THE HANGOVER EFFECT No matter how much we think we’re in control, our brains have their own agenda. Let’s say you’re working on a writing project in the morning and—for the sake of variety—you decide to leave it unfinished and work on a creative brief in the afternoon. This may seem like a harmless change of pace, but research has shown that the unfinished morning task could linger in your mind like a mental itch, adversely affecting your performance later on—an effect that psychologists call “attentional residue”.
