My coding detox

Programming has always been my super power. Whatever I'm doing, I'll find a way to make it more efficient by spinning up a script, web or mobile app.

So naturally, when I quit my day job to be a full time solopreneur, I spent a lot of time writing code. I built systems and workflows and prototypes and emailers and CRM tools and market research tools and video production tools and on and on and on.

Don't get me wrong, I knew that I needed to be talking to people to build a successful product. I knew I needed to be customer-focused. I knew I needed to build a team. I knew I needed to put together blog posts, FAQs and explainer videos. I knew I needed to refine my App Store description and email nurture sequence.

But I was slotting these "human" tasks in-between long stints of coding. If I decided I needed to build my mailing list the first thing I wanted to do was integrate email sign-ups into my existing website (money was tight so I didn't want to pay for MailChimp). I'd see a video about the importance of a good onboarding sequence and add a whole new flow into my SASS. I'd see suboptimal sales and try to fix the problem with more features.

When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail

Sales down? Write more code! Sign-ups low? Write more code! Feeling unmotivated? Build a productivity tool! Unhappy? Build a mood tracker! Gaining weight? Build a calorie counter!

I was becoming increasingly frustrated that all this coding seemed to be delaying any real marketing and communication efforts and nothing I was doing was gaining any traction. And because it's code, everything always takes longer than you expect. And my creativity was being sucked up by more and more software ideas that I couldn't help myself but start. Just one more hit.

I knew this was a fear problem. I was afraid that if I stopped coding, I wouldn't be able to offer any value to the world. I was afraid that what little I had built would begin to crumble.

I'm well-proven as a coder. I've been doing it for 35 years. But as an entrepreneur, I'm still a baby. There was a subconscious bias at play: "If there's something to do that I'm great at, why would I do something where I suck?"

Breaking the addiction

I put myself on a two month Coding Detox.

I'm not allowing myself to start any new features or fix any bugs. If I have an unpolished solution I'll put it out there and contextualise it with blog posts and videos. I'll focus on meeting new people, creating new content, optimising marketing copy, developing an audience and searching for collaborators.

And whenever I get the urge to fire up my IDE I'll say not today Satan and figure out another way.