365

29 - Getting things done: Managing open loops

There are times when our head feels like a hanging computer, when it keeps processing and gets hot without producing any noticeable results. Usually, this is caused by having too many commitments. However, I noticed that even a small number of tasks can get your head spinning if you leave them as open loops, meaning we keep those tasks vague and constantly in our head. They remind us that we need to do "something", without clarifying when, where, and how to do that "something". David Allen in Getting Things Done argued that these open loops, not the amount of work that we have, are the root cause of stress, restlessness, and lack of productivity . Therefore, to be happy and productive, we need to empty open loops from our mind into an external system that our mind trusts, so that it can focus on activities in the world. The purpose of Getting Things Done is providing this external system for managing open loops.

Management of open loops requires four following activities:

-Collecting any open loop from the mind into a "bucket" outside, which we are absolutely confident that we will come back regularly and sort it out.

-Clarifying outcomes that we expect to see in different aspects and commitments of our life.

-Clarifying actions to achieve identified outcomes.

-Keeping reminders of identified actions and reviewing them regularly.

Management is carried out on two axes: horizontal and vertical. Horizontal control denotes the collection and monitor of all actions, projects, and reference materials across all aspects and area of responsibility of our life. Vertical control denotes the decomposition of individual project to break it down to concrete actions, according to its motivation and visioned outcome.

In the next part, we will discuss horizontal control.