I was sitting on my sofa last night, completely destroyed.

4 hours of sawing, drilling, screwing, failing. my hands sore. my back hurting

Because the whole day I tried to build a chair for this week’s skill: woodwork.

(a skill the modern tech bros need)

and I was staring at my living room table…

I've looked at that table every single day for years. I've eaten on it. put my laptop on it. never once thought about it.

but last night I saw it differently.

and I thought: I wonder who made this and how long it took them?

for 30 years I've been sitting on chairs without once wondering how they got there.

Unusual lesson: that's what building a chair does to you. it rewires what you notice.

Have you ever tried woodwork? If not, try it this week together with us!

why I almost quit today

today was Thursday. day 4 of building. and I got genuinely upset.

I spent hours on a joint that wouldn't line up. I'd make progress on one side, feel good about it, and then something on the other side would detach.

the whole thing wobbled. it felt like at any moment this chair will break

and here's what made it worse: I knew it was my fault.

I rushed. I'm an action-oriented person.

I like to move fast, figure things out on the go, adjust in real time. that works great in business. in content. in most of the digital world.

it does not work with… wood.

wood doesn't care about your energy or your bias for action. wood cares about whether you measured accurately. whether you marked the cut line.

I skipped those steps because I was impatient. and the chair showed me exactly what impatience looks like when it's made physical.

BUT I kept going. and by the end of today, it started taking shape. it's not pretty. it's not straight. one leg is slightly shorter than the others.

but I can sit in it.

and tonight I'm going to bed exhausted in a way I haven't felt in months.

not the anxious, screen-tired exhaustion where your brain is buzzing but your body did nothing. real tired. hands tired. shoulders tired.

the kind of tired that makes you fall asleep in two minutes and not think about your to-do list.

I think most of us in digital work have forgotten what that feels like.

the lesson (so far)

I'm only halfway through this week, but the chair already taught me 2 things:

the first is that we are surrounded by things that required enormous skill and care to make, and we never notice.

chairs, tables, doors, shelves. someone built all of it. someone solved hard problems so we wouldn't have to think about them. that deserves a second of appreciation.

the second is that planning isn't the opposite of action. it's what makes action work. I've always been the "just start" guy. and in a lot of contexts that's the right move. but this chair is proof that sometimes the fastest way forward is to slow down, measure twice, and mark your lines before you cut.

sunday is the reveal

by sunday this chair will be finished. sanded, stained, and sitting at my desk.

or it will have collapsed under me during a zoom call.

But please try to build something with wood, you will enjoy it :)

p.s. my hands smell like pine and wood glue.

Daily progress, never giving up: