It's OK To Quit...

In this week's P.O. Box:

This fall I’ve been trying to ride the wave of reading momentum that we started this offseason with the PO Box Book Club.

A lot of the habits I built up—no phone in the bedroom, reading before bed—have fully stuck, but I do miss some of the accountability aspects. It was nice to have my feet to the fire with weekly check-ins to finish books and stay on pace to meet our goal.

On the flip side, I have appreciated being able to bail on a book I wasn’t enjoying. That was something I wanted to do once or twice during our book club, but the nature of the club meant I would be rugging everyone after selecting it as a group read.

I had forgotten how freeing it is to ditch a book you aren’t enjoying. For years, not having this “skill” made it hard to get in a groove reading. My completionist tendencies resulted in me stubbornly staring at a half-finished book that I was no longer enjoying but wouldn’t let myself abandon. And then my reading would stall out altogether.

These days I’m quick to give a book the hook if I’m not enjoying it. I’m not sure I required “permission” to get to this point, but reading some of Naval’s thoughts on this dynamic five or so years ago gave me the push I needed in this department: