My Brain is Not a Costco

Full Loop Closure

I get a lot of mileage out of how much I hate Costco. It’s been a matter of years since I set foot inside of one, and no number of discounted sheet cakes and rotisserie chickens is going to get me back in there. Because that store might be full of great deals, but it’s even more full of options.

Wait! There’s only two kinds of butter at Costco, you tell me, whereas at the smaller grocery stores, there’s thirty options for butter—thirty!  Maybe. But at all the other stores I don’t have to also decide if I want new flooring or a shredder or another Christmas tree or a car. Also, I can depend on the neighborhood grocery store not to rotate the inventory every few weeks. The floorplan at the grocery store near my parents’ house has changed once since I was four years old. I guess it changed again when the city made it legal for grocery stores to sell wine, but that was mostly a “shoving things to the side” change. At Costco, you don’t know where the popcorn is going to be this week. It’s an evil genius plot to make you walk down every single aisle with your giant cart that somehow already has $250 worth of items in it and children smeared in free samples who want to go home and all you can think is, “I actually don’t know how to get out of this store, or if popcorn ever existed in the first place.”

pretty much counts as a haunted house for me

You must make a thousand decisions before you walk out of a Costco. It’s a really big loop to close. And that means I should just stay out of them forever and ever, amen.

Jonny listens to Cal Newport’s podcast enough for my daughter to have learned the phrase, “Full Loop Closure.” And when Newport and whoever his friend is who also sits in on that podcast—does anyone do a podcast without a friend anymore, like they’re just talking to themselves in the corner of a room, or is that completely out of fashion now? It’s done? Okay. Bummer.

Newport and his friend Someone talk about a lot of different strategies to get work done. Newport writes and speaks about distraction, so that is typically the direction of the conversation—how can I give myself time to focus under x or y circumstance? And one of the inhibiting factors to getting real work done is how likely a person is to leave decisions and tasks “open.” Full loop closure is not completing the whole task—it’s getting the task to the place where you can stop thinking about it. For example, if I need to buy printer ink, full loop closure means adding printer ink to my cart on the Wal-mart app. Then I can stop thinking about it—then I don’t wind up thinking about printer ink while I’m in the middle of vacuuming, and then wander away to do something about it while the vacuum’s still out. And that’s how the vacuum got stolen by the toddlers again.

This is why email inboxes are these cesspools of doom for anyone who has a hard time focusing. It’s like a Costco in there. You have no idea what’s down that first aisle, everything is linked to a bunch of different tasks, and there are a bunch of distracting advertisements that say “free” but mean “come buy more of this.” Why haven’t I unsubscribed from Jimmy John’s emails? I DON’T KNOW. Maybe I don’t want them to be mad at me.

It’s easy to see how achieving full loop closure is difficult for someone who is trying to make dinner and run the laundry while taking care of a bunch of babies. So many interruptions. So many places the loop can break. But, even for those of us who are bad at it because 1. we’re distractible and/or 2. we’re surrounded by tiny humans who need help with survival, it’s still a helpful concept. For example, if I feed the baby a banana, the consequence of not doing “Full Loop Closure” is this sticky gray substance that gets everywhere. Banana remnant is gross, but our babies typically love bananas and are willing to sit there and eat them, so, it’s worth my while. But I should follow the loop—get a washcloth wet and put it at the table, get a bib, buckle the baby down, peel the banana, let the baby destroy it, take away the tray, wipe down the baby’s hands and face and hair and feet (yup, feet), release monster back into the wild.

The banana loop isn’t a very long one. But I think with any loop, especially the ones it’s hard to close, it’s fascinating to look at all the steps. What am I leaving open?

Of course, not everywhere is Costco, because God is merciful. There’s this one restaurant, it’s been in California for a long time, but we just got several in my city. This promised land goes by “In ‘n’ Out Burger.” It’s such an enormous relief to walk in there and have next to zero options. The big burger or the small one? With or without cheese? The loop is so very tiny and beautiful and efficient. I’ve been trying to make my own life more like an In ‘n’ Out and less like a Costco. And I suppose I’ll be doing that noble work until the day that Jimmy Johns stops sending me emails.

Gaudete Giveaway!

I’m writing my second annual Ask-Me-Anything post (here’s the 2024 AMA). An essential part of this process is bribing you to ask me questions. I ordered these 12 gorgeous Saint polaroids from January Jane, and I will send them to one lucky reader of this fine publication in time for Gaudete Sunday (the third Sunday of Advent, December 15th this year). All you have to do to enter the giveaway is… ask me anything! (and be willing to give me a valid mailing address if you win). Here’s why you should care about the polaroids: they will up your Christmas game. There are 12 pictures, which you could give as a gift to one person—OR you could use them as tags for gifts, OR you could stick them inside of books that you’re already giving away, OR you could use them as Christmas ornaments on your tree. All the things.

So ask away! Literally any question. I’ve already been asked what my favorite cut of steak is, though, so that base is covered. Ask me a question by commenting, replying to this email, sending me a message, texting me, asking me in person, sending a carrier pigeon, etcetera. I’ll be accepting questions through the end of November. All questions will be kept anonymous, and I’ll answer three-ish of them in my first post of 2025.