One More Version

I know this feeling. You know it too.

It’s 11pm. You told yourself you’d stop at 10. But there’s this one thing—a bug, a feature, a tweak—and you’re so close. You can feel it. Just one more version and you’re done.

An hour later, you’re still at it. The bug spawned two more. The feature needs polish. The tweak revealed a better approach. And now it’s 1am, and you’re telling yourself the same thing you said at 10: just one more.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because the loop is ancient. We just used to call it something else.

The Old Game

Growing up, it was “one more level.”

Every gamer knows the ritual. You’re supposed to be doing homework. Or sleeping. Or, you know, existing in the physical world with other humans. But the game has its hooks in you. Just one more level. Just beat this boss. Just see what’s on the other side of this door.

The pizza got cold. The sun came up. The responsibilities didn’t go anywhere—they just piled up in the background while you chased whatever dopamine hit the game promised next.

I used to think I outgrew that. Put away childish things. Became a professional.

Turns out, I just swapped the controller for a keyboard.

The New Game

These days, the compulsion wears different clothes.

It’s not “one more level.” It’s one more version. One more commit. One more deploy. One more tweak to the UI before I show it to anyone.

The mechanics are identical. The promise of completion is always one step away. The satisfaction of almost there is addictive enough to override everything else—sleep, hunger, the people waiting for you to look up from your screen.

And now, with AI in the mix? The game got faster. The feedback loop tightened. I can iterate in minutes what used to take hours. Which sounds like progress—and it is—but it also means the compulsion has less friction.

One more version became ten more versions in the same window of time. The dopamine hits per hour went up. And so did the number of times I looked at the clock and thought: how did it get this late?

The Honest Part

Here’s where I’m supposed to say something wise. Something about balance, or boundaries, or knowing when to walk away.

But I’m not sure I believe the tidy version of that advice.

Because the truth is, some of my best work came from ignoring the clock. From following the thread when everyone else would have stopped. From staying in the zone past the point of reason.

And some of my worst habits came from the exact same place.

The line between flow state and avoidance isn’t always clear. Sometimes “one more version” is creative momentum. Sometimes it’s hiding from something harder. Sometimes it’s both.

What I’m Watching For

I’ve started paying attention to why I’m still going.

Is it because I’m genuinely close to something? Or because stopping means confronting the next thing on the list—the conversation I don’t want to have, the decision I’ve been putting off, the rest I’m afraid to take?

The compulsion doesn’t care. It just wants the next hit. But I care. And the only way I’ve found to stay honest is to ask the question out loud:

What am I really chasing right now?

Sometimes the answer is simple: I’m close, and it matters, and I want to finish. That’s fine.

But sometimes the answer is quieter: I’m avoiding something. I’m using the work to hide. And that’s worth noticing—not to judge, but to choose more deliberately.

The Loop Continues

I don’t think this goes away. The “one more” instinct is part of how I’m wired. It’s been there since I was a kid with a controller, and it’ll probably be there when I’m old and still tweaking something that doesn’t need tweaking.

But maybe the goal isn’t to eliminate the compulsion. Maybe it’s just to see it clearly. To know when I’m in it. To ask whether it’s serving me or just running me.

One more version. One more level. One more iteration of a self that’s still figuring out when to keep going—and when to finally, mercifully, stop.

For tonight, I’m stopping here.

We’ll see about tomorrow.