Lean Learning: Why I Stopped Finishing Books (And You Should Too)
What happens when you give yourself permission to stop doing the things that aren't serving you?
I was cleaning out my office last week and found a stack of business books I'd bought but never finished.
As someone who devours books, this felt like failure. Until I started flipping through them and realized something. The ones gathering dust weren't the problem. I was.
That highly recommended marketing book everyone said was "essential"? Outdated advice that had nothing to do with where my business was heading, wrapped in case studies from companies I'd never heard of, teaching strategies that felt like they belonged in 2015. The productivity guide that was supposed to revolutionize my workflow? I'd forced myself through 200 pages of rehashed time management tips I'd heard a dozen times before.
But here's what I noticed. The books I actually finished? I ripped through them in days, filling the margins with notes and walking away with a list of things to try immediately. The struggle-through books left me frustrated and uninspired. Like homework.
Maybe the problem wasn't my attention span.
Perhaps the problem was that I thought I had to finish everything just because I had started it.
Why Business Education Overwhelm Hurts Your Progress
We're drowning in business education. Courses. Podcasts. Books. Newsletters. Masterclasses. The message is everywhere: consume more, learn more, do more.
But here's what nobody talks about. Most of that content isn't meant for you. Not right now, anyway.
There's a notion that the more you consume, the more successful you'll become, as if knowledge accumulates like interest in a savings account and eventually reaches a magical tipping point where everything falls into place.
I've watched people collect courses like baseball cards, yet they still struggle with the same problems they had two years ago.
What if we flipped the script entirely?
I recently came across Pat Flynn's new book Lean Learning, and it made me realize I'd felt the same way about challenging everything we've been told about business education.
What if instead of learning everything about something, we learned just enough to take action? What if we stopped when we had what we needed instead of continuing until we were overwhelmed?
This approach has four simple steps:
Choose your next goal
Learn only what's essential
Take action
Reflect and repeat
Notice what's missing? The part where you consume everything available on the topic. The part where you research until you're paralyzed.
How to Focus on Essential Business Knowledge
How many times have you signed up for a course, bought a book, or started a training program only to realize halfway through that it wasn't what you needed?
I used to power through anyway. Because quitting felt like giving up.
But there's a difference between giving up and being strategic.
Sometimes, the most valuable thing you can extract from a 300-page book is one framework from chapter three. Othertimes, a $500 course teaches you exactly what you need in the first module. The rest? Filler.
Here's what I've started doing instead.
I browse for the timeless tips and information I can apply right now, regardless of where I am in my business journey. If a book isn't giving me inspiration or actionable insights within the first few chapters, I extract what's useful and move on.
No guilt. No forcing myself through irrelevant content just because someone else found it valuable.
It’s like drinking a glass of sour milk just because the glass was full.
Yet somehow, when it comes to business education, we torture ourselves through content that isn't serving us. We guilt ourselves into finishing courses that aren't relevant to our current stage. We push through books that feel like slogging through mud because someone on LinkedIn said it was a "must-read."
Why Action-Based Learning Gets Better Results
The traditional learning model goes like this: Study everything, then maybe do something.
Let’s rework that thinking. Learn just enough to take one meaningful action, then learn more based on what happens.
This isn't about being lazy or cutting corners.
It's about recognizing that real learning happens when you're doing, not when you're consuming. When you're getting feedback from real people about real results instead of theoretical knowledge about hypothetical situations.
I think about a client who spent six months researching email marketing platforms before sending a single email. She could tell you the features of every tool, the pros and cons of each pricing tier, and the technical specifications that didn't matter for her 100-person list. But she hadn't actually written an email. Or built a sequence. Or learned what her subscribers wanted to hear about.
What if she'd learned just enough to pick one platform and send one email?
What if she'd figured out what she actually needed by doing, instead of by researching?
She would have discovered that her subscribers were more interested in behind-the-scenes content than industry tips. She would have learned that her best open rates came from Tuesday sends, not the Wednesday schedule all the experts recommended. She would have found her voice by writing, not by studying other people's successful campaigns.
Action teaches you things research never will.
Why This Feels So Hard
People think that once you pick up a book, you need to struggle through and finish it. Same with courses. Same with offers. Anything.
There is a work ethic ingrained in business education that suggests struggle equals value. If it's not hard, it's not worth doing. If you didn't suffer through all 400 pages, you didn't really learn anything.
But here's what I've learned. The books that feel like work usually aren't teaching you anything. The courses that feel like slogging through mud aren't moving you forward. The content that leaves you frustrated and uninspired isn't helping you build anything.
The stuff that's actually useful? You can't put it down. You finish it quickly because it's speaking directly to what you need right now. Because it's solving a problem you actually have instead of a problem someone thinks you should have.
What This Looks Like in Practice
Since adopting this approach, my learning has become more focused and targeted. I pick a specific challenge I'm facing - let's say improving client retention. I don't read three books about customer success and take two courses on relationship building.
I find one resource that addresses my specific situation. I extract what I need. I try it. I see what happens.
If it works, great. If it doesn't, I learned something valuable about what doesn't work for my situation. Either way, I'm moving forward instead of staying stuck in preparation mode.
This doesn't mean I've stopped learning. I probably learn more now than I did when I was trying to consume everything. But I learn something specific, not just to accumulate knowledge.
The Real Rebellion
In a world that profits from keeping you perpetually learning, choosing to learn less is actually radical.
The course creators want you to believe you need their entire system, from foundation to advanced strategies, even if you only need help with one specific challenge.
The productivity gurus want you to think you need to optimize everything, from your morning routine to your email signature, when maybe you just need to stop checking Instagram during work hours.
Business books want you to believe that more information equals more success, that somewhere in those 300 pages lies the secret that will transform everything.
But what if the opposite is true?
What if learning less, but applying more, is actually the path to better results? What if the people who are getting ahead aren't the ones consuming the most content, but rather the ones who know when they have enough to move forward?
This approach isn't just about efficiency.
It's about recognizing that your time and attention are finite resources. Every hour you spend consuming content that isn't directly applicable to your current challenge is an hour you're not spending building something real. Testing something. Learning from actual experience instead of someone else's theory.
Your Turn
So here's what I'm curious about: What's one thing you're over-learning right now?
What course are you halfway through that isn't giving you what you need? What book are you forcing yourself to finish even though it lost you three chapters ago? What area of your business are you researching instead of testing?
Maybe it's time to close the book. Mine what's useful. Move to action.
The rest will be there when you actually need it.
Want to organize your learning around what actually matters? I've created a Learning Central Notion board—a free template that helps you track only the essential knowledge you need for your current goals. It's a small part of the Digital Navigator HQ resources I share with my community. Get your copy here and start learning less, but applying more.