A MANIFESTO FOR THE AGE OF SUBTRACTION
Stop Starting, Start Stopping: The Antidote to Addition Addiction — a business book by Debbie Jenkins
For smart, overcommitted experts with twenty years of knowing things and thirteen half-started projects. Everyone is telling you to add another offer, system, channel, qualification or clever idea. This book helps you decide what to stop, what deserves to stay and what to finish next. You don’t have a productivity problem. You have Addition Addiction.
By Debbie Jenkins, engineer, publisher and recovering addition addict.
PUBLISHED
28 OCTOBER 2026
THE ADDICTION ADDICT
Eleven live projects. Nine tabs of good intentions. Six platforms. Three offers being “reworked”. A course waiting to be finished and several domain names you would rather not discuss. Nothing is properly dead, so everything is still consuming a little time, money or attention.
- ADD ANOTHER OFFER
- TRY ANOTHER PLATFORM
- BUY ANOTHER SYSTEM
- START ANOTHER PROJECT
- WONDER WHY NOTHING FINISHES
THE DELIBERATE STOPPER
One honest decision. Something that no longer deserves your time is stopped, closed or deliberately abandoned. The recovered attention goes to the one thing worth finishing.
- SUBTRACT
- CHOOSE
- FINISH
- REVIEW
- THEN START AGAIN
Stopping is not the destination. It is how you clear the road.
The problem is not that you cannot start. You have proved that repeatedly. The problem is that nobody taught you what deserves to stop.
THE COST OF KEEPING EVERYTHING
There is a drawer somewhere with all of it in.
The half-built course. The rebrand you paused. The newsletter that ran for six issues. The partnership that never quite began. You are not working on them. But you have not stopped them either. They remain on the mental inventory, waiting for a quieter week, a better plan or the person you apparently expect to become after Christmas.
Some cost you subscriptions. Others cost you another conversation about whether to revive them. All compete with the work you have actually chosen to do.
In this book, I call it Complexity Debt: the accumulated cost of keeping unnecessary commitments alive. Doing nothing about them is not the same as paying nothing for them. You do not have to finish everything you started. You do have to decide what still deserves a place.
You do not have a productivity problem. You have a stopping problem.
“I’LL GET BACK TO IT” IS NOT A STOPPING DECISION.
WHILE YOU WERE BEING TOLD TO START SOMETHING ELSE…
estimated new titles listed in Amazon’s “Starting a Business” category this year
Based on Amazon's "Starting a Business" category, which averaged 1,600+ new titles in the last 30 days alone. That's roughly 53 per day, in just one subcategory. We're being conservative. Counter extrapolates that daily rate; it is not a live Amazon feed.
Plenty of help with starting.
This book helps you decide what deserves to stop.
Another one just published. Probably called "Start Something."
Meet Steve
THE BLOKE IN THE MIDDLE SEAT HAD A BETTER QUESTION.
I met Steve on a plane from Scotland to Birmingham. He was overflowing the middle seat in a Metallica-slash-Sticky-Vicky T-shirt, drinking warm lager. I had the window seat, a laptop full of plans and a life that looked brilliant on paper. Somewhere over the Pennines, this stranger from Wolverhampton asked the questions I had been avoiding for two years.
“If the rest of your life started when this plane lands, what would you keep? What would you bin?”
I was being lectured on Roman philosophy, at altitude, by a man in a Sticky Vicky T-shirt. And he was right. Steve became my friend, my conscience and the voice that interrupts my most impressive excuses. The flesh-and-blood Steve is real. The one in these pages is the version that took up residence in my head. He turns up throughout the book, mostly uninvited. Between his interruptions, you’ll find my stories, practical Stop/Start pairs and questions to apply to your own business. You don’t need to become Steve. You might need someone who asks you what he asked me:
“Ask what you’re never going to do again.”
WHY THIS BOOK?
SIX REASONS TO READ IT. NOT SIX MORE THINGS TO DO.
- 01
You have enough ideas. You need a way to choose. Use one uncomfortable question to test the projects and commitments already taking up space: knowing what you know now, would you start them again?
- 02
You don’t need to become a different person. You can keep your ambition, curiosity and appetite for good ideas. The work is deciding which deserve your attention, not becoming someone who has fewer.
- 03
Stopping does not have to mean forever. “For now” is a useful decision. The book helps you recognise the twitch to start something else, without immediately giving it a budget and a domain name.
- 04
You can read the bit you need. Short Stop/Start pairs let you dip into the habits you recognise. Read in order or go straight to the heading that makes you wince.
- 05
There is something to do after putting it down. Build your Stop List, choose what deserves to stay and use the STOP framework to finish one useful thing before starting the next.
- 06
You get to disagree with me. These are my stops, drawn from thirty years of starting and stopping businesses. Your job is not to copy my life. The last chapter is yours to write.
WHO’S HOLDING WHOM? ON CONTROL AND LETTING GO
Holding every string is not the same as being in control
Every decision needs your approval. Every problem finds its way back to you. You could hand something over, but explaining it would take longer than doing it yourself. Again. Being needed can feel reassuring. Until you want a week off. Some work needs delegating. Some needs simplifying. Some needs stopping altogether. Before you find a better way to keep everything moving, ask which things deserve to move at all. The goal is not to become better at holding the strings. It is to need fewer of them.
What you take away
A WAY TO DECIDE WHAT GOES. AND WHAT GETS YOUR BEST WORK.
Your Stop List
Use Zero-Based Thinking (Brian Tracy) to examine the projects, habits and commitments already filling your week. Knowing what you know now, would you start them again? Build a named list of what no longer deserves its place.
An eye for Snagnals
Learn to notice the little catches that tell you something needs questioning: the task you dread, the activity that looks impressive but produces nothing, the commitment you keep because somebody else said you should. A snag can be a signal, if you stop explaining it away.
A test for your next good idea
Before another idea becomes another obligation, put it through the Minimum Valuable Asset test. Is it manageable to create and maintain? Does it solve a real problem? Will it keep being useful? Give your ideas something harder to pass than “I quite fancy making that”.
A route from subtraction to finished work
Use STOP: Subtract, Target, Own, Produce. Remove what no longer belongs, name your direction, choose the assets that support it and finish one before starting the next. The point is not an empty diary. It is work worth doing, done.
CHOOSE YOUR DIRECTION
A compass beats another engine
A podcast might work. So might a course, a partnership or another offer. You could spend the next year proving all four are possible and still get no closer to the business you wanted. Name who you serve, the problem you solve and what you want to be known for. Then make your projects answer to that.
TRY THE BOOK
BEFORE YOU BUY ANOTHER BUSINESS BOOK, READ SOME OF THIS ONE.
Start with a £40 Mini that refused to stop. Meet Steve, the bloke on a plane who asked the questions I had been avoiding. Then try the question that helps you decide which commitments still deserve a place. Get a free sample of Stop Starting, Start Stopping. Enough to hear my voice, test an idea and decide whether you want the rest.
Evidence
What beta readers said
Right from the very first sentence, I was completely hooked. You have a fantastic natural voice that balances humour with subtle, relatable wisdom.
I'd hand this to a friend who's in a transition period, or starting something new, or struggling to let go of something old.
Yes, yes, yes. I'm onboard for this journey.
CHOOSE YOUR COPY
SAME ARGUMENT. YOUR PREFERRED FORMAT.
Launch-week pricing holds until Wednesday 28 October 2026
Ebook
€2.99
The digital edition of Stop Starting, Start Stopping. Available for download on publication day, PDF, EPUB and Kindle.
Paperback
€14.99€16.99
A print copy to read, mark up and keep within reach when another good idea arrives. Shipped on launch day, 28 October 2026.
Hardback gift edition
€24.99
For your own bookshelf, or someone whose next good idea might need an intervention. Cloth bound with foiled cover, ribbon marker. Available in November 2026.
TEAM AND ORGANISATION ORDERS
BEFORE THE NEXT PLANNING DAY, GIVE EVERYONE A DIFFERENT QUESTION.
Teams rarely struggle to suggest more work. Another initiative, another meeting, another priority. The harder conversation is deciding what comes off the list. Give your team a copy of Stop Starting, Start Stopping before you plan what comes next. Then ask: knowing what we know now, which of our commitments would we not start again?
The Reader
1 copy
€14.99
- A signed paperback
- The “What Should You Stop?” digital diagnostic
- The first chapter instantly, before shipping
- A seat at the live launch webinar
Available throughout launch week
The Stop Squad
10 copies
€149Save around 12%
- 10 signed copies with personalised bookplates
- 10 digital copies to share instantly
- A live 60-minute team workshop with Debbie on Zoom: “What Should Your Team Stop?”
- A team discussion guide PDF
- 10 seats to the launch event
Total value €900+
Only 25 packs available
Organisation and event orders
100 copies · Organisation
€1,190Save around 30%
- 100 copies delivered wherever you need them
- A private in-person or Zoom keynote or workshop for your organisation
- A custom bookplate or foreword note
- An intimate author lunch with Debbie for you and your guests
- Named recognition as a launch sponsor
- Quarterly “what to stop” accountability meetups
Total value €6,000+
Only 10 available — by application
Want Debbie in the conversation? Ask about a facilitated “What Should We Stop?” session for your team. Availability, scope and fees are agreed separately from the book order.
YES, THE AUTHOR WOULD LIKE YOU TO BUY THE BOOK
Stop Reading This Sales Page.
Start Buying This Book.
If you’ve recognised your own collection of half-started good ideas, this book gives you a way to decide which deserve another hour of your life. Choose your copy below. Then put it to work on one decision you’ve been postponing. Buying a book about stopping is still buying something. I am aware of the awkwardness.
Or keep scrolling. We both know what you'll do.
ABOUT DEBBIE JENKINS
THE PROUDEST LINES ON MY CV ARE DELETIONS.
I started out as an electronics engineer and founded my first business in 1996. Since then, I have started and stopped businesses, left jobs, ended partnerships and retired ideas I was once very pleased with. I have been wrong in public more often than most people manage in private. Today, I run Intellectual Perspective Press, helping consultants, coaches and expert business owners turn what they know into books and assets that earn their keep. Sometimes that means helping someone write a book. Sometimes it means asking whether they should write one at all. I wrote Stop Starting, Start Stopping because I recognise the trap. You know a great deal, you can see possibilities everywhere, and somehow all that capability becomes a collection of obligations. I have built that collection myself. More than once. This book brings together thirty years of decisions, mistakes and useful stops. I’m not asking you to copy my life. I’m giving you questions to help you decide what belongs in yours. Mine now includes a falling-down farm in southern Spain, horses, dogs, cats and an unreasonable dependence on baling twine. I call it the Disaster Farm. Subtraction has not made me tidy. Debs
ONE DELIBERATE STOP, BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE
Paperback €14.99 on pre-order, ebook €2.99, hardback gift edition €24.99. Shipping from Wednesday 28 October 2026.
Or start with the free chapter