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The Dip

When to quit and when to push through the hard middle of a project

Quitting is a skill here, not a failure. Godin's complaint is that most people quit the wrong things at the wrong moment. Any project worth doing has a dip: the long stretch after the novelty has gone and before the payoff arrives. Push through and you collect what goes to whoever ends up best in a narrow field. The other shape is a cul-de-sac that never improves, and there the right move is to stop early and cheaply. Eighty pages. You can read it in a sitting.

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Does it: documented as part of their own routine. Recommends: explicitly advises other people to do it. Discusses: covered it substantively without clear personal adoption; this can include criticism or disagreement.

  • Seth GodinRecommends

    Author · Seth's Blog, published daily

    Sums it up himself as a book about the real upsides of quitting, and about what it is worth to be seen as the best in the world at something.

    Source: seths.blog: Books

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Book entry · notes paraphrased from cited sources, quoted excerpts copied from the transcript they link to. Not medical advice. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or reviewed by anyone listed. How this works.