The texts you’ve ignored, the vacation supplies you still need to order, the hard conversation you’ve been avoiding — repeatedly putting off such tasks because they feel too daunting may seem relatively harmless. But the constant mental hum of unfinished business may be more draining than you realize — like your laptop slowing and glitching because you have 90 browser tabs open.
Some people are waking up to that reality, sharing on social media and in podcasts their epiphanies about the countless open “loops” in their lives in need of closing. The buzzy phrase helps them more easily recognize and combat the habit.
As New Yorker Florence Friebe learned about open loops, she began to see the pattern in her own life — for example, via a hole in her jacket pocket that she kept neglecting to fix and remembered every time she dropped her keys or phone into it.
“I could really start seeing how many repetitive thoughts I was carrying, and how much space it was taking,” added Friebe, cohost of the podcast “2 Curly Haired Girls With ADHD” — referring not only to the effects of procrastinating on fixing her jacket pocket but also on cleaning and work tasks.
Psychologists who study procrastination say these people are right to address these issues.
