A couple of years ago, a colleague invited me to be included in a database of trainers and consultants, an idea that many had posed but none had yet attempted on any significant level of scale. There was a lot of excitement around this idea, and ultimately, a lot of discussions, email, and time invested.
And then, nothing.
After a while, I wondered what had happened to the idea and reached out to the organizer. She explained that it had grown too big and that she was going to hand it off to someone else to finish. She would be notifying the group shortly.
She never did.
It was disappointing for a number of reasons, mostly because it was something that could have brought a lot of value both to the organizations looking for professional development support and to the people who could provide it, but also for the not insignificant amount of time that we all spent with the back and forth as it was ostensibly being put together. Time that ended up being wasted and completely unacknowledged. Just one big, unclosed loop.
A few years before that, two former coworkers asked me to be a board member for a non-profit they were starting. I was flattered and happy to support them, ultimately contributing quite a bit of time in doing so. After several months of meetings, emails, phone calls, and countless hours of work, communication stopped. Eventually, I reached out to see what was going on and they let me know that they decided not to go forward with it. No explanation and ostensibly, no plans to close the loop had I not reached out (several times, actually) to ask.
Somewhere in the middle of these two instances, I had answered a plea from a local church who was starting up a mentor program for adults trying to reenter the workforce. It was a true grassroots effort and one I was excited to support, which I did through countless meetings, phone calls, emails, and hours spent driving back and forth until after ~ a year, I stopped hearing from them. When I reached out to see what was going on, they let me know they did not have enough interest and decided not to continue the program, a decision they made without notifying their volunteers, or at least this one. Yet another giant unclosed loop.
In the world of creation, it is not uncommon for things to come and go. That is the nature of creation after all. But when other people are involved, leaving things- leaving people- hanging, wondering what is going on creates a lot of confusion and wastes time. Letting people know what is happening and when something is no longer happening saves a lot of that time and prevents a lot of that confusion. But even before getting to that point, having a level of thoughtfulness around the amount of time you are asking of other people who are giving of it freely is important. Before asking people to give so much of their time, we need to do the best we can to ensure that we are doing all we can to be respectful and careful with it. Should something happen along the way, it is our responsibility to let people know. Simply ceasing communication or worse still, outright ignoring it is inexcusable, yet it does not appear to be all that uncommon. What is with the professional ghosting?
This does not just happen in the world of creation, of course. This shows up all over the professional world. It is particularly egregious when it comes to job searching and hiring. Both sides- increasingly so on the job searching one- stop communicating at varying points throughout the hiring process leaving multiple loops open. Job searchers bemoan not hearing back as they apply for hundreds if not thousands of positions in a tough market while employers complain about job seekers ghosting them even so far as not showing up on the first day after being hired, each blaming the other for failing to close the loop on expected communication.
Once hired, staff at every organizational level are constantly left waiting to hear back from people within and outside of their workplace trying desperately to close one of several open loops.
Contractors wonder how many more attempts they should make to get a definitive answer on whether they will be hired. Or how many more times they need to ask for payment before they take further action. (But what?)
These are just some examples of what I am sure are many, several of which you have undoubtedly experienced yourself.
As both a part-time employee and a full-time small business owner, I am forever juggling multiple clients and contracts and am always trying to close the many open loops that get in the way of the work getting done. My calendar and my daily to-do list are filled with items marked f/u for “follow up” on the various items that need following up on. In a not very scientific system, I make notes on how many days I want to wait to follow up on emails that were promised to be returned, payments that were contractually obligated to be made, documents that were mutually agreed upon to be sent… the list goes on and on.
Everybody is inundated with emails. Everybody is busy. And we make it so much worse by failing to close these open loops, because our emails increase and we get busier by having to constantly follow up on items that should have but were not completed in the first place. By constantly having to wait on other people before we can do the work that needs to be done. All these open loops that should be closed are negatively impacting what we are trying to do.
When it comes to closing open loops, there is no one right way to do it. Like all strategies and tools around efficiency and time management, there are a lot of options to choose from and some that will work better for you than others.
A lot of what would make it better is out of our control of course. We are overworked in many cases, and a lot that should and could make it better is outside of our hands. We can only do what we can do within all of that. It does not make it all right, but it does not completely absolve us either. We can still do the part that we can do.
The systems I use are admittedly simple and they work for me. They may or may not work for you. But hopefully they spark some ideas for you to think about what might work for you when it comes to what loops you are leaving open and how you can start closing them for yourself and those around you to make your work for efficient and effective.
- Being upfront about timelines.
Whether it is hiring, payment, a deadline, or a response to an email, people like to know what to expect and when to expect it. You can save both of you a lot of back and forth by being clear and upfront about your timeline regarding when you will get back to someone with something. And then of course, sticking to it.
- Using your calendar to keep track of what you have promised.
As soon as you set that date, you need to be able to track it. My simple system is to put it on my online calendar and then on my written to-do list (which I keep in a daily, weekly, and monthly format). There are lots of other higher tech options here which come with reminders that you can set to your preference. I also like to keep my inbox clean and only keep those messages that have items that have remaining open loops. Once the loops are closed, I then delete or move the messages to their appropriate folders.
- Letting people know ahead of time when information changes.
Each week I look ahead to the following week and then the following month to see what deadlines are upcoming and see if I am on track. If I know there is a deadline that I am not going to be able to make, I let the other person know with as much notice as possible. Too many times, I have been on the receiving end (and continue to be) of deadlines coming and going without receiving the email, item or payment that was expected, with no communication whatsoever that I would not be receiving it. This puts the burden on me to reach out to inquire about what is going on and when I can expect to receive the item that I should have received in the first place. This is egregious in all cases and especially so when it comes to payment, which continues to happen with a frequency that defies my understanding.
It is your responsibility to follow through on your promises, commitments, agreements, and contractual obligations. If something prevents you from doing so, it is your obligation to let people know with as much notice as possible that you will not be able to meet the agreed upon deadline, what the new deadline will be, and how you plan to make it right.
None of us works completely alone. We all rely on one another to be able to get our work done. When we fail to close the loop on something, this impacts those around us, sometimes in merely annoying ways, but often in significant and damaging ones. Ultimately, it is our clients who suffer because our time and energy are taken away from them when we must invest our time and energy into trying to close loops that are left open by other people who choose not to close them. We all need to do better to do what we say we are going to do and communicate when circumstances change. Doing the work more efficiently helps us do the work more effectively and ultimately with more impact.
