How Many Open Tabs Are Taking Up Space in Your Head Right Now?
Last week I asked you to notice three things: your patterns, your focus, and underneath both — your energy.
This week, let’s start with the one that never seems to clock out: your mental energy.
Here’s what I mean. It’s not just “are you tired.” It’s how many tabs you’re running at once. The decision about the client proposal, sitting next to the decision about dinner, sitting next to the thing your business partner said that you’re still turning over, sitting next to the fifteen small choices you’ll make before 9am without even noticing you made them.
None of those tabs close on their own. They just pile up — sitting next to having planned to wear one thing, but realizing the day is more humid than you thought, and now you need to find something else to wear (who can relate?!).
And here’s the thing about September specifically — it doesn’t just add new tabs. It reopens old ones. The goals you set in January. The plan you meant to revisit at the mid-year mark and didn’t. The idea you tabled in June because summer got in the way, that’s suddenly due for a decision again.
So it’s not one kind of mental load in September. It’s two — what’s actually on your plate right now, and the audit of everything you told yourself you’d get to “after summer.”
No wonder September feels loud.
Mental energy isn’t about how smart you are or how much you can hold. It’s about how much you’re holding that doesn’t need to be yours to hold.
That distinction matters, because most advice about mental clutter tells you to do more — more systems, more journaling, more planning frameworks to organize the noise. And sure, some of that helps. But I think the more honest question is simpler:
What’s feeding your mental energy right now — and what’s just…occupying it?
Feeding looks like: clarity on your actual priorities. A decision made and left alone. A boundary that means you’re not re-litigating the same choice every day.
Occupying looks like: decisions you’re re-making on repeat because you never actually closed them. Comparison — to where you thought you’d be, to where someone else appears to be. Holding information “just in case” that you haven’t touched in months.
Ask yourself: how many of the tabs open in your head right now are actually active work — versus just open? 😯
Because here’s what I notice with the business owners with whom I work — the mental load rarely comes from having too much to do. It comes from too many undecided things. A pricing question you keep almost-answering. A hire you keep almost-making. A “should I even keep offering this” you keep almost-resolving.
Undecided things don’t rest. They just wait for you to have bandwidth for them — and then they take it.
So this week, before you reach for another productivity system, try something smaller: pick one tab that’s been open too long. Not the biggest one. Just one you’re ready to close — decide it, delegate it, or drop it — and actually close it.
You’ll notice something. The relief isn’t really about the decision itself. It’s about getting a piece of your own head space back.
(Btw: this message is just as much for myself as it is for you. And I know exactly which “tab” I’m going to close when I finish writing today’s piece.)
Next week, we’ll turn to the energy that’s harder to name out loud — the emotional kind. Because some of what’s crowding your mind isn’t a decision problem at all. It’s a feeling wearing a decision’s clothes.
About Jacquette
I love to ask questions and spark aha moments. I love to talk about why success with money is about more than just the numbers, and how the cultural impact on the intersection of money, business, and life matters–A LOT! And, I really hope I help people feel seen, heard, and not judged—especially since money is emotional and personal.
