30 Open Loops and Zero Work

Happy Sunday!

The Open Loops

I realized last month that I've been carrying around 30 things in my head that have nothing to do with running 11 Agency.

Protein bars I keep forgetting to reorder.
A dentist appointment I haven't scheduled since moving to NYC.
Buying paper towels at 11 PM on a Tuesday because I ran out again.

None of these take more than two minutes individually.

But stacked across a week, they become this low-grade hum in the back of your brain that never shuts off.

I started calling them open loops because that's exactly what they are.

They stay open.

You think about them at random moments, feel a tiny spike of guilt, and then move on to something else without actually doing anything.

The Number

So I tracked my time for two weeks.

I wanted to know how much of my day was going toward actual work versus everything else.

Not hard things. Not strategic things. Buying stuff, scheduling stuff, researching stuff that any human with a browser could handle.

That number didn't just surprise me.

It kind of broke something in my brain.

Because I'd been telling myself these were quick, painless tasks that barely counted.

Turns out they counted for an entire workday every single week.

The Delegation Trap

I'd tried assigning this stuff to my EA before.

But creating the task card, writing out "here's what I need, here's the link, get the 12-pack not the 6-pack" took more time than just doing the thing myself.

So the tasks pile up and you're back to carrying 30 open loops.

The System

That's when I decided to build around the friction instead of pushing through it.

I built a system where I just talk to my Telegram bot using Wispr Flow.

"Order more protein bars, schedule a dentist for next Thursday, look into standing desks."

Claude takes what I said, categorizes it, creates the task, and assigns it to my EA automatically.

I don't lift a finger.

Whenever I have a thought or know I need to do something, I just talk.

My EA buys, researches, and handles things on my behalf without me ever writing a task card or opening a project board.

The friction went to zero.

The Result

The system took a weekend to build.

It saves me hours every week.

But the real win isn't the time.

It's the quiet in my head where those 30 open loops used to live.

If you have a bunch of random stuff floating around taking up space, track it for a week.

The number will probably surprise you the same way it surprised me.

Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

- Raymond

P.S. Track your hours — you're probably wasting time on non-high-leverage stuff.