When is it time to call it quits on a project?

How do you know when it’s time to give up on a project? About two years ago I started a website. It was called The Sydney Journalist and I used it as a vehicle for hosting the kind of articles I wanted to write and interview the people who intrigued me. At first, I loved it. I didn’t need anyone’s OK to write an article and I could write in whatever style and tone I wanted. I dropped F-bombs and gave no effs about it. Freedom!

Statistically, the blog was doing pretty well for a fledgling. In my first week of launching, I published an article that had 10,000 hits and that was thanks to one Instagram shoutout! Over the next few months, I steadily kept adding articles to my catalogue until there were about 55. Some were more popular than others and thanks to my interviewing people who happened to have their own followings, my own blog kept getting hits in the (low) thousands. My page read time stats weren’t bad for a hobby either. Except, I didn’t keep at it.

Because I started the site without a clear plan I easily fell off track (this was, of course, understood in hindsight). I began to stop blogging as much and eventually maintaining the website became an exercise in angst. Was I even writing the stuff I liked anymore? Did I want to be doing this in my future? Did I have time? Would I ever make money from this? AND ON AND ON. I am sure some of you can relate. Eventually, I stopped blogging altogether. I didn’t plan to stop, I planned to get back to it of course, but I never did.

I left the site live and my four-month-old project sat there stagnant for two years. I used the website as a portfolio and occasionally sent links out to people. Recently I began to look at the site again. I marvelled at how many articles I managed to get up in such a short period of time. Cringed at some of my weaker sentences and smiled at the better ones (smirked with self-satisfaction is probably a better description, ha ha). What should I do with this thing? I checked out my analytics and realised some of my articles were achieving a number one ranking on Google. These rankings were enough to ensure that even though it was stagnant, my site was still getting a thousand or more hits every month. Nothing special but there was potential. I could probably revive the site if I wanted to. The question was, did I want to? I shouldn’t let the opportunity go to waste, should I? After mulling it over for a few weeks I realised that I had spent a few months working on the blog and years angsting over it. I mean casual angst but still angst. Something had to give. I couldn’t leave the beast in limbo any longer. Keep or delete?

I dug deep and realised that I didn’t want to commit to reviving this specific website. Yes, it was “wasted effort”, a lost project, a neglected brainchild and even though I weirdly wanted to avoid a sense of failure (because a project in limbo isn’t a failure yet, obvi), it was time to cut it loose.

I archived everything, deleted the site and all related assets and the funny thing was, once I deleted everything, I DIDN’T THINK OF IT AGAIN. Until writing this article that is. All the “angst” vanished and I had the capacity to think about projects I wanted to work on right now. I also had the capacity to be more objective and realise what I did right and what I did wrong. Lessons I can hopefully carry into my next undertaking.

Anyway, all this brings me back to the point of this blog. How do you know when it’s time to call it quits? What’s the difference between pausing a pursuit and denial regarding impending demise? I still don’t think I have an answer to this but I am definitely more open to letting things go and I’ve learned that’s it not always so terrible to start something and then stop when you realise you don’t want to finish it.

OH! And for those interested in boosting the profile of their own blogs, here are three things that worked for me: 

1. Use social media PROPERLY. And by that I mean don’t just use it as a one-way mouthpiece. Post about your articles and actually interact with people. Write decent captions that are intended to educate and entertain. Comment on other people’s posts and don’t be stingy with your likes.
2. Network with people who already have their own audience. When I started interviewing people for my blog it was for my own gratification but it actually turned out to be a handy strategy when it came to getting more website visits.
3. Don’t be afraid to write longer form pieces. I find some people still have the shorter is better mentality. Sure you don’t want to unnecessarily waffle on but the blogs I had rank first on Google were over 1,000 words. Worth thinking about.