80 Hours + $300 and All I Got Was This Bed
Ok maybe I got more than a bed.
Learning and progress is more than a core value to me, it’s the thing that wakes me up in the morning. It’s my meaning to life. Stagnation and complacence feels like a meaningless death to me, so I constantly push myself to grow in new realms.
Much like how sports teaches important skills like leadership and teamwork, I find developing new arts and swimming into unknown waters teaches me more about myself than I often anticipate.
Here’s a story about a boy and a bed.
I started out very ambitious, very excited. A few setbacks couldn’t get me down. Then my first estimate for when I would be done came and went (notice I said first), and I lost the spark.
Jump forward a bit and I’d spent my 4th full weekend on this. I was truly listless on this project. As a matter of principle, I refuse to let regret sink in — it’s rarely a useful feeling — but damn I was really pushing myself to learn from this experience and never make this mistake again.
This is how I felt until the final screw was set…then I felt amazing. My bed, my home, was in balance.
Background
My last 2 apartments had white carpets and whiter walls. Putting my mattress straight on the floor in the corner of the room with a white comforter was a pristine look of minimalism.
In September, I moved into a room with hardwood floors, a mural-painted wall, and no convenient corners to curl up in. My pristine minimalism turned into:
Oh so you just don’t have a bed…?
Day 1
I got a little excited. I needed a bed and I thought “hey, I built one in college. I’ll build another. This time, it’s going to be spectacular.” I looked for some inspiration (1 main one, 2, 3), thought up some designs, and I drew it out.
This felt right. A project with tangible progress, much different than the vague developments that happen with my work as a product manager.
Plans in hand, I headed out to Lowe’s. That’s when things started trending downwards. After a 2 hour wait for the employees to get off their break, they told me that unlike Home Depot back in college, they wouldn’t cut the wood to my specifications. So I had to buy a saw (I’ll figure out how to keep all my fingers later).
The next day, I got started. This was my set up.
To make this bed a premier piece of furniture, I sanded this wood to kingdom come. 1000 Grit is my middle name.
After connecting the main frame, I discovered that my best attempts at accurate measurement and cuts were dashed by some frustratingly curved wood. The planks I had gotten from Lowe’s were more twisted than the creators of Ren & Stimpy.
Potentially devastating news: During the weekdays, I wasn’t able to work on the frame. So it sat, patient but daunting, in back of our kitchen. Only issue, it blocked a door in our kitchen, so I had to move that bad boy around a few times. No problem.
Then I heard the crack.
One shift did something. I don’t know what exactly, because the frame looked ok. But it was certainly not as rock solid as before. I decided not to think about it. I just need to finish this thing before it truly breaks down.
Ok but first, more potentially devastating news: none the cross beams would fit.
I guess I’ll saw the cross beams down by 2 millimeters. *Massive eye roll*
I was smarter with my sawing this time though…
Almost There
So now I’ve been working on this thing for all my free weekends for the past 2 months. I’ve gotta get through this thing or just call it…maybe I should just call it?
No. I know I’ve had a problem finishing projects in the past. This feels like one of those issues that could hold me back from really important things I want to do. So I need to push through to results and learn how to finish what I start.
Let’s just try sprinting a bit more.
While this didn’t require a lot of work, this was a pivotal component of the bed. It’s the foundation of the bed, so if it’s weak, I’m going down down in an earlier round. I struggled with the twisted wood issue again here, but even more so once my drill started wearing out.
Sweet salvation, I borrowed a drill from a couple of my close friends. This thing was a tank and plowed (almost too far) through all the wood I needed it to. That drill helped me finish this next step almost imperceptibly fast.
Once those two components were separately finished, it was time to move into my room, get that mattress out of the way, and assemble into the final state.
Twenty minutes of OCD adjustments and “one last screw”s later, I had a bed. And it was all immediately worth it.
What have we learned, Charlie Brown?
Keep Moving
There were several times I could have been much more productive if I had just kept going. Instead, I got frozen by thinking I needed to plan more or redesign or solve future problems instead of the ones at hand. I feared that moving forward would lead to mistakes, but in truth, the worst damage that happened to the frame was because I had taken too long!
Bezos has this concept of Type I decisions vs Type II decisions. Type I decisions must be made very carefully because once you go in, there’s no turning back. Type II on the other hand, those decisions are reversible and need to be made quickly to keep progress going. Worst case, we’ll fix it. I often feel like every decisions is Type I. In truth, most decisions are Type II.
The Right Tools
I spent 3 full days sanding because I refused to upgrade to a belt sander, or even better, rent a car and drive to a machine shop. That improved drill opened my eyes, I could have massively sped up my process if I had used the right tools the whole time.
Results Over Regrets
I’m deeply ashamed to say I’ve done a lot of talking about projects, some starting of said projects, and very little completion of those projects. Not only does it lower my credibility, with others as well as to myself, it also lowers my confidence. Each time I thought I was committed and didn’t even finish a first version of whatever it was, that wore away at my confidence. “I didn’t accomplish that, so why should I even dream of working on this.” I was almost on the path to another such failure, but I wanted to show myself I could finish a daunting task.
So I did. And boy does it feel good. My entire room looks different. My energy is through the roof. And I’ve been riding high ever since.
I often fail to finish projects because I get distracted by some new excitement, but I’ve found that doubling down on a commitment lets me attach identity to something I can truly be proud of. That is way more rewarding than following my hyperactive excitements. I’d rather finish 2 projects in a year than start 10 in 6 months.
The Main Thing is the Main Thing
While I’m so happy I have this bed, and I’ll be satisfied with it every morning I wake up and every night I fall asleep, I honestly shouldn’t have made that bed. I have goals. I have priorities. None of them are furthered by spending 80 hours across 3 months on building a bed.
I really value the bed and these learnings I’m writing down are surprisingly valuable honestly, but I probably could have gotten the same learnings plus a bed with a different project more in line with my goals (and for less money).
Your top priority goals, “the main thing”, are where you want to go right now. So you can’t just throw random projects into your path if they’re going to detract from “the main thing”. For each project you work on, the first question should be “does this align with my goals?” or else you’re just diluting your time, energy, and resources.
With Depth Comes Depth
I built a bed. By now you’re probably thinking something about how I’m pontificating about all these kitschy learnings from building a bed and it seems rather contrived. I would probably think the same, but honestly, one of those kitschy learnings is how diving deep into something can provide a much deeper type of learning than I had previously understood.
I expected to learn how to design a more stable bed. I was surprised to find I would learn how to saw. But I never would have guessed that finishing this project, and my current reflections, would build my confidence and my self-awareness so much. This will be one of those experiences I rely on when things get tough.
Today it’s a bed. Tomorrow it’s a web app. Next year it’s a company. And by the end, it’ll be a pride-filled, satisfying life.
Thank you to my roommates who never shot down this effort despite pretty non-trivial impositions on them. Without their support here, I might have called it quits pretty early on.
Thanks for reading :) See the full photo album here!
Oh also, one more thing
