Link to Retiring the Scoreboard: Why I’m Done Counting Books Retiring the Scoreboard: Why I’m Done Counting Books
For many years, I ran a 52 Books in 52 Weeks challenge on my blog, usually as my first blog post of the year, which I updated each month. It was an annual public commitment, a visible signal of intellectual seriousness, and a helpful forcing function. I finished the books. I kept score. I published the totals.
And for a long time, that worked.
But over time, I began to notice something uncomfortable: the challenge had quietly shifted from a tool into a trap. I was no longer reading primarily in service of inquiry. I was reading to satisfy the Scorekeeper, the part of me that equates value with accumulation, visibility, and clean metrics.
That’s a problem if your real work is investigation.
Link to From Scorekeeper to Investigator From Scorekeeper to Investigator
A perfect score on a reading list can look like discipline. It can also be a red flag: hidden waste, shallow synthesis, and borrowed urgency. In fast-moving, ambiguous domains olume is a particularly weak proxy for understanding.
I also had to ask a harder question: Had the challenge become at least partly performative?
Not in a cynical way, but in a subtle one. Something I continued because it was expected, recognizable, and easy to validate publicly, even as its private usefulness declined.
This quarter, I officially removed all volume-based reading goals.
Not paused. Retired.
The 52-book pace had become an inherited obligation—something I was maintaining because it once made sense, not because it still served my prime metric: creating new knowledge while preserving intellectual and personal vitality.
Link to The Pivot: Match Quality The Pivot: Match Quality
This shift has been strongly influenced by David Epstein’s book Range, particularly his concept of match quality. Math quality is the idea that learning in complex, “wicked” environments depends less on speed or volume and more on timing, context, and fit.
Broad sampling still matters. But it only pays off when it feeds deeper synthesis. Otherwise, it’s just motion.
When the match is right, a book stops being “content” and becomes an experience. It reshapes how you see a problem. It sharpens your questions. It earns its time.
Link to The New Protocol: Project-Linked Reading The New Protocol: Project-Linked Reading
I’m replacing the 52 scoreboard with Project-Linked Reading.
Reading is no longer a standalone activity to be tallied. It is explicitly tied to my active work: teaching, writing, scenario analysis, or synthesis inside the Kennedy Idea Propulsion Laboratory. The goal isn’t fewer books. It’s higher yield per book. And that higher yield can be fun or new learning or revisiting books that had a big impact on me.
This is strategic amplification through simplification. By removing the count, I’m freeing up what I think of as insight-hours—time and attention better spent turning ideas into reusable frameworks rather than racing to the next spine on the shelf.
Link to A Reusable Pattern A Reusable Pattern
If this resonates, here’s the pattern at work:
Pattern: Retiring a Zombie Metric
- Identify the proxy you’re serving.
- Name the asset you actually want to grow.
- Replace the count with a context-sensitive trigger.
Link to The Monday Morning Move The Monday Morning Move
If you find yourself racing through a list just to check the box, pause and ask:
Is this book more intellectually compelling than the deep work I’m currently avoiding?
In 2026, spaciousness is a form of productivity. I’m choosing to stop counting, and start digging.
[Originally posted on DennisKennedy.Blog (https://www.denniskennedy.com/blog/)]
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