Too much material, too little time

I get together with the same group of friends every Wednesday night to play D&D. We meet up at 7:00 at M&K's house to play. By 7:15 everyone is usually there and has gotten their dinner. We rotate the responsibility for dinner each week, so the time and money burden does not fall to heavily on any given house. While we are eating, I'll review my notes. By 7:30-7:45 we have finished dinner and are ready to play. I'll review what happened the previous session and set up the miniatures in position on the map. For the next two hours or so, we'll play interrupting the flow depending on children's bed times, dessert and bathroom breaks. Between 9:45-10:00 we'll call it a night. Ten-fifteen minutes of cleanup and good byes and we're out the door.

Our schedule undeniably works. There is sufficient time each session to eat, socialize, and advance the story. We're able to do this without sacrificing too much family time or intrude on other interests. We've been doing this for 5-6 year successfully and are still enjoying both it and each other.

But as the DM, I'm aware of how much we've accomplished in this campaign but how much there is still to go. I'm thinking of other campaigns that I'd like to run. And so I get distracted from this story that I've been wanting us to tell for two years. Or I push the cleanup up to the limit - one more round, one more room. But in the end I don't worry about it. If my players are happy and if they enjoy the game, they'll come back. And we'll get to tell next story in two years time.