How to get over coder's block

The plumber's secret to never running out of inspiration

Petal #20

You pick up the phone and wait for them to pick up.

“…”

A few moments later, “Hello?”

Finally! Someone to help unclog your toilet.

“Hey, my toilet’s been having some issues. Could you come take a look?” you ask.

“Look man, I wish I could. And I know I should. But you know, I’ve just been struggling with a bad case of plumber’s block this week. Sorry but you should find someone else.”

And he hangs up.

How many times has this happened to you?

Probably zero.

Most of you probably aren’t home owners so you don’t have to deal with this issue. But more importantly, I would bet a fair amount of money that the average plumber doesn’t deal with plumber’s block.

But then why does this happen so seemingly often with us “creatives”?

You know exactly what I’m talking about:

• The blog you’ve been meaning to start

• That Youtube channel you’ve been imagining about

• An AI-based side project you’ve wanted to build

As a full-time solopreneur, getting things done has become more important than ever before. Unlike when I used to work at a FAANG company, I don’t get a comfy paycheck every 2 weeks. Finding a way to consistently output meaningful work is now a matter of life or death for me and my future.

Here’s what worked for me. And it will for you too.

The root cause

Delayed gratification is at the center of discipline.

We, as humans, have evolutionarily grown to be really awful at dealing with delayed gratification.

Especially in the digital age, we’ve come to expect all action to immediately deliver some sort of reward.

That’s why you never “need motivation” to go watch more Netflix or eat doritos. We do the act, and usually without delay, see or feel the results (some kind of dopamine rush).

Therefore, we struggle with any task that has a prolonged feedback loop. Exercising will often take weeks if not months to produce visually noticeable progress. Same thing with blogging, starting a Youtube channel, or any creative effort for that matter.

You’ll likely take weeks, if not months, to see some meaningful results and recognition.

And we’re naturally really bad at this.

But good news: there’s a solution to all this.

Going pro

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield is often hailed as one of the best books ever written on creative pursuits.

In his book, Pressfield recommends that the best way to overcome this resistance is to Go Pro. Not the device, but in mindset.

No one wants to hear this.

But the secret to being more consistent with your hobbies and creative activities is to treat it like a job.

You likely force yourself to wake up and (hopefully) shower for work, even on days when you’re dead tired and unmotivated.

Why? Because it’s your job.

We don’t question it. It’s part of our intrinsic wirings as humans in a society. When we’re given a task and a duty, and it’s labeled as “your job”, you’ll be pushed to do them, even without instant gratification.

And the same applies here.

As the great American writer William Faulkner said,

“I only write when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes at nine every morning.”

So if this creative pursuit of yours is meaningful to you, then treat it like a job. Like something you were born to do, and something meaningful and important to you.

You may feel reluctant and say something like “Well then it defeats the purpose. The whole point of a hobby is to get away from the stress of having a job”. And that’s fine, I hear you.

Not all hobbies are worth going so “try hard” over.

But if you want to see real results and consistent improvement in such a hobby, this is just the best method to use. And hopefully, seeing results will mean a lot more to you than just the “freedom” you get from an unrestrained hobby.

Still with me?

Great. Here’s the quick 3-step run-down on how to convert your hobby into a job:

Step 1 - Set a measurable goal

Let’s say you wanted to make AnimeGPT. A chatbot that helps you be less lonely or something. I don’t know.

You thought that sitting back and chiming into zoom calls every day wasn’t helping you grow your career, so you wanted to get some real-world experience under your belt. So this is what you’re building.

Before you do anything, set a (preferably daily) goal that is clearly measurable.

• Write 100 lines of code every day

• Work for 30 minutes daily undistracted

These are great goals. They’re measurable, and so small to the point where you have no excuse to not do them.

Compare this to a goal like “finish a module every week”. It’s not clear how to define “success vs failure” for vague goals like this, and the feedback cycle is a bit too long.

Try to stick with a small, measurable, daily goal. We know from James Clear that this is one of the best ways to develop new habits.

Step 2 - Block Time in your Calendar

Scheduling things in a calendar does magic.

Block out the same time in your calendar every day for this task. Linking a small outcome-oriented task with a daily time and cadence will do wonders in habit-building.

Just like how you likely start every day/week of work at the same time, pursuing your passion project at the same time each day will help build consistency.

Step 3 - Don’t let the X’s stop

When Jerry Seinfeld was asked for advice on how to write better jokes, his response was simple.

Write more jokes.

Write a set number of jokes every day, and once you achieve your quota, cross out today’s date on the calendar with a big “X”. They don’t have to be great jokes, but what matters is that you write enough to fill your quota.

Once you do this for a few days, you’ll have a bunch of “X’s” on your calendar.

Now, all you have to do is to not let it stop.

It’s not much, but I’ve been journaling for 55 days straight.

Reminds me of the times when I tried to keep a Snap streak alive back in high school. It doesn’t really mean that much. Skipping a day wouldn’t be the end of the world.

But as humans, once we have a streak going, we hate to see it end.

So that’s it.

1. Set a clear, small, measurable goal

2. Block the same time slot for your task every day

3. Don’t let the X’s stop

This has been by far the easiest way for me to go from hobbyist to pro.

If a procrastinating attention-deficient millennial like me could keep up a newsletter for 20 weeks straight, I’m sure you could do wonders.

A Chirp

Calorie-Free Snacks

💡 Entrepreneur - Anand Sanwal is the founder and CEO of CB Insights, a data and market research company that does about $100M a year in revenue. Anand is a clown. He has personality, he’s funny, and doubles-down on his own tone of voice. Being the CEO of a company that makes money by selling proprietary data on private technology companies to VCs, he also has a lot to say about the startup space. In this podcast episode, he goes over a ton of different potential startup ideas that he believes could succeed and take off wildly.

🎓 An Online Resource - I thought “Prompt Engineering” was a joke. Until I took a full free course on this topic at https://learnprompting.org. Did you know you can increase Chat-GPT’s accuracy by over 30% just by adding “Explain your thought process step-by-step” at the end of your message? How about Prompt Injection techniques hackers use to access your GPT-based apps? There’s a ton in there. Highly recommended.

🔧 A Javascript Framework - I’ve been messing with new tech for years. I used React for the longest time, from 2017 all the way until 2022. But recently I picked up Sveltekit. It has undeniably become my favorite JS framework by a mile. If you’re building a complex web app and open to learning new technologies, I would not look elsewhere.

🎥 A video - The new Mr. Beast video was sensational. He locks up people age 1-100 in a room and sees who is the last to remain (Hint: it’s not the 1-year old). It was fun and emotional, but more importantly, it was crazy good how well-done the advertising was. It truly made me think “wow, this is the future of ads.”

🙃 A laugh - The average male height of a human being is 5’6”.

🗨️ Wise words by (usually) wise people

“Creating demand is hard. Filling demand is much easier. Don’t create a product, then seek someone to sell it to. Find a market—define your customers—then find or develop a product for them.” - Tim Ferriss

If you learned something new in this Letter, it would mean the world to me if you could click the button below to subscribe to Petal Pedals.

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See you next week!

—Jayjen

P.S. If you do decide to start a new project, venture, or journey, please feel free to email me directly. You’re much more likely to get something done if someone else is keeping you accountable for it. And I’ll be glad to help you follow-through!