The Hidden Stress of Unfinished Business: Why Incomplete Tasks Are a Mental Burden and 7 Ways to Deal With Them

This article is a shortened excerpt from my upcoming book, Mastering Flow.

"Mind Like Water: A mental and emotional state in which your head is clear, able to create and respond freely, unencumbered with distractions and split focus." —David Allen

As human beings, we seem equipped with an innate need for completion. When things are complete, they are done and in the past. We can stop thinking about them. We can move on. We feel relaxed and at ease. When things are unfinished, they beg for completion. They continue to occupy mental real estate. They nag us. They put us in a state of subtle tension and unease.

The problem with unfinished tasks is that they can be a considerable source of stress, anxiety, and overwhelm. Thoughts about unfinished tasks also have the tendency to distract us from what we’re doing and can thus harm performance. You’ve no doubt experienced this yourself: You’re focusing on the task in front of you when all of a sudden a thought about something entirely different intrudes and captures your attention. Instead of concentrating on the task, you’re now thinking about something else. The mind has wandered off, and your performance has just taken a hit.

In general, it seems to be the case that the more unfinished tasks and projects we have allowed to pile up, the more likely we are to suffer from stress, overwhelm, difficulty concentrating, and so on.

An Experiment That Illustrates the Point

In a 2011 experiment, a group of social psychologists asked participants to think of two important tasks or errands (e.g., completing homework assignments, studying for exams, going grocery shopping, doing laundry, or attending doctor’s appointments) they needed to complete in the next few days. In a control group, participants were asked to describe two important tasks they had completed in the last several days.

All participants then performed a reading comprehension task in which they read the first 3,200 words of a popular novel. They were told that they would later answer questions about the plot. They were also told to focus all of their attention on the task but that it was normal if they zoned out from time to time. During reading, participants were interrupted four times and asked, “Prior to the appearance of this screen, was your attention on- or off-task?” One response option stated, “I was reading the text and was very much paying attention to the story.” A second response stated, “I was reading the text, but my attention was elsewhere.” The goal was to measure participants’ rate of mind wandering or task-irrelevant thinking.

After the reading, participants indicated on scales from 1 (not at all) to 7 (very) how well they were able to focus on the story and to what extent they were distracted by thoughts of the tasks they had written about earlier. Participants also answered eight reading comprehension questions.

Results? Participants in the unfulfilled tasks group reported being significantly more distracted by intrusive thoughts than participants in the control group. Their attention wandered significantly more often from the story. They also performed worse on the reading comprehension assignment: they answered significantly fewer questions correctly than did participants in the control group.

In the words of the researchers: “Participants who reflected on two important but unfinished tasks were distracted during a later attempt to read a novel. They were more bothered by intrusive thoughts of their incomplete tasks than were control participants, and their reading comprehension suffered as a result.”

7 Tips for Reducing and Dealing With Unfinished Tasks

Here are some quick tips for reducing and dealing with unfinished tasks. If you’d like more details, check out chapter 16 – Mind Like Water – in Mastering Flow.

1. Don’t Take on too Much. The more you take on, the more incomplete tasks are likely to pile up, and the more likely you are to suffer from stress, overwhelm, and distraction. If you want to experience greater focus and peace of mind, stop burdening yourself with an endless array of tasks and projects. Do less but better. Learn to say no. Go all in on the few projects you’re truly excited about and ruthlessly eliminate the rest. Take your time and be very deliberate when committing to new endeavors.
2. Finish. Finish. Finish. Do you often switch tasks when you feel stuck, frustrated, bored, or otherwise uncomfortable? Do you jump into new projects instead of finishing old ones because the new ones feel easier and more exciting? If you want to reduce the issues associated with unfinished tasks, you need to become disciplined about finishing. You need to stop jumping ship at first sight of difficulty – you need to stay with tasks and projects, even when the going gets tough. Complete things and get them off your mind. Find joy in finishing.
3. End Smartly. At the end of the workday, don’t begin anything new unless you’re sure you can finish it. Instead, use the last 30-60 minutes to get on top of things. Tackle any small tasks that have piled up over the day. Check your upcoming calendar. Review your to-do list. Get an overview of what’s been done and what’s coming. Clean up and declutter your workspace. Plan the next day. The idea here is to empty your head before leaving work so you can detach from your job and move into your free time with a clear and relatively unencumbered mind.
4. Shield Yourself from Interruptions. Interruptions, whether face-to-face, through emails, or phone calls, initiated by colleagues, supervisors, subordinates, or clients, are ubiquitous in many of today’s workplaces. The problem is that interruptions often cause us to leave tasks unfinished. The more frequently we get interrupted, the more unfinished tasks tend to pile up, and the stronger the detrimental effects of unfinished tasks become. It is, therefore, advisable to shield yourself from interruptions as best you can. You may do this by disabling notifications, turning off your phone, setting expectations with your co-workers, scheduling dedicated email time, and so on.
5. Implement a GYLIO Practice. Your mind isn’t just preoccupied with all the incomplete tasks and projects from work. It’s also stressed out about the unpaid bills, the dirty laundry, the defective dishwasher, and the long overdue doctor appointment that should be scheduled. Mundane chores have the tendency to pile up and contribute to distractedness and the background feeling of overwhelm. One way to reduce this nag is by implementing a so-called GYLIO practice: an hour, morning, day, or even a full week dedicated to “Getting Your Life in Order.” It’s about taking care of a large number of chores and other unfinished tasks in order to clear your mind and free up mental space.
6. Adopt the GTD system. In my opinion, the best method for dealing with the issues of unfinished tasks is by adopting the Getting Things Done (GTD) productivity system developed by David Allen and explained in his book with the same title. GTD is a sophisticated set of tools and principles designed to help you arrive at a state called mind like water, which Allen defines as “a mental and emotional state in which your head is clear, able to create and respond freely, unencumbered with distractions and split focus.” If you want to learn more about GTD, David Allen’s book Getting Things Done is the ideal place to start. It explains the system in detail and shows you step-by-step how to implement it.
7. Use the 2-Minute Rule. Invented by David Allen, the 2-minute rule states that if an action takes less than two minutes to complete, it should be done immediately. Instead of filling your mind or to-do list with an endless supply of small tasks, get in the habit of tackling small things the instant they appear. It’s a simple and elegant way to keep the number of unfinished tasks low and to prevent things from clogging up your mental machinery. Greater mental clarity, peace of mind, and focus are the result.

Keeping the number of unfinished tasks in check isn’t easy. It takes awareness, discipline, and a set of tools and routines. The effort can be considerable. But when it comes to peace of mind, that effort is well worth it. Life is a lot more enjoyable when the mind is clear rather than encumbered by a gazillion nagging and distracting thoughts.

If we want to feel and perform better, we’re well advised to follow naturalist and philosopher Henry David Thoreau’s advice:

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.” —Henry David Thoreau

This article is a shortened excerpt from my upcoming book, Mastering Flow. If you want to be notified when the book is available, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter.