Quit - A Review

Quitters never win and winners never quit.

At least, that’s what I’ve heard many times so far in my middle-aged existence.

Many of the cultural myths that we celebrate tell the stories of underdogs who didn’t quit when they were up against unthinkable odds and someone came through. Stories like Rudy light up our collective imaginations as we see the little guy, too dumb to go to Notre Dame and too small to get onto the field of play, fight his way through practice for years until he finally gets a moment on the field. All of that happened because he did not quit.

It's a good story. Anyone who can watch Rudy and not get excited has a heart two sizes too small.

But that story is a one in a million. It’s a beautiful story. It’s romantic. It also only accounts for a tiny piece of Rudy’s own story, or the thousands of different ways that his story could have ended had he chosen just a little differently. Those might not have ended up on the big screen, but we have no idea what his energy and effort could have led to in an alternate universe where he didn’t invest so much of himself into being a mediocre college football player.

The point isn’t the Rudy Ruettiger story, though. The point is that we have made it a sign of weakness to recognize that we are going the wrong way, pursuing the wrong dream, and that the best course of action is to turn around. That’s what quitting can be. It can be deciding to go a different way.

What if sometimes the quitting is the best way to make progress in life?

Annie Duke’s recent book, Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away, is about looking at quitting in a different way and recognizing that sometimes it is really the best choice available.

Duke was once a professional poker player. She recognizes, as Kenny Rogers used to sing, “You've got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.” One of the basic skills every poker player needs to have is recognizing when the odds are stacking against you and folding the hand. Quit is really about learning to recognize when it is time to step away from a hand so that you can play another hand. It’s about learning when to quit.

Of course, the assumption Duke makes is that the sort of people who are reading her book are people that are going to quit one activity to go start another. A professional athlete might retire because his joints are creaky and he can’t run as fast, but generally the competitive drive that got them to the peak of their sport pushes them to strive in another area. Duke’s book is for the sort of person that is going to attack the next goal, at which they might have a better chance of succeeding.

Quit falls into the category of a lot of other self-help, productivity, and organizational psychology book. Duke is a popularizer who cites studies performed by others, but communicates them in a way that is easily accessible and more helpful than a peer reviewed article with a bunch of tables. There are citations of Daniel Kahneman, Richard Thaler, and some of the other usual subjects. This is an airplane book. It takes a few hours to read, can be put down and picked up with ease, and offers some self-improvement along the way.

One of the deep flaws of this book is that the motivations behind sticking to it or quitting are shallow and instrumental. It’s all about money and self-fulfillment. Given that, it’s not surprising that Duke recommends her decision making for divorce in cases where a spouse isn’t helping someone achieve their full potential. There is little room for duty and integrity in this book. It’s all about my happiness and my success.

At the same time, the thought process behind decision making can be helpful for an individual or organization that is stuck in a rut. There are too many church programs that persist for years after the people that drove them are gone or their purpose is being efficiently fulfilled. Sometimes we need to cut our losses in a ministry and move on to something that fits better with the current need or the current members of the congregation.

Taken with a grain of salt, there is a chunk of good advice in this popular-level book. Sometimes we need to put our heads down and keep pushing forward. But we also need to recognize that when we do that, we are giving up opportunities for something else. Sometimes we need to look at other opportunities and recognize they provide a better return on the investment of our time. Efficiency and success isn’t the only thing that matters, but sometimes it does matter. Sometimes we need to know when to quit.

Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away

By Duke, Annie

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How to Live on 24 Hours a Day - A Review

Self-help books get published at a seemingly ever-increasing rate. They all promise to help people use their time more efficiently, overhaul their lives, change their mindset, become more satisfied with some aspect of life. Some are helpful. Few are earth shattering. Some are downright deceptive.

Arnold Bennett’s book, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day, is one that I have seen referenced multiple times in multiple places as a classic book on improving time management. Despite this, it can be a challenge to find a copy, since it was published in 1910.

Bennett himself was a very productive author and playwright. He published thirty-four novels, multiple plays, and a number of self-help books. His works were popular successes in his day, particularly because Bennett worked to make them accessible to non-literary readers. That same popularity contributed to his relative obscurity as the critics of his day panned his work so that after his death much of it dropped out of print. Similarly, that Bennett would stoop to write a self-help book for the masses was perceived as a sign of artistic weakness.

How to Live on 24 Hours a Day is a somewhat dated book. Radio as a medium of mass entertainment did not become popular until the late 1920s, so Bennett’s advice does not grapple with some of the most dangerous time vampires of the last century. However, the advice Bennett does give is sound in principle.

Bennett cautions against losing valuable chunks of time each day. For instance, he cites the time that many men (yes, he focuses on men) lose on their daily commute. He warns against the transient quality of newspapers. Though he does not oppose the reading of such media, he recognizes the inherent weakness in media that is designed to excite and is most valued because of its ability to entertain.

The book does not set out an entirely high brow vision for cultural appreciation. Bennett does value literature and good music, but he doesn’t insist that his readers do the same. This is not a book about becoming more aristocratic, but about wise use of time. Bennett does recommend poetry to his readers, arguing that the work is well-rewarded by the value in mind and spirit that results. However, the Bennett’s greatest emphasis is on using time wisely and not wasting it away. Wisely, in this case, requires that one spend time according to one’s values.

Each day—either before or after work—Bennett recommends spending ninety minutes or so in study of some sort. It could be exploration of literature, or deeper research into some topic of interest. He commends specialization and following some sort of plan of study, however loose. The time during one’s commute to work can then be recaptured by thinking through what was learned the day before and trying to piece things together. The commute home was to be investing in thinking through the day to consider what went well and what could be improved. Routine and focused improvement is the name of the game

Bennett is careful to point out some of the pitfalls to self-improvement. First, too rigorous a schedule is not a positive thing. If a person becomes a slave to his routine to the detrimental of social responsibilities and opportunities, then that is a bad thing. Second, an overzealous beginning at self-improvement will lead to failure. Better to start slow and improve over time than to do a complete reset and burnout after a short spurt of improvement. Bennett recognizes that improvement is best implemented incrementally and over time.

In some ways How to Live on 24 Hours a Day is out of date. There are obvious technological differences. Cultural changes also remain unaddressed, like the prevalence of youth sports. This is no less than one would expect from a volume over a century old.

At the same time, the message the Bennett offers is magnified by the differences. The concerns are the same. Time is lost in transit. Attention is wasted on the ephemeral. Instead of smart phones or professional sports, the distractions are newspapers and pointless dissipation. The solutions are to have goals and to work toward them incrementally. One strength of Bennett’s approach is the significant focus on introspection and improvement. Many of the contemporary volumes assume the ultimate value of productivity on its own and fail to point one toward valuing what is really important.

It is unlikely that Bennett’s book will regain its earlier popularity. However, there it is a good book. It is wonderfully concise and remote enough from our own time to be what C. S. Lewis calls an old book. As such, it helps illuminate that many things we view a novel are universal and other things that we may assume are consistent throughout human history are actually particular to our time.

How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day

By Bennett, Arnold

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