Progressive Knitting

My son is visiting.  When he's here, he knits with me.  He's got a scarf he's working on that he started last year and got about 18 inches into.  This year when he started working on it, I could hear the tones of defeatism as he spoke about it.  He didn't feel like he was making any progress.  It's a garter stitch scarf on US Size 10 needles with a bulky yarn.  I assured him every row was making progress and managed not to give in to the temptation to whine about my own lack of progress on my lace weight shawl being knit on US Size 4 needles that was increasing 6 stitches every row.  Then it hit me - make his progress tangible.  I grabbed a locking stitch marker and stuck it in the row he'd just finished.  Here we are now, 18 inches past the stitch marker and he's saying things like "It's really coming along now."  Apparently the stitch marker made him faster too.  Now I'm trying to convince him to try knitting a matching hat once this project is done.  We'll see...  I'm thinking about adding a "progress marker" to my project too.