5 ms·

The Importance of Abandoning Crap

93 points by japaget 16y ago

akkartik 16y ago
Seth Godin: "Quit what you'll never be #1 at." is isomorphic to PG: "You shouldn't worry about prestige." http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html because if you quit what you'll never be #1 at, you'll almost always be left with something that seems not-serious, a toy, like you're shirking responsibility. That's ok. You just haven't made it prestigious yet.
- anthuswilliams 16y ago
  Perhaps 'yet' is the operative word. There are things you are not #1 at. There are things that you are unlikely to ever be #1 at, but you still have a tiny chance. And then there's what Seth Godin is talking about. These are the activities at which you know, deep-down, you will never succeed, and for which all attempts at improvement are merely self-deluding masturbation.
- revorad 16y ago
  It's hard to differentiate from being lazy though. That's what I struggle with most. [EDIT] Jeff Bezos said it best: "The thing about inventing is you have to be both stubborn and flexible. The hard part is figuring out when to be which!"
  - akkartik 16y ago
    Yeah, that's hard. Best advice I've encountered is to always quit to a new project, not just quit without any idea what's next. So if you don't have any ideas on what's next, keep doing what you're doing. That's discipline.
    - revorad 16y ago
      I agree, I think of it as A/B testing to better ideas. But there's always the danger of never shipping anything.
      - akkartik 16y ago
        A/B testing, that's a good way to think about it, thanks. Here's another rule of thumb: try to quit at a reasonable milestone. Did you accomplish something you can put on your resume? Write down what you learned. Are there any open questions that you could answer with just a few hours or days of effort? Do you have a story you can tell friends over dinner? All these are milestones of various magnitudes that you can feel good about to various extents. But yeah, in general there's no perfect test.
wccrawford 16y ago
I totally agree. I've abandoned lots of crap projects from many arts (both technical and artistic) and almost always went on to start something better. A few times, I've realized it was a mistake and went back to it. The problem for me is knowing what is crap and what is not. To an outside observer, it's a lot easier to decide subjectively, but it's still hard to tell what the general populace will think. The only advice I have to offer is: If you're waffling, then it's probably crap. Truly awesome things really, really shine.
jhrobert 16y ago
As a software developer, until I see something that I consider better, there is no reason to quit. Sure, what I consider "better" is subjective. Yet, what is missing more, "perseverance" or lack of it? I think that the important thing is actually to love your crap, because you made it, it is self-expression. If others don't like it, too bad, but as long as you like it, everything's just fine, keep going.
- Uhhrrr 16y ago
  >until I see something that I consider better, there is no reason to quit. You are right, but this article is geared to those who have too much perseverance, and consequently wind up with a pile of mediocre time sinks which are unrewarding even to them.
- ctide 16y ago
  The reason to quit is to open your mind to other opportunities. It's easier to keep plodding along at something mediocre than to quit and force yourself to find something awesome to do instead.
mathgladiator 16y ago
I completely and whole-heartilly agree. Every time I realize that what I am working on is going to turn into crap, I move on to something else. The steaming piles of crap behind me: http://blog.mathgladiator.com/2010/10/last-ten-years-if-i-uploaded-it-to.html http://blog.mathgladiator.com/2010/10/last-ten-years-if-i-up... The problem with quiting/failing early is that you have to defend yourself from others who are unhappy and "stuck it out".
- mitjak 16y ago
  I don't know how far any of those projects went but the descriptions alone don't sound like crap at all.
  - mathgladiator 16y ago
    my comment became too long http://blog.mathgladiator.com/2010/11/escaping-mr-20-and-losing-ego.html http://blog.mathgladiator.com/2010/11/escaping-mr-20-and-los...
klbarry 16y ago
It is so hard to tell what is crap though - often there is such a sharp tipping point. I can't tell you how many times in my life the golden egg came from the very last email I sent out, etc. It's super common. Sometimes I've quit when it was too early. In high school I was selling chinese mp3 players on a website. I did some marketing of various types and didn't really know seo yet. I eventually gave up because demand was low. (How could I compete against ebay, I thought?) Two years later, I checked analytics, which I didn't know about at the time. It turned out a month or two after I quit I got tons and tons of traffic but by then I had broken the navigation - I happened to have an article I wrote rank for "chipod" or something along those lines which became a popular term later.
- antareus 16y ago
  I'm killing most of my material and time investment into gaming so I can devote it toward music. While that isn't quite as severe as abandoning old projects, it still seems necessary in the same way that the article discusses. It is like I have to prove to myself that I can remake myself, that I can be about something completely new, and leave the old self behind.
- mitjak 16y ago
  That was a lesson in itself though, wasn't it? Perhaps, armed with that knowledge you can go on to make something much greater and more interesting. Consider it a lesson in crap quitting.
- mitjak 16y ago
  That was a lesson in itself though, wasn't it? Perhaps, armed with that knowledge you can go on to make something much greater and more interesting. Consider it a lesson in crap quitting.
johngalt 16y ago
"Every act of creation is first an act of destruction" -Picasso
- DanielRibeiro 16y ago
  Also: "The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become." -Charles Du Bos (it is usually misattributed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Dubois http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Dubo...)
yters 16y ago
Yeah, that's hard for me. Quitting is a virtue I don't tend to have.
yoak 16y ago
I see this theme over and over again for businesses and organizations as well. One of my favorites, Good to Great talks about "Stop Doing" lists. Jack Welch pushed GE to end the businesses at which it couldn't be number 1 or 2. In smaller organizations, it is worthwhile to occasionally take stock and realize the extraordinary number of things that you're doing that you have no idea why you do them. Most of those have no value.
aneth 16y ago
The difference between persistence and quitting being the right choice is often a matter of timing, luck, and other subtle unknowable factors. As often as someone quits one thing to focus on something else, someone else sticks to their guns and perseveres. That said, knowing what to quit is probably the rarer skill, since stubbornness is often easier than moving on. Success is also often the result of many failures, not the opposite, which indicates quitting and learning is probably the more important skill as well.
haffi112 16y ago
Reason I quit using Facebook.

93 points by japaget 16y ago

Seth Godin: "Quit what you'll never be #1 at." is isomorphic to PG: "You shouldn't worry about prestige." http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html http://www.paulgraham.com/love.html because if you quit what you'll never be #1 at, you'll almost always be left with something that seems not-serious, a toy, like you're shirking responsibility. That's ok. You just haven't made it prestigious yet.

anthuswilliams 16y ago
Perhaps 'yet' is the operative word. There are things you are not #1 at. There are things that you are unlikely to ever be #1 at, but you still have a tiny chance. And then there's what Seth Godin is talking about. These are the activities at which you know, deep-down, you will never succeed, and for which all attempts at improvement are merely self-deluding masturbation.
revorad 16y ago
It's hard to differentiate from being lazy though. That's what I struggle with most. [EDIT] Jeff Bezos said it best: "The thing about inventing is you have to be both stubborn and flexible. The hard part is figuring out when to be which!"
- akkartik 16y ago
  Yeah, that's hard. Best advice I've encountered is to always quit to a new project, not just quit without any idea what's next. So if you don't have any ideas on what's next, keep doing what you're doing. That's discipline.
  - revorad 16y ago
    I agree, I think of it as A/B testing to better ideas. But there's always the danger of never shipping anything.
    - akkartik 16y ago
      A/B testing, that's a good way to think about it, thanks. Here's another rule of thumb: try to quit at a reasonable milestone. Did you accomplish something you can put on your resume? Write down what you learned. Are there any open questions that you could answer with just a few hours or days of effort? Do you have a story you can tell friends over dinner? All these are milestones of various magnitudes that you can feel good about to various extents. But yeah, in general there's no perfect test.

wccrawford 16y ago

I totally agree. I've abandoned lots of crap projects from many arts (both technical and artistic) and almost always went on to start something better. A few times, I've realized it was a mistake and went back to it. The problem for me is knowing what is crap and what is not. To an outside observer, it's a lot easier to decide subjectively, but it's still hard to tell what the general populace will think. The only advice I have to offer is: If you're waffling, then it's probably crap. Truly awesome things really, really shine.

jhrobert 16y ago

As a software developer, until I see something that I consider better, there is no reason to quit. Sure, what I consider "better" is subjective. Yet, what is missing more, "perseverance" or lack of it? I think that the important thing is actually to love your crap, because you made it, it is self-expression. If others don't like it, too bad, but as long as you like it, everything's just fine, keep going.

Uhhrrr 16y ago
>until I see something that I consider better, there is no reason to quit. You are right, but this article is geared to those who have too much perseverance, and consequently wind up with a pile of mediocre time sinks which are unrewarding even to them.
ctide 16y ago
The reason to quit is to open your mind to other opportunities. It's easier to keep plodding along at something mediocre than to quit and force yourself to find something awesome to do instead.

mathgladiator 16y ago

I completely and whole-heartilly agree. Every time I realize that what I am working on is going to turn into crap, I move on to something else. The steaming piles of crap behind me: http://blog.mathgladiator.com/2010/10/last-ten-years-if-i-uploaded-it-to.html http://blog.mathgladiator.com/2010/10/last-ten-years-if-i-up... The problem with quiting/failing early is that you have to defend yourself from others who are unhappy and "stuck it out".

mitjak 16y ago
I don't know how far any of those projects went but the descriptions alone don't sound like crap at all.
- mathgladiator 16y ago
  my comment became too long http://blog.mathgladiator.com/2010/11/escaping-mr-20-and-losing-ego.html http://blog.mathgladiator.com/2010/11/escaping-mr-20-and-los...

klbarry 16y ago

It is so hard to tell what is crap though - often there is such a sharp tipping point. I can't tell you how many times in my life the golden egg came from the very last email I sent out, etc. It's super common. Sometimes I've quit when it was too early. In high school I was selling chinese mp3 players on a website. I did some marketing of various types and didn't really know seo yet. I eventually gave up because demand was low. (How could I compete against ebay, I thought?) Two years later, I checked analytics, which I didn't know about at the time. It turned out a month or two after I quit I got tons and tons of traffic but by then I had broken the navigation - I happened to have an article I wrote rank for "chipod" or something along those lines which became a popular term later.

antareus 16y ago
I'm killing most of my material and time investment into gaming so I can devote it toward music. While that isn't quite as severe as abandoning old projects, it still seems necessary in the same way that the article discusses. It is like I have to prove to myself that I can remake myself, that I can be about something completely new, and leave the old self behind.
mitjak 16y ago
That was a lesson in itself though, wasn't it? Perhaps, armed with that knowledge you can go on to make something much greater and more interesting. Consider it a lesson in crap quitting.
mitjak 16y ago
That was a lesson in itself though, wasn't it? Perhaps, armed with that knowledge you can go on to make something much greater and more interesting. Consider it a lesson in crap quitting.

johngalt 16y ago

"Every act of creation is first an act of destruction" -Picasso

DanielRibeiro 16y ago
Also: "The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become." -Charles Du Bos (it is usually misattributed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Dubois http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Dubo...)

yters 16y ago

Yeah, that's hard for me. Quitting is a virtue I don't tend to have.

yoak 16y ago

I see this theme over and over again for businesses and organizations as well. One of my favorites, Good to Great talks about "Stop Doing" lists. Jack Welch pushed GE to end the businesses at which it couldn't be number 1 or 2. In smaller organizations, it is worthwhile to occasionally take stock and realize the extraordinary number of things that you're doing that you have no idea why you do them. Most of those have no value.

aneth 16y ago

The difference between persistence and quitting being the right choice is often a matter of timing, luck, and other subtle unknowable factors. As often as someone quits one thing to focus on something else, someone else sticks to their guns and perseveres. That said, knowing what to quit is probably the rarer skill, since stubbornness is often easier than moving on. Success is also often the result of many failures, not the opposite, which indicates quitting and learning is probably the more important skill as well.

haffi112 16y ago

Reason I quit using Facebook.