The Open Loop Problem

You finally finish planning tomorrow’s lesson. The copies are made. The slides are done. You answered the parent emails sitting in your inbox and submitted the spreadsheet that was due by the end of the day. You should feel relieved, but your body still feels tense.

Your brain keeps circling back to unfinished thoughts while you drive home. You replay a conversation with your administrator for the fifth time trying to figure out whether it went badly. You suddenly remember a student interaction from third period and wonder if you handled it wrong. You open your laptop “just for a second” to double check something and somehow lose another hour. You wake up at 3 a.m. thinking about a meeting that is still two days away.

Your nervous system does not believe the day is over.

Last week I wrote about invisible work: the hidden mental labor teachers carry when they are constantly expected to interpret, manage, and navigate things that were never clearly defined. That post focused on the system itself and the invisible labor it creates.

Open loops are different. Open loops are what happen inside the brain after unresolved uncertainty gets activated. Where invisible work names the hidden labor, open loops name the unresolved mental activation that results from that labor. Think about it like the sore muscles you get after lifting weights. 

The brain keeps scanning for completion. When something feels unfinished, uncertain, emotionally unresolved, or potentially threatening, part of your attention stays attached to it in the background. The loop stays psychologically open because your nervous system has not registered the situation as complete or safe to release. The constant scanning and circling is exhausting. 

Some loops are concrete: Did I submit the paperwork?

But many of the most draining loops teachers carry are emotional and cognitive:

• Did that parent think I was dismissive?
• Am I doing enough?
• Is this situation actually resolved?
• Did I misunderstand what they wanted?
• What happens if this becomes a problem later?

The brain does not distinguish very well between concrete unfinished tasks and emotionally unresolved uncertainty. Both stay mentally active. Both continue pulling attention in the background. Even while you are making dinner, watching Netflix, or trying to sleep, your brain keeps lightly revisiting the unresolved loop looking for closure.

Many teachers respond to this exhaustion by trying to work harder. The assumption is that if they just prepare more thoroughly, think further ahead, answer faster, or organize better, the anxiety will finally settle down. The extra effort might help a little bit, especially with concrete work, but it won’t be enough to close the loops on its own because open loops aren’t a normal workload problem. Because they’re usually running in the background, you’re probably not even fully aware that they’re there. 

Many teachers live in a near constant state of partial mental activation. The nervous system never fully powers down because too many loops remain psychologically open at the same time. Over time, this creates emotional fatigue, difficulty concentrating, irritability, sleep disruption, decision fatigue, and the strange experience of feeling tired while also feeling unable to fully rest.

The goal is not eliminating every open loop. That is impossible in teaching. The goal is learning how to stop every unresolved question from having unlimited access to your nervous system.

A Simple Way to Reduce Open Loops

One thing that helps is learning to stop treating every unresolved concern like it deserves unlimited mental access to your nervous system.

I use a simple framework:

1. Name the Loop

Vague anxiety keeps the brain scanning. Specificity helps reduce mental noise.

Instead of: Everything feels overwhelming.

Try: I am worried I misunderstood the expectations for small group instruction.

2. Prioritize the Loop

Not every unresolved concern is an emergency. Some require action now. Some require information later. Some are simply emotional discomfort around uncertainty.

3. Contain the Loop

Uncontained loops spread into every part of life. Containment means deciding when and how you will engage with a concern instead of mentally rehearsing it all day long.

The next time you go home and you feel like your brain won’t stop humming, sit down and focus on the open loops running in your head. Go through the process of naming, prioritizing, and containing and see if that helps calm your mind enough to relax and disconnect from school. 

I would love to hear how this works for you! Please comment or email me and let me know.