The question people who build things avoid asking

Does this project still serve everyone involved in a way that improves the whole ecosystem, and if not, can I set it aside?

Question 7 of the Index

Starting is not the rare skill. Anyone with enough conviction can start something, and conviction is renewable. The rare skill is looking at a thing you built, that people know you for, that is not failing, and asking whether it still earns the room it takes up.

This question is hard for a reason that has nothing to do with the project. By the time you can ask it seriously you are inside it: your name is on it, people depend on it, and stopping would be read by others as a verdict on you rather than on the work. So the honest assessment arrives pre-loaded with a cost you personally pay, and that is not a condition under which anyone reasons well.

The people who are good at this tend to separate two things the rest of us fuse. Whether the work is still needed, and whether they are still the right ones to do it. Those come apart more often than they come together, and most of what looks like commitment is the second question never being asked.

The other half is the ecosystem, which is the part that turns a personal decision into a public one. Something that serves you and your funder while quietly leaving the people it names dependent is not doing what it says. Setting it aside is sometimes the most useful thing left to do with it.