Neurobiologie de quand le travail est achevé

Part of the series Satisfaction when work is done .

When a task ends — not “paused”, not “handed off”, but finished — the nervous system runs a different script. That moment is dopaminergic closure Dopaminergic closure The neural settling that occurs when a predicted work outcome is actually completed — the open loop closes. Read more : the prediction-error loop settles, tension drops, and a clean boundary appears between “open loop” and “done”.

Why this matters outside the lab

Product teams optimise for engagement loops. Ops teams optimise for throughput. Both often deny the organism a completion signal. The result is ambient unfinished work: tabs, tickets, half-ships, perpetual “almost”.

Designing for task completion Task completion An explicit, verifiable end state for a unit of work — not pause, handoff, or “almost”. Read more is not soft psychology. It is systems hygiene:

• smaller ship units so closure can fire more often
• explicit “done” states (not only “in progress” and “blocked”)
• recovery windows after hard closes, not more stimuli

Draft status

Body will expand with sources and diagrams. The linked concepts already carry short definitions for hover and full pages for deep reading.