Process Over Progress: When Life Gets Lost in the Checklist

What happens when we value finishing over experiencing?

At “Into Many Things” I write about the kind of life where the rules are optional. My two biggest joys are traveling (or even more so, living abroad) and asking big questions about life—because, honestly, why not? Expect personal essays, travel guides from the many places I’ve been to, and a few thoughts on the little things that make life worth living.

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A week or so ago, I left a comment on Tuğba’s newsletter Always Optimizing, Never Arriving. She had written about the endless cycle of self-optimization, the way we are constantly encouraged to improve, to tweak, to maximize until life itself feels like another project to manage. Her words hit me hard. Because I do this, too. Not just with productivity, but with things I genuinely love. Even writing. Even time with friends. Tugba’s response to my comment stuck with me: the process is just as much a part of living as the end goal. And yet, how often do we forget that?

I used to love to-do lists. Loved them so much I would add completed tasks just to get the satisfaction of crossing them off. But over time, I noticed something unsettling: I had become obsessed with ticking things off, not with the things themselves. The point was no longer the experience. It was being done with the experience.

It’s easy to see how this happens. The world rewards progress. Deadlines, deliverables, moving on to the next thing. There’s a sense of accomplishment in finishing. And finishing faster? Even better. Efficiency is praised, while slowness, savoring and lingering feels almost indulgent, even wasteful.

When Joy Becomes a Task to Complete

But when I apply this mindset to things that are meant to bring joy, I rob myself of that joy. A coffee date with a friend becomes something to get through. Writing this newsletter, something I genuinely love, becomes a task I rush through just to hit publish. Even rest starts to feel like something to optimize rather than experience.

I was never aware of this pattern of mine until my husband pointed it out to me. I’m often sloppy with how I do things because I see everything that I do as something that just needs to be completed. Take making coffee in the morning with our espresso machine, for example. To me, it’s just something I have to get done, even though it’s an activity I should be able to enjoy. By rushing through it, I make mistakes and neglect the task at hand. I’m so focused on just getting it done that I don’t pay attention to what I’m doing. If my husband asks me a question about it later, I often can’t remember why I did something a certain way. It’s as if I’ve been so caught up in getting it finished that I didn’t actively participate in the process.

I notice the same thing happening with my pregnancy. My husband and I have always known that we want just one child. That’s the plan, and it feels right for us. For our lifestyle, for how we see our future. I even joke that I have two hands: one for my husband and one for my child. Which means this is my one and only pregnancy. A once-in-a-lifetime experience. And yet, instead of savoring it, I often catch myself just wanting to get through it. I’ve been incredibly fortunate; no morning sickness, no complications, no aches or pains. By all accounts, I should be enjoying this. But more often than not, I find myself focused on the end goal: having the baby in my arms. Getting my body back to myself. Moving on to the next phase. And yes, of course, it’s natural to anticipate such a huge life change. But I also know I won’t get this time back. I have to remind myself—over and over—to slow down. To experience this pregnancy instead of just waiting for it to be over.

The Spectrum of Progress, Process, and Perfectionism

Where does this come from? Part of it, I think, is cultural. Western societies, in particular, emphasize productivity over presence. We are taught to measure time by output. If we’re not moving forward, we’re stagnating. And stagnation? That’s failure.

Psychologists call this the arrival fallacy—the mistaken belief that happiness exists in the completion of something rather than in the doing of it. Studies show that people often feel more engaged and fulfilled during the pursuit of a goal than after achieving it. But instead of recognizing this, we keep chasing the next thing, assuming that will finally be the moment we feel complete.

Pop culture plays its part, too. The hero’s journey is always about getting somewhere. Movies, books, and success stories focus on the breakthrough, the achievement, the win, and rarely on the quiet, messy, in-between moments that actually make up most of life. Even self-care has been turned into something to complete. Meditate for ten minutes. Journal three pages. Take a bath. Check, check, check. But when self-care itself starts feeling like another obligation, is it really care anymore?

So, how do we shift away from this mindset? I don’t have a perfect answer. But lately, I’ve been trying to notice when I’m rushing. When I catch myself thinking, I just need to get this done, I pause. I remind myself that there’s no prize for finishing faster, that the writing, the conversation, the moment itself is the point, that life isn’t a series of tasks to complete but something to live.

And I wonder: does all of this exist on a spectrum? On one end, there’s progress. In the middle, there’s process. And on the far end, there’s perfectionism. I see people who are perfectionists, so consumed with the process, that they forget sometimes that done is better than perfect. Perfectionism can trap us in an endless loop of tweaking and refining, while the goal—completion or progress—is lost. At some point, letting go of the need to perfect things can be just as important as being thorough. And maybe that's where the magic happens, finding balance between pushing forward and truly being present in the process.

Maybe it’s time we let go of the obsession with progress and learn to stay a little longer in the process. Maybe that’s where life actually happens.