University of Kwazulu-Natal

The Hidden Psychology Of Why You Can T Finish A Book Anymore

Bonisiwe Shabane
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the hidden psychology of why you can t finish a book anymore

It used to be easy. You’d sit down with a book and get swept away—chapter after chapter, lost in a world built from nothing but ink and imagination. Now, your bookmark hasn’t moved in weeks. You pick it up, read a few pages, and put it down. You’re distracted. You’re restless.

And you’re not alone. If you’ve ever wondered why finishing a book feels harder than it used to, the answer isn’t just “you got busy.” There’s a deeper reason—rooted in psychology, neurochemistry, and cultural conditioning. First, let’s clear something up: this is not about laziness or lack of discipline. People who struggle to finish books today are often: The issue isn’t desire—it’s cognitive fragmentation. Our brains are being rewired by habits, environments, and technologies that prize skimming over depth, speed over immersion.

Reading long-form content like books requires: If you’re like a lot of authors, you have your book almost finished, but you keep stalling out. You want to finish, but somehow you just can’t seem to get to the finish line. Here are some of the common reasons I find that writers get stuck and how to push past them. We all want to put our best selves out into the world. We want to write the best book possible.

We don’t want to create something that has mistakes, doesn’t convey our vision completely, or just isn’t perfect. There isn’t much in this world that is perfect. And I hate to tell you, but your book is NEVER going to be perfect. No matter how hard you work at it, there will be mistakes. You will think of things later that you should have included. [I could pick up any of the books I have written in 25+ years in publishing and find huge things I want to change or add.] That’s normal.

You will change and grow and this book will stop in time where you left it. It’s supposed to do that. It’s a snapshot of a moment. Your book is already THE BEST. It is unique and no one else but you could have written it. You could spend years trying to rewrite it (and I have a client who has done just that), and then it will never get out into the world.

Stop seeking perfection. Love your book the way it is. Share it. Posted on October 6, 2024October 6, 2024 A book is an investment of your time, and that’s likely why you struggle to finish them. In today’s world, we’ve shifted from deep investments of time to craving soundbites, summaries, and videos played at double speed.

We believe that speeding up will somehow make everything fall into place. The truth is, if you don’t learn to slow down, you’ll burn out. You’ll lose joy in your work, start relying on distractions to cope, and may even feel more isolated than ever before. Slowing down is the antidote, and reading is one of the best ways to regain control of your time and your life. So here’s what I want you to do: go to your bookshelf right now and pick a book you’ve been wanting to read in full. I’ll wait.

It’s a scenario so common it really is a writer cliché: You work diligently on your novel for weeks. The end is in sight — maybe just a few thousand words or a few final chapters to go. And then…nothing. Suddenly, you find yourself reorganizing your bookshelf, deep-cleaning your refrigerator, figuring out how to vacuum your ceiling, or diving into a completely new project. Your nearly-finished manuscript sits abandoned, gathering digital dust as its literary life fades from your mind and memory. Why does your brain seem hellbent on sabotaging you right before the finish line?

And more importantly, how can you fight back? That resistance you feel isn’t just garden-variety procrastination — it’s your brain’s twisted way of protecting you, much like strict parents who won’t let you out with a member of the opposite sex. Sure, they mean well, but our own teenage years can tell us why this approach might be more harmful than protective. Finishing something means subjecting it (and by extension, yourself) to judgment. As long as your project remains unfinished, it exists in a state of… Have you ever found yourself staring at a bookshelf overflowing with titles you couldn't wait to read but never started or finished?

Don't feel bad; you're definitely not alone—even the most avid reader has a few unfinished novels on their shelf! We all have those books we just had to have and then something happened along the way. We got caught up in another book, a coffee date, or life in general. There are so many of us who have those half-read books, and we even mentally add them to a to-do list. As if our brains really need something extra to remember! But don't worry we have got you covered with some great strategies for turning those half-read books into tales of triumph.

We often wonder why some books feel like marathons with no finish line in sight. It can be so frustrating when that initial excitement wanes as you turn each page. It's like you just can't get into the book. Sometimes, it's because of the complete mismatch between our expectations and the book's direction. Then, of course, we are all faced with what can only be described as life's endless distractions, which just don't appreciate our need to keep our noses stuck in a book. And let's be honest; some books demand a level of energy and concentration that's hard to muster after a long day.

I may be becoming the person who never follows the exact prompt of Top Ten Tuesday! But, while today’s official prompt is “Books I Did Not Finish” I don’t like to be so negative on my blog and while I may not have liked some books, that doesn’t mean it... So I’m turning this theme on its head a little bit and sharing ten reasons why I don’t tend to finish a book. And there are plenty of people who can’t stop in the middle of a book no matter how much they don’t like it. But, I’ve learned that there are too many books and not enough time to waste on the little reading time I have on things that I don’t enjoy. This is probably the most obvious.

But, if a book doesn’t get my attention, I’m more likely to put it aside. There doesn’t have to be nonstop action, but something needs to catch my attention like character development, setting, or the plot. Sometimes, life just gets in the way and no matter how much I want to read, it’s just not going to happen. In these instances, my goal is to always try to return to the book again once life has calmed down again. There are some writing styles that I just can’t read. Long ongoing sentences that last a paragraph long are not my favorite.

The same with books that don’t include a lot of punctuation like double quotation marks. Sometimes the writing style or form is just too disruptive for me to enjoy the actual story.

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