Are you using technology (or is technology using you)?

If you'd told someone from 1980 what technology would be capable of 40 years hence, they'd have been absolutely blown away by what they learned.

If you subsequently told them how we spend our time using it, they'd have been thoroughly perplexed.

It really seems like technology spends as much time using us as we spend using technology... and I'm not just talking about how the various content platforms manipulate your dopamine system to profit at the expense of your wellbeing (which is a topic worthy of an essay of its own).

No, I'm talking about technology that you've consciously chosen to employ, that promises to achieve something for you that you actually want; more efficiency, more clients, more productivity, more capacity.

I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of small business owners and solopreneurs and I reckon one of the biggest barriers to progress is procrastination through confusion. In essence, we love the idea of a piece of software, and after making the decision to implement it we plow days, weeks, and months into trying to get it up and running and performing a useful function.

We're dazzled by the promise of what this piece of software might achieve, and fail to take into consideration the cost of the days, weeks and months invested into getting it right.

If you're a solopreneur, I think we can safely say you're an expert in 'your thing', whatever it might be. Often, that incredible talent comes at the expense of other skills. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure no-one would be offering me a job in IT if I decided on a change in career, and with good reason! It's not my talent. For many people reading this, I suspect it may not be yours either.

But when you're a solopreneur (or in a truly small business) often there's no-one else to whom we can turn to implement software projects, so we try to do it ourselves.

The result isn't always bad, but it's often not good. The tool never achieves what we'd imagined it might, we end up abandoning it, and the time we've invested is lost. Time that could have been invested doing things we are good at. Time you could have spent doing your thing.

Am I saying you should never adopt new technology? Of course not. I am saying you should work hard to consider the real costs of implementation, and the real likelihood of success.

As a general rule, whatever a piece of software promises to do, you should imagine it will be half as effective as it claims.

Similarly, think long and hard about how long you think it will take to get it into action... and multiply your estimate by ten.

Yes, TEN.

If you still think it's going to be worth spending ten times the imagined effort to achieve half the promised result, go for it.

Otherwise, go and do your thing. It's what you're on this planet to do after all, isn't it?

Photo by Victoria Heath on Unsplash