Do you ever feel like you have 15 different things you need to do? They are always there, like minor inconveniences. You make a list, the list never gets shorter. Your list of things simply doesn't go anywhere, you wake up tired and already feel like there are urgent unfinished tasks to complete.
They add stress to your day, keep you awake when you're trying to sleep or simply add anxiety to otherwise peaceful experiences.
These are known as 'open loops' — unresolved tasks taking up cognitive load.
"An open loop is an unresolved commitment or question occupying cognitive bandwidth, something your mind keeps revisiting because it lacks closure."
These are tasks that sit in your mind, replaying over and over again, and nagging at you, until they are done. You know you need to complete them. You know that they cause you anxiety and stress. You know you are procrastinating them.
Maybe its a fear for the delay or maybe simply inconvenient to deal with. The hard truth is that it is costing you more in time worrying about this perceived problem, than simply following up with solving the actual problem itself.
When you observe the bigger picture, its not just time management — its a philosophical problem. How do you prioritise what needs closure, effort and what can be left untouched?
Philosophy opens the door to finding answers in how to resolve it:
- Follow the Stoics — This involves accepting what is yours to control, vs what is simply a function of life itself. Some things will be outside your control and these can be dropped, while things you can control deserve more of your effort.
- Through Aristotelian Ethics — reflecting on a problem won't make it go away — taking direct action will. Motion over deliberation.
- Nietzsche — Transcendence of completion — Closure can be an illusion — embrace the opening of loops as a part of life itself. Tasks will come, go and re-appear. Things such as recurring work tasks are of this nature and are part of the job.
My personal approach is that of the Aristotelian way — direct action over deliberation. For months I delayed getting new glasses. Each week it sat on my list, too expensive, too inconvenient, maybe bad news.
Then I realised this was the perfect example of an open loop. It was mine to solve. So I walked to the shop, got checked, and left with relief and new frames on order.
My open loops review solved my problem for me in 3 steps:
- Identification — find the open loops — figure out which ones are causing the most bother and most easily solved.
- Categorisation — which open loops are the highest priority? Which can be solved in the shortest amount of time? Which ones give me the best outcome if solved sooner? All of these questions allow me to prioritise.
- Action — Identify action steps to resolve the open loop.
The goal is to free your head of the things you know you need to do. The open loop tracker isn't the solution, but a mirror. What have you been avoiding? When the loops become visible, half the stress is gone and some resemblance of control returns.
I built an Open Loops tracker inside Google Sheets to turn anxiety into action, but this can be built in any software, such as Notion or your notes app.
I like to prioritise them so I know what is most urgent or what does not need my full attention right now. Prioritising by difficulty makes it easy to understand what is going to be hard to achieve vs what can look like an easy win and can be discarded. Finally, I decide on a time factor — how long is it going to take. If something is urgent, easy to do and quick, I want to get rid of it.
If I am stressed, and I see a long list of high priority, hard and long tasks to complete, I know there is work to do and I can form an action plan for how to rectify it or break them down into smaller tasks.
Understanding open loops is an important factor in understanding stress and lifestyle management. Tracking and closing these is another method to gamify your life and achieve easy wins.
When you close an open loop, you are not just finishing a task, you are reclaiming a fragment of your own identity. The goal is not fewer loops, but to live more intentionally with those you do have.