Tasks are, we hope, pretty straightforward:

1. Identify a thing that might need doing.
2. Try very hard not to do it, to get someone else to do it, or to put it off until it actually needs to be done. Failing that: do it.
3. End of list.

We hope it’s that simple, but curiously, there are other people. Those other people can create delays and uncertainty. Those delays and uncertainty add up to stress and worry. I learned from Getting Things Done to call these back-and-forth exchanges open loops.

When you run into an open loop, progress on a task stops. A step is blocked. You have to wait for someone to do something, such as reply to an email, approve a request, text you information, or even have a real-time conversation with you. On the phone. Like it’s the 20th century or something! And then you might have to check in with them. More than once. Sigh. Open loops add stress and worry because you don’t know when you’ll be able to close the loop. They add annoyance because they are obstacles to completing the task, celebrating the achievement, then forgetting about it forever. They cost you energy because you have to remember to tend to them, worry about when you can close them, and maybe even formulate strategies for jolting others so that they get out of your path sooner. Open loops are rarely fun.

And even when open loops are mostly painless, they still cost us something. We still have to tend to them. We need to remember to check on them. We need to follow up. And we might run the risk of feeling bad about ourselves because of nonsense Grindset attitudes such as those people are successful because they relentlessly follow up in a way that the rest of the world is too lazy to do.

Sigh. No.

Well, maybe, but also no.

Grindset? Hustle? No. Build a System.

You don’t need to engage in hustlemaxxing or grindset or whatever insane thing people call it these days, but you need a system for tending to open loops. Letting open loops consume your energy isn’t (necessarily) about laziness. Sometimes it’s about stuckness and you can learn to unstick yourself. Moreover, this is exactly the kind of thing that Getting Things Done will teach you. You build a system for tending to open loops that combines reminders, Next Action lists, and contexts. Building a system to manage open loops creates the one key ingredient to success that many folks don’t see coming: confidence that your open loops will not fall through the cracks, resulting in the kind of deep calm that makes it even easier to tend to the open loops when you need to.

This is one of The Real Powers of GTD^TM. (And yes, I intend to write about more of them, so check out The Real Power of Getting Things Done from time to time for more articles. Oh, great! You get to practise managing an open loop!)

The power lies not in the specific tools that you use, but in how good it feels once you learn to trust those tools. It’s like when people talk about not selling drills, but “selling holes”. And not even selling the holes, but selling the feeling of satisfaction from hanging something on the wall on the hook in that hole. The joy of looking at the painting or photo or whatever else hangs on that wall once you use the drill to make the hole to insert the hook on which that thing hangs. That, they claim, is a compelling sales pitch that actually makes people buy.

Similarly, GTD doesn’t merely teach you to set up reminders and build habits to check in and write things down so that you won’t forget. In fact, as I’ve written elsewhere, GTD helps you learn how to forget safely. In particular, you learn to forget your open loops until you actually need to tend to them or you can finally proceed with your task. When you can safely forget your open loops, then they can’t hurt you until you actually need to deal with them. Over time, the overall feeling of weight, of uncertainty, of stress, of worry… these things melt away (at least as much as they likely ever will).

And when you practise not worrying about these open loops, that feeling of calm begins a virtuous cycle. The calmer you feel, the more effectively you handle your open loops. The more effectively you handle your open loops, the calmer you feel.

If you’ve resisted Getting Things Done, because you’re afraid of too many to-do lists and about all the time and effort it takes to build new habits, consider how good it would feel to drive the pain of your open loops as close to zero as your nervous system would allow. Think of what you would do with the reclaimed energy. Think of the feeling of satisfaction of not giving those painful blockers even one more drop of your sweat and tears than you absolutely have to.

Intrigued? Start here. And in a moment of weakness, when it seems like GTD might not be worth the effort, read this before you give up. You can do this.

Uh… Tools?

Yes, of course! I manage my open loops using a combination of these tools:

• Todoist. I actually set reminders on tasks! I also live in the Today/Upcoming views to notice open loops that need tending.
• followupthen.com (automated follow-up emails). Learn the difference between BCC (remind me to follow up) and CC (follow up directly with them).
• “Schedule Send” on emails as well as SMS/text messages, so that I can get things out of my head sooner. (Another kind of safely forgetting.)
• Google Calendar tasks, events, and reminders.
• Persistent push notifications but with no notification sound, so that I see the notifications when I look at my phone, but they don’t demand my immediate attention. Very few open loops are urgent enough to demand immediate attention.