Closing the Loops

By Kate Lemay, Founder of ETJ *

I shared with Christina the other day that I keep a folder filled with kind notes, recommendations, thank-you messages, and cards people have written to me over the years.

I have kept these for the hard days, that folder reminds me who I am when I need the reminder.

I’ve been saving those notes for almost my entire career. Whenever I feel discouraged, overwhelmed, or convinced that I’m falling short, I can open that folder and remember that there are people, stretching back decades, who have appreciated something I offered. A project, a conversation, a leadership moment, a helping hand, a class, a retreat, or simply showing up.

It doesn’t erase the hard day.

But it helps me remember that one difficult moment is not the whole story.

Lately I’ve been thinking about something related: open loops.

Maybe you’ve experienced this yourself. There are seasons when life is moving so fast that all you can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other. New responsibilities, requests, ideas, and problems arrive faster than you can process them. Things keep dropping into the bucket.

During those times, trying to “get caught up” is often impossible.

You’re living.

You’re serving.

You’re being present to what’s in front of you.

Eventually, though, a little pocket of space appears. And when it does, I’ve noticed that my first instinct is almost always the same: get everything out of my head and onto paper.

Not because I can finish it all.

Because I need to know where it is.

I need to see the landscape.

I need to understand what’s due, what matters, and what can wait.

The past 6 months have felt like this.

The budget is due.

There’s a board retreat.

There are meetings, reports, and preparations that need attention.

Wednesday became my recalibration day. Not a day to finish everything, but a day to organize everything. Clarify revenue assumptions. Prepare questions. Ask for help. Fill in missing pieces. Read reports. Create a clear path for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

In other words, close as many loops as possible.

Not because they are emergencies.

Because they consume energy every minute, they remain unresolved.

I discovered something interesting this week.

I came home one evening feeling stressed. The kitchen was messy. My suitcase wasn’t unpacked. I had a long list of things to do.
At first glance, all of it felt overwhelming.

So, I did something I’ve been practicing lately.

Instead of collapsing into bed, turning on a show, and filling my brain with more input, I went outside and lay down in my hammock.

I looked at my notes.

I talked things through.

I reflected.

I organized my thoughts.

And eventually I realized something important.

The kitchen wasn’t stressing me out.

The suitcase wasn’t stressing me out.

The budget wasn’t even stressing me out.

The thing creating the most anxiety was a stack of name tags for an upcoming retreat that were not made yet.

I didn’t know how to use the machine.

I wasn’t sure I had all the materials.

I knew it would take several hours.

And I knew that if I didn’t get it done that evening, I wouldn’t have the time the next day.

Once I identified the actual source of stress, the feeling changed.

The problem became visible.

The loop had a name.

And once something has a name, it becomes manageable.

That insight led me to a much bigger realization.

For years I’ve thought that many of my frustrations were about things outside of me.

Maybe I needed a different environment.

A different schedule.

A different system.

A different circumstance.

What I’m beginning to understand is that what I often needed wasn’t a different exterior life.

I needed a different relationship with the unfinished things inside my head.

Because open loops are not simply tasks.

They are promises.

Some are promises to organizations.

Some are promises to projects.

Some are promises to myself.

And many are promises to people.

The older I get, the more I realize that gratitude isn’t simply a feeling.

It’s a practice.

And like every practice, it requires time, attention, and bandwidth.

When my life is full of untracked commitments, half-finished projects, and hundreds of open loops spinning around in my head, gratitude is one of the first things to disappear. Not because I stop feeling grateful. Quite the opposite.

I see people doing extraordinary things every day.

I notice the staff member who stayed late.

The friend who checked in.

The volunteer who quietly carried a heavy load.

The family member who showed up.

The colleague who made something difficult easier.

The gratitude is there.

What’s often missing is the space to express it.

I’ve begun to realize that many of my efforts to close open loops are not really about becoming more organized. They’re about creating enough room in my mind and heart to be the person I want to be.

The person who writes the thank-you note.

The person who remembers the birthday.

The person who sends the card after the funeral.

The person who pauses long enough to say, “I see what you did there, and it mattered.”

Because leadership, at its best, is not about managing tasks.

It’s about noticing people.

And noticing people requires presence.

Maybe that’s why I’ve held onto that folder of kind notes for so many years. Those notes are reminders that someone once took the time to close a loop. They felt appreciation, and instead of keeping it to themselves, they expressed it.

What a gift.

Perhaps that is the real lesson of open loops.

Not that every task must be finished.

Not that every inbox must reach zero.

Not that every list must be conquered.

The goal is to create enough clarity that the important things don’t get buried beneath the urgent things.

Because in the end, the moments that matter most are rarely the reports we submitted, the budgets we completed, or the fires we extinguished.

They are the moments when another human being felt seen, valued, encouraged, thanked, remembered, or loved.

And if closing a few more loops creates more room for those moments, then that work is worth doing.

After all, a well-lived life may not be measured by how much we accomplished, but by how many people genuinely knew they mattered to us.

You matter to me. Thank you for being in my life 💕🙏🏽.

– Kate

 
Invitations:

• This week Christina Alexa contemplates, What Camp Gives Us, at Any Age.
• ETJ Retreater and Yogi, Cathi Cherry-Liston, shares deep insights : Am I Worthy of Making a Commitment to Myself?
• Early Bird Rate is extended for Camp Hi-Rock in MA, Oct 16 – 18! Join us for Clarity in MA!
• Win the Golden ticket! Join community in a FREE Sacred Sunday Yoga class, every week 8 – 8:40 am!