushing a car uphill, is done. If starting is hard in general, why starting feels heavy goes deeper.
What the Zeigarnik effect gets wrong
You may have read that this works because of the Zeigarnik effect, the idea that we remember unfinished tasks better than finished ones. A 2025 meta-analysis by Ghibellini and Meier covering 59 publications didn’t find that memory advantage, since people recalled interrupted and completed tasks about equally well.
What does hold up
The same meta-analysis found support for the Ovsiankina effect: people went back to interrupted tasks about two times out of three, more often than chance. Unfinished things pull us back, and the trick uses that by leaving you a door that is already open.
How to use it
End your last session of the day in the middle of something you already know how to continue, and add a line at the top that starts with «Next:». For essays and reports, stop mid-paragraph with the next point clear in your head. For problem sets, solve half of the next exercise. In notes, write the next heading and leave it empty. In code, write the comment for the next function and stop there.
A small notepad by the keyboard works well for the «Next» line, since paper won’t lead you into your inbox.
A two-minute shutdown
Make this the last thing you do each day. Stop midway on something easy to continue, write the «Next:» line and close every other tab. Tomorrow, read the line first and start a 25-minute block. It is the same habit as the ready-to-resume note, applied at the end of the day instead of after a meeting.
Questions people ask
Is the Zeigarnik effect real?
The memory part, remembering unfinished tasks better, didn’t hold up in the 2025 meta-analysis. The tendency to return to unfinished tasks, the Ovsiankina effect, did.
How do I start writing when I’m stuck?
Make the first step small and concrete, such as finishing one sentence instead of writing the chapter. Stopping mid-sentence the day before gives you that step for free.
What is a shutdown routine?
A short, fixed way to end the workday, usually writing down what is next and closing everything. Two minutes is enough.
