The Fringe Benefits of Quitting – Thinkibility Nibble

What are:

The fringe benefits of quitting, the hidden power of not finishing, not saying yes and starting new.”

LIz Danzico’s talk has several layers – a personal reflect both on life as well as innovation and design. While our design processes celebrate throwing things away, our culture scorns quitting. We do not celebrate changing our paths or our minds. We celebrate finishing things, regardless of what our inner voice might be telling us, the personal cost  or the cost for the organisation. But sometimes finishing things simply has no benefits.

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We are often too focused on checking the progress of our projects that it slips our minds to check on the quality. We finish things because we think we should.

“Sunk cost fallacy”

Is when we tell ourselves that we cannot quit because of an investment. We have been taught not to be wasteful. As children we are taught that it is good to finish things even if we see little point in continuing. There are rewards just because we finish things. We use this idea on all areas in our life and we over apply the rule.

Yet there are befits of knowing when to quit, says Liz.

Do you know when the quit? What things would you benefit from quitting? And how do you quit these things?

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2 Replies to “The Fringe Benefits of Quitting – Thinkibility Nibble”

  1. Hi Asa,

    great you made one. Busy with meetings and moving my son to an appartement in Malaga, cleaning, etc. Tomorrow a testcase for a company that writes proposals (for other companies) to get subsidies for research and development of innovations.

    It is a good one, the post. It devoid the thinking pattern that things has to be finished. So, it is a really good post. This year I was asked by a mother to help with two kids that quit, one for another study and one to work for some month in the horeca (she was starring at a top level international hotel school). I took the side of the quiters, oh, I tried to explain her that quiting sometimes is the best you can do.

    Thank you for your efforts, have a nice sunday eveing, Gijs

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