It was a simple thing, really. Just a short one-page lease agreement I'd helped broker between a beekeeper and my adjacent neighbors, whose property I help manage. I had sent two copies of the agreement for them to sign and they had returned one to me to give to the beekeeper. I found it interesting how satisfying it felt to hand over the signed agreement, and realized it was because that task was finished. A job completed.
As humans, we are task oriented and we take satisfaction in finishing work assigned to us in a well-done manner. But now, with the technology most of us use on a daily basis, it's harder and harder for us to finish a task. It often leaves us exhausted and stressed after a day of tasks that seemingly have no end, such as answering emails in an inbox that is never emptied out. Does this sound familiar to those of us making music using digital audio workstations?
With modern computer-based recording and in-the-box mixing, songs never seem finished. People can continue fine-tuning and tweaking a song or mix until it's "perfect," but is this quest for perfection a good thing? As time goes on, I hear more and more tales of albums that never get finished. "We've been working on the album for almost two years now and it's really close." Then two more years go by and the album is still not done. Maybe they turn to somebody else to help mix and finish the project, or maybe they give up in frustration.