How to Feel Progress

One of the most satisfying feelings is the feeling of making progress.

In fact, not completing tasks occupies your mind: You seem unable to forget tasks you’ve started but haven’t completed. Completing small tasks frees up the cognitive resources you need to tackle other activities.

Our brains are wired to seek completion. When you recognize a task as complete, your brain releases dopamine, which makes you feel good and makes you want to repeat the behaviour again to feel more pleasure.

What this means is that we are predisposed to focus on tasks that we can complete quickly, rather than long-term projects that take a long time to finish. We like the feeling of checking things off our list, and we like to see progress.

A habit and task tracker is a simple way to measure what you did and it can make you feel more satisfied by providing clear evidence of your progress.