Consider it done! Plan making can eliminate the cognitive effects of unfulfilled goals.

Abstract

Unfulfilled goals persist in the mind, as asserted by ample theory and evidence (e.g., the Zeigarnik effect). The standard assumption has been that such cognitive activation persists until the goal is fulfilled. However, we predicted that contributing to goal pursuit through plan making could satisfy the various cognitive processes that usually promote goal pursuit. In several studies, we activated unfulfilled goals and demonstrated persistent goal activation over time. Unfinished goals caused intrusive thoughts during an unrelated reading task (Studies 1 and 5B), high mental accessibility of goal-related words (Studies 2 and 3), and poor performance on an unrelated anagram task (Study 4). Allowing participants to formulate specific plans for their unfulfilled goals eliminated the various activation and interference effects. Reduction of the effects was mediated by the earnestness of participants' plans: Those who ultimately executed their plans were those who also exhibited no more intrusions (Study 4). Moreover, changes in goal-related emotions did not appear to be a necessary component of the observed cognitive effects (Studies 5A and 5B). Committing to a specific plan for a goal may therefore not only facilitate attainment of the goal but may also free cognitive resources for other pursuits. Once a plan is made, the drive to attain a goal is suspended--allowing goal-related cognitive activity to cease--and is resumed at the specified later time.

Goal-directed visual attention drives health goal priming: An eye-tracking experiment.

“…Also, it has been shown that desires can influence an individual's interpretation of ambiguous stimuli that assign the individual to a favored outcome (Balcetis & Dunning, 2006). Similarly, active goals can hinder performance on other tasks, which suggests attentional distraction from tasks that are unrelated to the goal (Masicampo & Baumeister, 2011a;Masicampo & Baumeister, 2011b).…”

Commuting with a Plan: How Goal-Directed Prospection Can Offset the Strain of Commuting

“…This type of planning may include planning an adequate amount of time and even incorporating planned breaks to make goal achievement more likely (Gollwitzer, Gawrilow, & Oettingen, 2010). The mere act of planning for goal achievement also reduces the need for the exertion of further cognitive resources on unfulfilled goals (Masicampo & Baumeister, 2011). Consistent with this possibility, Benoit and colleagues (2011) find that prospection motivates individuals to make long-run beneficially decisions in the present as it shifts emphasis from the short-term, myopic, toward the long-term (Liu, Feng, Chen, & Li, Commuting as Planning Time 12 2013).…”

“…Goal-directed prospection can also serve to increase the likelihood employees will achieve their goals by serving as implementation intentions (Gollwitzer, 1999). Achieving more goals can reduce the amount of unfulfilled goals, which can additionally drain cognitive resources, thus imposing a strain on employees (Masicampo & Baumeister, 2011). By showing that engaging in specific thoughts can offset the negative effects of commuting -independently of trait self-control -we challenge the widespread notion that commuting is always negative, and provide a mechanism of how the negative effect can be reduced or even eliminated.…”

The effect of goal attainability on conserving regulatory resources

“…Often people are intending to attain multiple goals at one time (Masicampo & Baumeister, 2011a, 2011b. In such a situation, these multiple goals are likely to compete for limited regulatory resources (Marien, Custers, Hassin, & Aarts, 2012;Shah & Kruglanski, 2002).…”