Closing Loops
They drain you more than you may think
If you’ve ever checked how many open apps are running in the background on your phone (I counted 52 just recently, before I closed them all with a vengeance), you’ll appreciate that if these apps are set to continuously sync, they suck the living daylights out of your battery.
In other words, they’re a constant loop of hungry gremlins eating your battery from the inside out.
And it’s no different for us.
***
For us, these open-app gremlins are called cognitive drag, and they drain our mental batteries too.
They’re driven by our brains innate survival impulse to stop us forgetting something important. Our brains are exceptional at keeping unfinished thoughts active, even when we’re doing something else.
When these unfinished thoughts build up, they loop like unresolved alerts, flashing that “something needs to be done”. The more alerts we have, the more anxiety permeates, the more trickles of stress drip in the background, the more restless and distracted we become.
Loops can become vicious cycles; emails you’ve been pondering replies for, conversations you need to have, tickets you need to book, errands you need to run, conflicts you need to address. They all add up, and they don’t go away.
In fact, some people argue it’s not the work you’re doing right now that’s causing you the stress or angst, it’s the work you’re not doing; the endless open loops you have playing in your mind.
I can concur.
***
One of the best techniques I’ve used is to capture and write down those loops. It’s not a to-do list as such, but a weekly background app-check on the unresolved stories your mind is playing over and over and over.
This week, give it a try; even if it’s one loop that’s been rattling in your mind; write it down, and close it.
I closed one just before writing this Jolt.
I have a significant project that I need to initiate, and the entire why, how, what and when of that project has been a constant loop, running pretty much 24/7 in my head.
When I thought about it in the context of it being a drain on my energy, I realized it had been punctuating my thoughts non-stop - even at dinner last night - and taking up far more air than it needed to.
So I wrote it all down, built a plan, and now that loop is closed. The project isn’t done, but the chatter is.
1-0 to me.
It was quite the liberation.