(2021-08-06) Matuschak Inboxes And Open Loops

Andy Matuschak says Close open loops | Inboxes only work if you trust how they’re drained | Triage strategies for maintaining inboxes (e.g. Inbox Zero) are often too brittle | Software interfaces often harmfully frame destructive operations as final decisions, not contingent preferences.

Tasks left undone, observations left unrecorded, replies yet to be written—these swirl about our minds, as if we’re rehearsing them over and over again to make sure they’re not forgotten. To get rid of this nagging and create a “mind like water” (to use the term in David Allen, 2015), build systems to reliably close these open loops.

For instance: for operational to-dos, this means (Allen, 2015): You should be able to record a task anywhere; You regularly drain tasks from this list; You regularly delegate, refactor, or delete tasks which you can’t prioritize.

Ubiquitous capture isn’t enough, as most to-do systems demonstrate. If you don’t regularly review your to-do list and decide to delete or re-strategize lingering tasks, you won’t be able to trust that you’ll follow up on tasks you record.