How to finish everything

Every week I go on a challenging bike ride with friends. We keep a pace line and try to go as fast as we can. Afterwards, we grab coffee and visit, then all go our separate ways for the day. I always feel very satisfied when I get home. It's a great way to start the day.

A few weeks ago, someone got a flat near the end of the ride. These things happen. We stopped and fixed it, then went on with the ride. But we didn't have time for coffee, and all had to go straight home.

It didn't feel nearly as satisfying as usual, even though it objectively was a challenging ride. The stop ruined the rhythm. No coffee. No visiting. Just head home and get on with your day.

When reflecting on this, I realized that I'd never explicitly set my expectations for the ride. I knew we collectively wanted to go fast, but what did I want to get out of it?

Apparently, keeping a good rhythm in the pace line and having coffee with friends before work. But because we didn't do those things the ride didn't seem "finished" to me. And not finishing things isn't very satisfying.

Even had I explicitly set those intentions ahead of the ride, I wouldn't have been able to meet them. Someone getting a flat is out of my control. But I could've quickly reset my intentions as soon as it became clear that my initial ones weren't going to be met. I probably would've come home feeling more content.

The lesson here is that you pretty much always get to define "finished". You also get to define it over whatever time scale you want (I recommend small ones). And you get to redefine it as often as you want (I recommend very frequently).

Even if you have a shared definition of "finished" with others, it's probably over a relatively long time scale. That means you have oodles of opportunities to define and redefine what "finished" means to you. Over a minute, hour, month, or whatever. It'll probably make it more likely that you get to your shared definition.

Feelings matter. The goal is to keep yourself feeling great about what you're doing so you want to take the next step. So take a beat, set your intentions, and reset them as much as you need to. That way you'll finish everything.