MindCraft Challenges

In 1928, Maria Ovsiankina reported that people tend to resume interrupted tasks as soon as they have the opportunity. More recent research has found that unfinished work tasks can lead to intrusive thoughts over the weekend and that people will persist in completing even boring tasks without rewards. Given that procrastination is a stress response that involves delaying the start of a task, we can harness the Ovsiankina effect to complete unpleasant tasks that we would otherwise put off.

Challenge: Choose a task that you don't want to do--it can be effortful, unpleasant, boring, or stressful. Ask someone that you can be accountable to watch you while you get started on the task for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, they can leave you to complete the task on your own. Pay attention to your motivations. Once you have started the task, do you feel an urge to complete it?

Read More:
Many studies support the Ovsiankina effect
https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-025-05000-w
Unfinished tasks lead to intrusive thoughts
https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph14121606
People persist on even boring tasks
https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167214557008

Our perception of patterns isn’t the result of just one neuron firing—it’s made up of many neurons participating in pattern recognition. This is likely a reason that drawing is a powerful tool to shift our minds away from negative thoughts—drawing requires pattern-matching networks to create and check patterns as the artist is drawing.

Challenge:
Can taking time to draw help improve your mood? Carry some drawing paper or a sketchbook with you for a week. When you feel stressed or stuck with negative thoughts, spend 10 minutes drawing whatever you want. Rate your mood before and after on a scale like this:

😨 😦 ☹️ 😐 🙂 😀 😁

Read More:
Mood repair through art:
https://doi.org/10.1080/07421656.2011.557032
On using creativity to find meaning in life:
https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691618771981
(see Table 1 for many ideas!)

Even though the firing rate of a single neuron limits its information-carrying capacity, the neurons in our brains work together to allow us to store and process massive amounts of information. One mystery of neuroscience is why human behavior and thought are as slow as if we were running our thoughts on neurons in serial (one after another) rather than in parallel. One possible reason is that human thinking requires comparing and updating many models of the world.

Challenge:
How would your life be different if you respected the slow and limited processing speed of the human mind? Plan a ‘slow moment’ (actually five minutes) to reflect on a memory, count your blessings, or otherwise savor your world. Try your ‘slow moment’ twice every day for a week. See the “Read More” section for the actual intervention with older adults.

Read More:
The paradox of slow human behavior:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2024.11.008
Many scholars debating a model of a multi-level, multi-timescale, iteratively refining model of the mind:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X12000477
A savoring task (see the Intervention section):
https://doi.org/10.1177/0733464817693375