Why We Don't Finish
The truth is that sometimes we’ll never get there at all. Most videogames are left unfinished; nearly half of those who start university don’t get a degree. What do you think causes people to commit to things that they don’t complete—and are modern technologies making it easier or harder for us to get things done?
Roughly 90% of people who start a video game never reach the end. Nearly half of those who start university never get a degree. We are a species that loves to begin and routinely fails to finish — and the gap between starting and finishing is where most of life's unfinished business piles up.
Key concepts
- Attrition Rate
- The share who start something and drop out before the end — often shockingly high (about 90% for video games).
- The Novelty Of Starting
- Beginnings are exciting — new game, fresh notebook — while middles are a grind; we chase the dopamine of the new start more than the slog of finishing.
- The Messy Middle
- The long stretch after the excitement of starting fades but before the finish is in sight — motivation sags here, where most projects quietly die.
- Low Switching Cost
- How easy it is to abandon one thing for another — when a thousand alternatives are one tap away, finishing competes with infinite shiny new starts.
What to know
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01
We're wired to love starting more than finishing — the novelty of a beginning delivers a reward the grinding middle doesn't, which is why even acclaimed games go mostly uncompleted: it's the universal sag of the middle, not quality.
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