Open loops are ideas that linger in your mind, distracting you from fully focusing your attention on the task at hand. We know we have nothing on our mind when we are living in the [[Present moment]]. The benefit of [[Productivity apps]] is that we get to close open loops: - If we have something to do, we put it into our to do list inbox to deal with it later - If we come across an interesting article, we save it on our read-it-later app to dive into during our reading session - Instead of constantly checking the time to see when an event is, we put it into our calendar and go about our days until we get a notification - When we need to remember something for a project, we can just add it into a project note for us to revisit when we are working on it Having predetermined locations for these different intrusive thoughts offloads our cognitive load. We trust that where we put it will result in us attending to it when the time comes ([[Task Inbox Management]], [[Someday Maybe List]], etc) ## Application When your mind feels full, just write down what is on it, then move everything to its relevant part of your [[PKM System]]