Unpopular opinion: killing a project is a skill, not a failure

I read a comment last Tuesday in the woodworking subreddit where someone said they abandoned a chair build after 14 hours because the joinery kept splitting, and half the replies called them lazy. That really got me thinking about how we treat quitting around here. On one hand, pushing through teaches you persistence and sometimes that ugly chair becomes a gift for someone. On the other hand, sunk cost is real and I've got three half-finished birdhouses in my garage from 2021 that I know I'll never touch again, so maybe knowing when to stop is smarter. Do you think we should celebrate decisive kills or is that just an excuse for quitting too early? Has anyone else walked away from a build and felt relieved instead of guilty?

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blairstone1mo ago

The real skill might be getting better at knowing when a project is still teaching you something versus when it's just eating your time and materials. That chair that kept splitting, the builder probably learned more about wood movement and joint prep in those 14 hours than in any success. But the birdhouses sitting untouched for years are actually the worse outcome, they're not finished projects or abandoned ones, they're just clutter with guilt attached. A clean kill at least frees up your headspace and your garage for the next thing. Maybe the real problem is we treat every build like it has to end in a physical object, when some projects are really just practice for the next one.

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