When Delaying Failed Projects Is Better than Quitting

As we've mentioned before, quitting is great when you can do it quickly, and if you know when to do it you'll save yourself from wasting time. That said—sometimes it's less about quitting a project entirely, and more about knowing when to step away from it. When you're overworked or burnt out on a project, you start making mistakes, and when that happens you're increasing the chances you'll quit in the long run. Blogger rachelbythebay calls this the stupid hour:

• It's the point when I've been awake for too long and anything I create is sure to be suboptimal. The late hour has drained enough out of me to where I turn stupid and my output shows this.

It's at that moment that it's often best to just go the f**k home, but sometimes its good to distance yourself even further. In an essay in the Believer, novelist Zadie Smith goes so far as to suggest you take as much time away from a project as humanly possible:

• When you finish your novel, if money is not a desperate priority, if you do not need to sell it at once or be published that very second—put it in a drawer. For as long as you can manage. A year of more is ideal—but even three months will do. Step away from the vehicle. The secret to editing your work is simple: you need to become its reader instead of its writer.

Even though Smith talks about doing this with a novel, it's a piece of advice we can all use for just about anything we create. Sometimes, when you're sitting there pounding your head into a project you're only making it worse. When you delay the work, you're given the opportunity to put a fresh set of eyes on it and make it better.