Life is Easier When You’re Tech Savvy

Finally my 3-part AI series is over and I can write about something else. Which is… more technology!

So, I’m not sure if you knew this, but babies don’t know how to walk.

As soon as they’re able to experiment with crawling, it’s only a matter of time before they learn. I’ve never seen a baby be like, “meh, I just don’t understand this bipedalism thing. I think I’ll stick with abject helplessness.”

And yet, that spirit of defeat is what I often hear from knowledge workers, business owners, or any average person when it comes to technology.

Everyone has a smartphone, one or more email accounts, and in my spheres, a website, but these are seen as magic black boxes that sometimes work, sometimes don’t, and the user never really knows what’s happening.¹

Living in a tech-centric world without basic tech literacy is like being a baby who never learned to walk.

Or read. Maybe that would have been a better metaphor.

Knowing how to use tech gives you an edge. On the low end, it might be self-confidence and less stress because you know how to use your devices effectively. On the high end, it skyrockets productivity because you can implement more advanced tools or AI.²

I’m not asking you to become a tech expert or do what I do all day. What I’m saying is that with a little curiosity and tad bit of effort, you can increase your tech fluency and benefit from the era you live in.

How might you do this? I’m so glad you asked…

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Step one is to change your mindset.

No longer are you a hapless technophobe, frustrated by every potential digital obstacle. Instead, you get to live in a time where you have access to an AI enhanced calendar that will auto-select available times for meetings and help you track productivity, all for the low, low price of $0. Incredible! 50 years ago, that was called a secretary!

There’s a now famous book called Mindset, and the gist is that framing matters, especially for kids. Our language often implies a fixed mindset (“You aced that test because you’re so smart”). This is limiting because it implies a static personality trait you have no control over. Instead, language should emphasize a growth mindset (“You studied really hard to do well on that test”).

I’m asking you to apply a growth mindset to your technology use. These are skills that can be learned like anything else.

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Step two is to notice things. Begin to familiarize yourself with terms you might have skipped over before.

My kid was playing digital chess this week, and the character giving instructions was explaining how a rook or a pawn could move in a certain way… those words went in one ear and out the other. Yes, I was tired, but I have so little interest in chess that it sounded like the parents in Charlie Brown.

I suspect this is what happens with most people when they hear something like “it’s in the cloud.” Resist the urge to let that concept pass by, and try to actually understand it.

The “cloud” is just someone else’s computer, connected to yours via the Internet.

See how easy that was?

Here’s what this starts to look like:

• When you open Google Chrome: that application is called a “browser.”
• When you load a website, it saves the page so it loads faster next time: that’s called a “cache.”
• If your web developer makes a change on your website, and you’re still seeing the old version, you might need to delete the saved version of the page. That’s called “clearing the cache.”
• Or you might be told to open a private/incognito window, which will bypass the cache to show the most current version of the web page.
• Eventually, you’ll learn that there are different layers of caching: there’s the “browser cache,” saved locally on your computer, but there’s also caching on the server.
• The “server” is the computer that serves the files for your website (i.e., the “cloud.”)
  

All these concepts build on each other, but you don’t have to go 20 layers deep and become an IT guru.

The point is that you understand the basics enough to realize it’s not magic. Maybe someday you’ll even troubleshoot the simple issues that inevitably happen, because…

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Step three is to figure (simple) things out, then test in a safe environment.

These are baby steps. Nothing crazy or irreversible like wiping the hard drive on your computer. Something like thinking about the series of actions that led to the problem, and seeing if you can discover the cause.

My podcast mic starts blinking crazily sometimes, and the common denominator is that I’ve opened Garage Band. That tells me it’s probably some sort of an input switching issue, and I’ll start exploring that line of reasoning to fix it/prevent it from happening again. That’s all troubleshooting is.

Google things. Ask AI, which is even easier because it will ask follow-up questions, explain concepts and provide suggestions.

Use that newfound determination, curiosity, and understanding of terms to see if you can follow the explanation. Then when you’re comfortable, try to do something on your own.

If you do enlist help, see if you were close to figuring out the solution, and if possible have the helper show you what they did and why it worked.

If you make a practice of doing this on a regular basis, your tech fluency is going to be noticeably better in a year’s time. Instead of throwing up your hands and saying, “I just don’t understand technology” just pause for a moment. What if you could?

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The first website I ever built was in high school. A simple HTML site I used to share my guitar chord charts.

Later on I built websites in super old software that doesn’t even exist anymore: GoLive, Dreamweaver.

The first time I used WordPress, I found the learning curve atrocious. I’m so far removed from that version of myself, 15+ years ago, that it’s hard to remember what it felt like. I vaguely remember the initial confusion (WordPress has its own way of doing things that doesn’t always make sense). But it was definitely real.

I’ve been developing our provided tech stack for a decade now, and there have been all sorts of tools, testing and iterating I’ve done along the way. I’ve built multiple MVPs (Minimum Viable Product) on top of this, always refining and learning something new.

I am entirely self-taught.

It all started with the decision to open notepad and write some HTML over two decades ago. Technically, it began before that when I was booting up MS-DOS, reading about robots, constantly having to figure how everything worked.³

Every journey (developer) begins with a single step (I-wonder-what-this-button-does).

Not everyone is going to have a natural affinity for tech (or even all aspects of it), but you don’t NEED that. You just need to understand that if your business is reliant on booking calls, it is extremely doable (and in your best interest) to learn how to use technology to manage that for you.

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What is one tech skill you could learn today that would have a meaningful impact on your life (or business)?

Years back I started to spin up a side business for tech consulting/coaching, and the four foundational elements I focused on were:

1. Password Management
2. Email
3. Calendars
4. File Sharing
   

Pick any one of these areas to learn a new skill in, and it will benefit you immediately.

The first one that comes to mind is Google Docs. In the past, I’ve had clients email a Word document… oops, no wait, made some changes, here’s the new version. Ope, sorry, this one’s the final. Four emails later is the final3.docx, but we had already used the second-to-last version…

How do we fix this particular issue? Google Docs. They’re like an always up-to-date online version of Word. I create these to share with our team and clients, everyone is always seeing the most recent version, you can see history of changes… If you work with words (and most of us do), this one upgrade will make life so much easier.

Now just think of the compounding effect when that learning mindset becomes habit.

Footnotes:
¹ OK, yes, sometimes we have no idea what’s happening. But MOST of the time things have a findable explanation and a fix!
² I use TextExpander, which allows me to type a shortcut and expand whole emails, links, prompts, anything I want. It’s saved me over 6 hours this year, and that could/should be way higher. This isn’t even a super great example of a software tool, but it’s easy for anyone to learn and use immediately, which is key.
³ See my previous post, Just Start: The Successful Entrepreneur’s Secret.