Guides

What are open loops, and how do you close them?

Updated

Short answer: An open loop is anything you’ve committed to, or are waiting on, that isn’t done and isn’t written down anywhere you trust: a reply you owe, a promise from a meeting, an answer you’re waiting for. You close one in one of three ways: do it, decide not to and say so, or write down the next step and when, in one list you look at every day.

The term comes from David Allen’s Getting Things Done, where an open loop is any commitment, big or small, that your mind is still holding because you haven’t decided what it means or what to do about it. At work, most of them involve someone else: the person you said you’d send the deck to, the colleague you asked for a number, the customer waiting on an answer.

What counts as an open loop

Newsletters, FYIs and threads you’re copied on aren’t open loops: nobody is waiting on you. Keeping them out of the list is half of keeping it short.

Why open loops nag at you

The usual explanation is the Zeigarnik effect, the 1927 finding that people remember unfinished tasks better than finished ones. It holds up less well than its fame suggests: a 2025 review of the studies since found no memory advantage, only that people tend to go back to what was interrupted.

The better evidence is about what unfinished goals do to everything else. In a 2011 study, E. J. Masicampo and Roy Baumeister found that an unfinished goal kept intruding on people’s thoughts during unrelated work and made them worse at it, and that writing a specific plan for the goal removed the effect, before any of the work was done. You don’t have to finish a loop to quiet it. You have to decide its next step and when.

Three ways to close one

  1. Do it, if it takes two minutes. Answering takes less time than tracking.
  2. Decide not to, and tell the person: “I can’t take this on this month.” A clear no closes the loop for both of you.
  3. Write down the next step and when, somewhere you’ll look: “Send Priya the checklist, Thursday.” A vague “deal with Priya” stays open in your head. GTD adds one step before it: decide what done looks like.

Keep one list, not five

Open loops end up scattered: starred emails, saved Slack messages, a notes app, action items in last week’s meeting notes. Scattered loops are as good as unwritten, because you never look at all of them at once. Keep one list, put first whoever is blocked on you, and look at it at the same times every day.

An open-loop list on a Tuesday

Owe Priya: the onboarding checklist (Thursday) Owe Sam: an answer on the offsite budget Waiting on Jordan: the signed redlines (asked Monday) Waiting on Maya: the hiring plan (she said Friday)

Close it out loud

A loop is only closed for the other person when they know it is. “Here’s the checklist we talked about” takes one line, and it’s often what people remember about working with you.

Questions people ask

What’s the difference between an open loop and a to-do?

A to-do is one way to close an open loop: writing down the next step. The loop is the commitment itself, and it stays open in your head until it’s done, declined, or written down somewhere you trust.

Is an open loop the same as the Zeigarnik effect?

No. An open loop is an unfinished commitment. The Zeigarnik effect is the claim that unfinished tasks are remembered better than finished ones, which a 2025 review of the research found little support for. What holds up better is that an unfinished goal intrudes on other work until you plan its next step.

What app tracks open loops for you?

Most task apps hold the loops you write down. Lowtide finds them on its own, from Gmail, Slack and your meeting notes, and closes each one when it’s done.

Sources

What this guide says about other products and research comes from these sources, checked on the date above.