GUEST POST BY Wendy Jenkins OAM, READY RESILIENCE
Ready Resilience helps organisations thrive during times of change and challenge, using practical neuroscience-based resilience tools that have been proven to offer in-the-moment solutions and long-lasting results. Learn actionable tips you can apply right away in Ready Resilience Founder Wendy Jenkins’ articles, written exclusively for the TEMi community.
The Neuroscience of Modern Work: Unresolved Tasks
This year, Wendy Jenkins OAM, Founder of Ready Resilience, will focus her insightful TEMI monthly articles on ‘The Neuroscience of Modern Work’, offering science-based insights and tips you can apply right away.
Why unresolved tasks quietly drain mental energy.
It is not always the work itself that exhausts the brain.
Often, it is the ongoing mental effort of keeping unfinished things active in our attention.
Unanswered emails, unresolved conversations, unclear decisions, tasks waiting to begin, or projects sitting in the background all continue competing for cognitive space. Even when we are not actively working on them, the brain is still tracking them.
This is partly because the brain is designed to seek predictability and resolution. When something feels incomplete, attention is repeatedly drawn back to it. Mental energy is spent keeping the task available in awareness.
That is why people can feel mentally exhausted before they have even started the next task. The cognitive load is already present.
Unfinished work also creates ambiguity. The brain keeps asking:
- Have I forgotten something?
- When will this be dealt with?
- Is this becoming a bigger issue?
- What is still outstanding?
This ongoing monitoring consumes attentional resources. It becomes harder for the prefrontal cortex to settle into deep focus because part of the brain remains occupied scanning unresolved demands in the background.
Importantly, this is not a sign of poor resilience or disorganisation. It is a normal neurological response to incompletion and uncertainty.
Small strategies can reduce the load significantly. Writing tasks down rather than mentally rehearsing them helps offload working memory. Breaking large projects into clear next steps also reduces ambiguity. Even deciding when something will be addressed can help the brain stop repeatedly scanning for resolution.
Clear endings matter too. Finishing meetings with defined actions, closing communication loops, and reducing unnecessary ambiguity all help decrease mental carryover.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Wendy Jenkins is the founder of Ready Resilience, Co-Founder of the Lungitude Foundation, certified Neuroplastician, Speaker and Lung Transplant Survivor. Ready Resilience helps organisations thrive during times of change and challenge, using practical neuroscience-based resilience tools that have been proven to offer in the-moment solutions and long-lasting results.
Having been told she had two years to live over eighteen years ago, Wendy is passionate about empowering people to transform their perspective on life’s challenges through dynamic masterclasses, workshops, and certified resilience training. To learn how Wendy can support and inspire you at your next conference, leadership event, or personal development session, please email we***@*************ce.com or visit www.readyresilience.com.
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