Daily Lab: Let’s quit something
Winners quit a lot.
Are you experiencing “escalation of commitment”?
It’s the feeling that, even though things aren’t looking good, you should double down. You should keep pushing through.
Basically, to protect our identity as someone who makes good decisions and sticks to things, we tend to stick to bad decisions long after we should have quit them.
But what if we shook off the sunk costs and opened our eyes to whether what we’re sticking to is actually worth seeing through?
Or if it’s better off quit.
“That means realizing,” as Annie Duke writes in Quit, “that spending another minute or another dollar or another bit of effort on something that is no longer worthwhile is the real waste.”
But nobody wants to be a quitter, right?
“Contrary to popular belief,” Duke writes, “winners quit a lot. That’s how they win.”
So, this weekend, instead of doing more marketing work—instead of anxiously puttering away at the endless tasks—choose something to stop doing.
Not so you can simply do less, but so you can do more of what’s worth it.
Because nobody has ever “found time” to do the important things.
Winners make time by quitting the things that waste it.
So I promise I’ll quit an unnecessary project or task this weekend if you will, too.
Reply to let me know what it is.
