I’m Not Distracted. I’m Just Building Something Else

Oliver Hart

It started immediately. I decided to make a podcast about myself and everything going on around me. A podcast about the thoughts that get stuck in my head, the ideas that appear for no obvious reason, and the strange routes my brain takes when nobody is supervising it.

Oliver Hart

The first proper episode was supposed to explain why I am making this podcast. A calm and reasonably organised introduction to how my mind works. So naturally, before I had even started writing it, I created another podcast.

Oliver Hart

That seems like a good place to begin. I was thinking about what I wanted to say here when another thought appeared.

Oliver Hart

What if I made a podcast with a host who is slightly tired of everything? A man who suspects that humanity may have become a little less intelligent since the arrival of the internet. Not because the internet contains no useful information, but because many people seem to have mistaken access to information for the ability to understand it.

Oliver Hart

He would talk about people believing almost anything they see online. About how critical thinking now appears to be an optional upgrade. Something available in the premium version of the human brain, but apparently not included as standard.

Oliver Hart

That idea became Nobody Asked Joe. And once Joe appeared in my head, I could not simply write down his name and return to this podcast like a sensible person. No.

Oliver Hart

He needed a personality. He needed a voice. He needed opinions, a background, a visual identity and a complete understanding of things he had only learned about fifteen minutes earlier.

Oliver Hart

He needed to be part of Generation X, slightly too confident, dry, intelligent, irritated by modern society and absolutely convinced that he was not mansplaining anything. He was merely explaining it correctly. Then he needed a first episode.

Oliver Hart

And after that, apparently, a second one. So before I had managed to explain why I was making a podcast about myself, I had already created another podcast, built its host and begun planning its future.

Oliver Hart

Efficient? Possibly.

Oliver Hart

Relevant to the task I had actually started? Not even slightly. This is so typical of me that it almost feels dishonest to call it an accident.

Oliver Hart

But this episode is not about Nobody Asked Joe. That is exactly the kind of detour I am trying very hard not to take while making an episode about how easily I take detours. So let us return to the original subject.

Oliver Hart

Me. Unfortunately. And no, I do not have ADHD.

Oliver Hart

Not that I know of, anyway. I have never actually been assessed. But when I hear people online describing what it is like to have ADHD, I usually think, no.

Oliver Hart

That does not sound like me. They describe getting distracted halfway through a task and suddenly doing something completely different. I do not feel distracted.

Oliver Hart

I am completely focused. Just occasionally on the wrong project. There is a difference.

Oliver Hart

Probably. Could I have some other diagnosis? Very possibly.

Oliver Hart

But if I do, nobody has informed me yet, and I am not going to ask the internet. The internet already diagnosed half the population before breakfast and is now recommending supplements. I am not trying to make light of anyone who actually has ADHD, or any other diagnosis.

Oliver Hart

I am only describing how it feels inside my own head. As far as I know, this is not a medical condition. It is simply an enthusiastic lack of moderation.

Oliver Hart

And do not misunderstand me, I like being creative.

Oliver Hart

I do not want that part of me to disappear. If somebody offered me a button that made my brain quiet and perfectly organised forever, I would probably spend several weeks designing a better version of the button. Then I would add user accounts and a database.

Oliver Hart

Somehow the button would become a subscription service. That is the problem.

Oliver Hart

The creativity is not the enemy. The creativity is the part I enjoy. It is the reason I start things, learn things and keep trying to build things I have no formal qualification to build.

Oliver Hart

But creativity is often described as if it is a gentle and beautiful experience. A person sits near a window with a notebook. Sunlight comes through the curtains.

Oliver Hart

A perfect idea arrives. The person smiles, writes it down and then continues drinking coffee. That has not been my experience.

Oliver Hart

My experience is more like having an uninvited development meeting inside my head at four in the morning. Sometimes I cannot fall asleep because my brain has decided that bedtime is the ideal moment to begin product development. Or I wake up three hours before the alarm because it has suddenly found a possible solution to a problem a colleague mentioned earlier in the week.

Oliver Hart

Not yesterday. Earlier in the week. The problem was not urgent.

Oliver Hart

Nobody asked me to solve it. The colleague who mentioned it is probably sleeping peacefully and may have completely forgotten the conversation. But my brain has not.

Oliver Hart

My brain has apparently been working the night shift. So there I am, wide awake, while it begins designing the entire solution. First the basic idea.

Oliver Hart

Then the possible problems. Then how those problems could be prevented. Then a different approach that might be better.

Oliver Hart

Then the reason that approach probably will not work. Then another version that combines the best parts of both solutions. After a while, the work is finished.

Oliver Hart

At least inside my head. Excellent. Problem solved.

Oliver Hart

Except now I am far too awake to go back to sleep. So I lie there with my iPad and watch a tutorial about whatever technology the imaginary solution will require. Because apparently waking up at four in the morning was not productive enough.

Oliver Hart

We also need professional development. And the really annoying part is that I often enjoy it. I may be tired later.

Oliver Hart

I may regret it when the alarm rings. But in that moment, my brain is fully awake, the pieces are moving into place and something that did not exist an hour ago suddenly feels possible. That feeling is addictive.

Oliver Hart

Not in the dramatic documentary sense, where somebody looks sadly through a rainy window while a narrator explains that everything has fallen apart. I still go to work. I still function.

Oliver Hart

I simply occasionally arrive with less sleep and more knowledge about a software framework nobody asked me to investigate. I think much of this comes from music. Music was a large part of my life when I was younger.

Oliver Hart

I sang in a band, although sang may be a generous description. There was Mostly shouting and growling.

Oliver Hart

There were sounds that probably made nearby animals reconsider their migration routes. But it was creative. It gave all that energy somewhere to go.

Oliver Hart

You could take a feeling, an idea or a vague sense that the world was irritating and turn it into something. It did not have to be useful. It only had to feel real.

Oliver Hart

I think that creative part of me is still there. It is simply no longer satisfied with music alone. Now it wants to make podcasts, software, games, businesses and occasionally complete systems that absolutely nobody asked for.

Oliver Hart

The medium changes. The basic urge does not. I like starting with nothing and slowly seeing a shape appear.

Oliver Hart

I like the moment when an idea stops being only a thought and becomes something I can test, change or show to another person. The problem is that my ideas do not respect reasonable boundaries. I can begin with something small. Very small.

Oliver Hart

A simple tool with one useful function. At that point, I am still behaving responsibly.

Oliver Hart

Then I think, if it can do this, it should probably also do that. That seems reasonable. And if it does both things, it needs a better interface.

Oliver Hart

Still reasonable. And because different people may use it differently, it probably needs user accounts. If it has user accounts, it needs permissions.

Oliver Hart

If it has permissions, it needs an administration area. If it has an administration area, it needs reports, settings, backups and a way to recover a password that the user created eleven seconds ago and has already forgotten. Then I begin thinking about scale.

Oliver Hart

What if twenty thousand people use it? To be clear, at this stage zero people are using it. It does not exist.

Oliver Hart

There is no evidence that even one person wants it. But my imaginary twenty thousand users are already creating performance problems, so obviously those must be solved before version one. This is how a weekend project becomes an infrastructure strategy.

Oliver Hart

It happens incredibly fast. The project does not slowly grow over several months. It expands in my head in milliseconds.

Oliver Hart

One small feature opens a door, and behind that door is a complete new product with its own users, problems and future. Sometimes I do not even begin building it immediately. I can think about an idea for weeks.

Oliver Hart

I examine it from different angles. I add things, remove things and mentally test how it could work. During that time, the project I was already working on becomes slower.

Oliver Hart

Not because I have forgotten it. I still think about it constantly. But now it has competition.

Oliver Hart

Every new thing I build reminds me of the other idea. Every problem I solve becomes something I could use there. Every interesting function I discover is immediately kidnapped and taken to the new project in my head.

Oliver Hart

The new idea is exciting because it has no boring parts yet. That is important. An idea is perfect before you start building it.

Oliver Hart

It has no bugs. No awkward decisions. No missing files.

Oliver Hart

Nobody has clicked the wrong button and broken something. The idea exists in a beautiful world where everything works exactly as intended and all users have read the instructions. Reality is less cooperative.

Oliver Hart

Reality contains error messages, incompatible versions and one tiny issue that takes three hours to fix because a comma is in the wrong place. So of course the new idea feels more attractive. It is still innocent.

Oliver Hart

It has not yet had the opportunity to disappoint me. This is one of the things I have been trying to change in myself, learning to keep the first version small. Do the important part first.

Oliver Hart

Make it work. Accept that good enough for now is not the same as bad. Then take the next step.

Oliver Hart

This sounds extremely obvious when I say it out loud. It is the kind of advice people put on LinkedIn beside a photograph of a mountain. Start small.

Oliver Hart

Stay focused. Trust the process. There is probably a sunrise in the background.

Oliver Hart

Unfortunately, understanding the advice and following it are two completely different skills. I can know that version one should be simple and still spend an evening considering what version seven might need. It has become better.

Oliver Hart

I am more aware of the pattern now. I can sometimes catch myself while the project is expanding and say, no. That can wait.

Oliver Hart

Not every good idea has to be included immediately. Not every possible problem has to be solved before it exists. Not every button needs settings. That last one is difficult.

Oliver Hart

Now, In the previous episode, I mentioned that I did not know what the next episode would be about and that I might ask AI. So I did.

Oliver Hart

I asked a very simple question, What do you know about me? This is a completely normal question to ask a machine and not at all the opening scene of a film where technology eventually takes control of society. The answer was uncomfortably accurate.

Oliver Hart

It said I was highly initiative-driven. That I do not wait for somebody else to build the thing I want. It said I think long term, often considering how something should work five years from now rather than only next week.

Oliver Hart

It described me as curious. I move between technology, business, game development, AI, running and motorcycles without being afraid to learn something new. It said I am detail-oriented and can spend a great deal of time on small things if I believe they will improve the final result.

Oliver Hart

And it said I want to understand. I am rarely satisfied with being told, Just do this. I want to know why it works.

Oliver Hart

So far, excellent. I was beginning to like this machine. Then it moved on to the weaknesses.

Oliver Hart

Apparently, I have many projects at the same time. I get energy from starting new things, but that can make it more difficult to finish them. I can become trapped in optimisation, looking for the perfect solution when a solution that is simply good enough would move me forward much faster.

Oliver Hart

I also place high demands on the result. That often improves the quality, but it costs time. Then it described me as stubborn.

Oliver Hart

Usually a strength, it said, but sometimes the reason I continue searching for a better option even when I already have one that works. That felt unnecessary. Accurate, but unnecessary.

Oliver Hart

Eventually it summarised me as an unusually curious and self-directed builder with many ideas, high ambition and a great deal of persistence, but someone who would sometimes benefit from limiting the number of projects and accepting that the first version does not need to be perfect. And I thought, yes. That is irritatingly fair.

Oliver Hart

It is also funny because this is exactly what I have already been trying to improve. Keep the scope reasonable. Finish the important part.

Oliver Hart

Build the next layer later instead of trying to create the final form in step one. Then, while preparing an episode about this problem, I created another podcast. So the progress is going extremely well.

Oliver Hart

But this is where AI has genuinely changed things for me. Before AI, an idea could reach a point where my knowledge was no longer enough to continue. I can program a little in different languages.

Oliver Hart

Enough to understand many of the basic ideas. Enough to create useful things. Also enough to produce errors with a level of confidence that suggests I know what I am doing.

Oliver Hart

I have spent more hours than I can count watching YouTube videos and tutorials. I have followed along while somebody calmly explains a process that works perfectly on their screen and fails immediately on mine. That is one of the oldest traditions in programming.

Oliver Hart

The tutorial says, Now simply run this command. I run the command. The computer responds with three red pages of text and what appears to be a personal criticism of my character.

Oliver Hart

Then I search for the error, discover a discussion from six years ago, and find a person who had exactly the same problem. The final reply says, Never mind, fixed it. They do not explain how.

Oliver Hart

I hope they are doing badly. Eventually I would reach the same barrier. The project had grown beyond my actual knowledge.

Oliver Hart

Solving the next problem required learning another tool, language or system properly. That is possible, but it takes time and energy. When you already have a full life and several ideas competing for attention, the barrier becomes very high.

Oliver Hart

That is where projects often stopped. Not because the idea had disappeared. Not because I no longer wanted it.

Oliver Hart

The distance between what I could imagine and what I could actually build had simply become too large. AI has reduced that distance. Now I can explain what I am trying to do.

Oliver Hart

I can describe the result, ask questions, test what it gives me, find what is wrong and continue from there. I still need to think. I still need to test.

Oliver Hart

I still need to notice when the answer is confidently wrong, which is one of AI’s more human qualities. But I do not have to stop every time I meet a gap in my knowledge. I can ask for an explanation at the level I need.

Oliver Hart

If I do not understand it, I can ask again. The AI does not become impatient, sigh heavily or tell me that this was covered in the previous meeting. At least not yet.

Oliver Hart

This means I can spend more time on the parts I enjoy, shaping the idea, testing it, finding problems, changing how it works and slowly turning it into something real. AI has not removed the work. It has changed where the work happens.

Oliver Hart

It has also changed what happens when a new idea appears. Previously, a second idea could pull me away from the first one completely. I would need to choose where to put my limited time and knowledge.

Oliver Hart

If I moved to the new idea, the old one might be abandoned. Now I can open another chat and begin exploring the new thought without necessarily throwing away the first project. I can write down the concept.

Oliver Hart

Ask how it might work. Find the obvious problems. Build a small piece.

Oliver Hart

Then return to the original project with the new idea safely stored somewhere other than the part of my brain that wakes me at four in the morning. In theory. For my brain, this is like being given unlimited sweets and then being told to manage the shop responsibly.

Oliver Hart

The creativity can flow. Several ideas can develop at the same time. Things that previously might have remained thoughts can become real enough to test.

Oliver Hart

That feels incredible. It also raises an obvious question.

Oliver Hart

Has AI helped me manage the way my brain works? Or has it simply removed the natural barriers that once prevented me from starting too many things? Maybe both.

Oliver Hart

AI helps me keep projects alive. It helps me cross the points where I used to become stuck. It lets me learn while building instead of spending six months preparing to begin.

Oliver Hart

But it also means that every passing idea can now become a prototype before common sense has put its trousers on. I am trying to become better at saying, This is enough for version one. AI is standing beside me saying, Of course.

Oliver Hart

Would you also like user accounts, an administration panel and support for twenty thousand imaginary users? And the worst part is that I usually do. So no, AI has not made me less creative.

Oliver Hart

It has not slowed down the ideas or made my mind quiet. It has made more of the ideas possible. That is the real change.

Oliver Hart

The challenge is no longer only whether I can build something. The challenge is deciding what deserves to be built now, what can wait and what should remain a very interesting thought that never receives a database. I am still learning that.

Oliver Hart

I am learning to let an idea be small. To let a first version be imperfect. To finish something before I improve it forever.

Oliver Hart

And perhaps to write the episode I originally intended before creating an entirely different podcast. Although, to be fair, Nobody Asked Joe now exists.

Oliver Hart

So was it really a distraction? Or was it efficient parallel creativity? That sounds much better. I think I will use that.

Oliver Hart

This podcast is supposed to be about me, the things around me and whatever my mind decides is important enough to keep me awake. This, apparently, is a large part of who I am. I see possibilities everywhere.

Oliver Hart

I enjoy following them. I sometimes follow too many of them at once. I try to make them smaller, and then I immediately imagine how they could become bigger.

Oliver Hart

AI has helped me turn more of those possibilities into something real. Whether that makes it the solution to my problem or the most sophisticated enabler I have ever met is still unclear. But at least I finished this episode.

Oliver Hart

Eventually. And I only created one other podcast while doing it. That feels like progress.