The work is never finished

Sometimes that's the beauty...and the point

I am the queen of completing a task.

I’m that person who will write a task I’ve already completed on a to-do list so I can have the pleasure of checking it off.

I was that “motivated” (annoying) student who would turn in a paper a week early so the professor would give me an extra round of feedback (or just tell me it was awesome the first time so I could check it off my to-do list for the semester! BOOYAH!).

I’m the person who will set the tiniest goal possible so I can’t help but reach it because then I will have succeeded! No joke: one year, my BFF told me that she started doing 1 pushup a day to build upper body strength. I jumped on board! That sounded like a great goal to me! I kicked 1 push-up’s ass and was soon doing 10 or 15 or 20. ON MY TOES, bitches!

Not once in my entire pushup career did I smile while doing them.

(But I decided that particular task was “complete” after mastering the single pushup. The rest was just gravy.)

I think it’s great to be a completionist, usually. We completionists get things done. We’re good to have on a team if you need to push something over a finish line.

But we also tend to be overachievers. That part is kind of tiring.

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The biggest problem, though, is that most of life doesn’t work linearly, the way a to-do list implies it does. Many many aspects of life don’t have actual endpoints. Tasks are never complete.

That’s beautiful.

That’s also exhausting and, sometimes, overwhelming.

Especially if you like to feel like you’ve wrapped something up into a nice little bow and can call it done.

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I’ve been thinking about this lately in a couple of different contexts.

The work I do at my school, for one.

When a kid is having a hard time, the SEL team jumps in and supports them. Sometimes in a moment, sometimes regularly over time. Sometimes as needed, here and there.

But the work is never done. You are there, ready to catch a kiddo when they need it, ready to wrap around.

Same for parenting.

We’ve had some rough patches. I still get sassed at more than I’d like. There have been years at school that have been hard. Some eras require more being “on” than others do. But the task of parenting is never done. There’s never a consequence, come-to-Jesus talk, or even an act of bonding that suddenly solves all the problems and teaches your kid every lesson they’ll ever need to know.

It’s slow progress, over time, with an open heart.

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I know all of this with my head, but I do not always feel it with my heart.

What I often feel is anxiety and frustration that I can’t call something “done.” Life would be so much tidier if I could go to bed at night and say “Yup, solved that human’s life today. Smooth sailing from now ‘til the deathbed for them! Nailed it, Rebecca.” *Pat on back*

Beyond the humans I serve, though, I notice this same tension in other areas of my life.

A couple of years ago, when I was job searching, I taught myself instructional design. For the uninitiated, it’s the art of developing online learning (well, usually it’s online) in a way that’s engaging and effective.

Developing a course, whether big or small, happens through the creation, critique, and revision of many, many drafts. Getting comfortable getting feedback from learners, friends, and clients was essential to allowing me to make the best possible product.

I was proud of the work I did. The feedback and suggestions I got from people made my courses better and better. The final versions paled in comparison to my first drafts.

But I was also, on the inside, frustrated when people had feedback to give (even when I had asked for me).

The very fixed-mindset little kid in me was hoping, deep down, that my reviewers would look at my work and deem it perfect. No changes needed!

Needless to say, that little kid didn’t get great messaging about making mistakes or learning from mistakes. She was working really hard to prove people she was smart enough to not NEED drafts of things! Drafts were for suckers who couldn’t do it well enough the first time!

(I was exhausted by trying to be perfect for most of my life, tbh.)

I think I would have benefitted from someone telling me that taking time and space to get something done doesn’t mean you’re not smart.

In fact, working in drafts is probably indicative of the more intelligent humans. Those who understand the value of processing, improving, and working in the messiness to pull out the best possible pieces and rework them into something great.

That takes time.

Unfortunately, the sooner you check something off a list, the less time you give it in the long run. It amounts to short-term satisfaction at the expense of long-term learning and growth.

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I’m working on a project for my non-school job that involves creating a big committee of professionals who work, in myriad ways, with people with addiction.

The project is called an OFR (overdose fatality review), and it involves all of these people getting together, talking about case studies of real humans who suffered from fatal overdoses, and then looking at gaps in the system that could have helped catch this person, support them, and prevent their death.

It’s hard work.

We’re also incredibly lucky to have a long timeline for the development of this OFR. This means we can be slow, thoughtful, and deliberate about the ways we network with people, talk about the project, and build infrastructure.

It also means that I’m experiencing something that feels very weird: having a big and important project that doesn’t have to be hustled to completion.

The timeline is clear and delineated, but it isn’t tight.

There is room to breathe.

The work don’t have to be done for a long time.

AND IT’S BEEN PLANNED THAT WAY.

This project asks me to live inside of a big and important task for a long time without checking it off as “complete.” It’s asking me to inhabit the space, learn from others, discuss deeply, and consider many many ways of doing the work.

It’s weird.

But my nervous system feels calmer than it’s been in a long time…at least in work-related matters.

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The work of the OFR will, one day, be finished. Theoretically, I supposed parenting will be, too.

(Is that finished when you graduate your kid? Asking for a friend.)

Even my work in school has some rhythms that feel like ends - when kids transition from elementary to middle school, or when summer break comes.

But I am trying to remember to live inside the unfinished work without feeling the compulsion to get something “done”. The messiness of it all is where the good stuff happens.

Checking things off a to-do list is satisfying, but perhaps a bit of a mirage built for those of us who are Type A.

What about you?

What in your life feels big, messy and unfinished?

Are those things scary, or beautiful? Or maybe a bit of both?

Onward,