What I learned as a founder - 3 Days without computer

A week ago I went to an Apple Store and had them check my Macbook’s keyboard. My tab key was stuck and it could get really annoying when writing and coding. I though I would just get a new switch and key but something else happened.

We’ll replace the entire top case in accordance with consumer law. You don’t have to pay anything but we’ll need the computer. You’ll get it back within 1–3 days from that the part is delivered.

Panic. The part will take about 2 days so were talking 3–5 days without computer and I launched Klart.co one week ago. Fuck. Maybe I can remap caps lock as tab?

Yeah, I need to do some stuff and think about this before I turn it in. Let me get back to you.

The Apple employe starred at me. Is this guy nuts? We’ll give him a new top case for free and he’s hesitating? I went home, made a quick backup, pushed everything to repos and took some deep breaths. Was I some lunatic that couldn’t be without his computer for some days? Shit.
Anyway, I went back to Apple store and turned the computer in. I decided to try to do some work on my iPhone during these days, as well as trying to take some time off. It was going to be great weather after all. Lucky me.

It took three days before I got my Macbook back. These three days turned out to be quiet a lesson. I removed a bunch of stuff from my Trello board. They just wasn’t necessary at this point. I made work that actually mattered instead. Talking to customers and figuring out what’s actually important instead of tweaking fonts and optimizing stuff that didn’t need optimizing. I realized that removing something from your to-do list is even better than marking something as done. It’s like removing code from a project, much better than adding code. This made me realize that there is a lot of time to make something great, you just have to make the right choices.