Individually, they seem harmless, but together they can stress you out and give you a sense that the underlying theme of your life is best described as “controlled chaos.” Remember the first picture? Compare it to this one, which is what happens when you “float” too many decisions. These open loops are not balloons floating above us, they are more like small anchors that weigh on our shoulders. I believe David Allen calls them “open loops” because they’re unresolved parts of our life. The problem with unaddressed ideas and unmade decisions is that they don’t exactly “float” up there. To an outsider, the person would seem crazy to think, “I should find one go-to place to write my ideas down” and then do nothing, only to have the same exact thought a week later. In that moment, though, the person is more than happy to “bounce” that idea back up into the air to float.įloating decisions are what create backlogs, so the first step in getting organized is to nail down those floating decisions.įloated decision: “Let me think about that for a while.” *proceeds to not think about it* If we were to grab a random human and examine their mind and life, we’d be aliens find a lot of needless repetitive thoughts and ideas. Given life’s 800 trillion variables, well, the math doesn’t work out favorably for us. It really doesn’t take much to overwhelm a person: studies have found our minds can only hold a few things at a time. Organization means having a system to organize your life through, but a backlog can prevent us from having a system, because we’re overwhelmed with what needed to be done yesterday. This is what an organized mind feels like. How to organize your life: it’s more important to be decisive than to find the perfect system.
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