Short answer
Stop Pre-Paving when when the upcoming situation is sufficiently planned or the plan becomes over-detailed. The exercise is planning how you want to handle an upcoming situation before you enter it; once that job is complete, continuing should have to provide new information rather than merely more repetition.
Define enough before you begin
When the upcoming situation has a clear intention and two or three practical behaviours, preparation is sufficient. This gives the session a practical endpoint. You do not need to wait for perfect certainty, a dramatic mood change or an external result before you are allowed to finish.
A method-specific stop signal
The clearest warning sign is trying to script every event or treating deviations from the plan as failure. If you notice that pattern, shorten the session or stop it entirely. A boundary is not failure; it is what keeps a voluntary method from turning into reassurance or avoidance.
Use Pre-Paving Planner to write the endpoint before you begin. Record what “finished” means for this session, then mark it complete when that point arrives. This is more reliable than negotiating with yourself while emotionally invested in continuing.
When continuing costs more than it adds
After stopping, look for whether the preparation improves decisions during the real situation. That feedback comes from behaviour and the situation itself. Another round of the method may be less informative than waiting, practising, asking a question, getting feedback or simply seeing what happens next.
Before continuing Pre-Paving, ask what another session could teach you that the current one has not. Once when the upcoming situation is sufficiently planned or the plan becomes over-detailed, the next useful information is more likely to come from behaviour, feedback or waiting. If the only reason to continue is discomfort about ending, treat that as a cue to finish rather than as evidence that more practice is required.
What should replace another round
You can return if the goal, obstacle or context genuinely changes. A later use should have a different purpose, not merely repeat the same exercise because stopping felt uncomfortable. Put a review date in Pre-Paving Planner if that helps you leave the method alone in the meantime.
Stopping does not erase what you already wrote, rehearsed or noticed. It also does not cancel an outcome. Pre-Paving can affect attention or preparation, but it does not control chance, institutions, health outcomes or another person’s decisions.
Three different reasons to finish a session
There are at least three valid endpoints for Pre-Paving. First, a task endpoint: when the upcoming situation is sufficiently planned or the plan becomes over-detailed. Second, a quality endpoint: the exercise is repeating itself rather than producing clearer thinking. Third, a cost endpoint: time, sleep, comfort or concentration is starting to suffer. You do not need all three signals; any one can be enough to stop.
When the upcoming situation has a clear intention and two or three practical behaviours, preparation is sufficient. Treat that as the hand-off point. Once the method has produced something you can test, more internal work is usually less informative than the test itself.
What continuing can cost
The main risk with Pre-Paving is trying to script every event or treating deviations from the plan as failure. Continuing past the useful point can make the method occupy more attention than the goal deserves. It can also blur the difference between preparation and reassurance, because the session continues not to learn something new but to reduce discomfort about stopping.
If trying to script every event or treating deviations from the plan as failure starts to appear, give Pre-Paving a real break instead of replacing it with mental rehearsal of the same routine. Use Pre-Paving Planner to note the pause, then leave the exercise alone until the context changes or a planned review date arrives. The break is part of the boundary, not lost practice.
Record why you stopped
In Pre-Paving Planner, add one short line: “Stopped because…” This creates a useful record for later review. If you return, you can see whether the original reason changed. A return based on new evidence is different from reopening the exercise because the old uncertainty resurfaced.
Preparation can finish before the event begins
Once you know the intention, boundary and first response for the upcoming situation, stop planning. Leave enough openness to respond to what actually happens rather than rehearsing every possible branch.
Bottom line
Stop Pre-Paving when when the upcoming situation is sufficiently planned or the plan becomes over-detailed. Use the method to produce clarity or preparation, then let behaviour, feedback and ordinary life take over.