I spent 5 hours fixing one issue

Do you ever get so fixated on fixing something that everything else gets pushed to the side? This happened to me on Tuesday. I stayed up til 3am trying to fix one bug. I worked with ChatGPT to debug the…


Red Clay Creative

November 28, 2025

Do you ever get so fixated on fixing something that everything else gets pushed to the side?

This happened to me on Tuesday. I stayed up til 3am trying to fix one bug. I worked with ChatGPT to debug the situation and the AI told me that what I was trying to do wasn’t possible. I dismissed it, of course, because it’s just an AI after all – what does it really know!? I turned to Google, sifting through forums…

“How could no one have run into this problem before!?”

But ChatGPT was right. It wasn’t possible. And together we had to rethink a whole new solution to the problem. Then after we worked through the new solution and got to a successful result, I was completely underwhelmed by the end result. It was just done. Nothing marvelous. Just 5 hours of my life that I’ll never get back.

So what did I learn…? Trust the AI? I’m still not sure 😔 I thought writing this note would help me figure it out. But I’m just left more befuddled than I was before.

Written by

Red Clay Creative

Keep reading

More from Insights

All insights

Aug 18, 2026

AI Can Create Unlimited Content. Your Nonprofit Should Publish What AI Can’t.

“AI has already consumed all the information on the internet.” I’ve been saying some version of that to clients a lot lately. If your…

Aug 11, 2026

Website Security Has a 90-Minute Problem.

In July 2026, WordPress released an important security update. Researchers began seeing real attempts to exploit the vulnerabilities roughly 90 minutes after the updated…

Jul 16, 2026

Cookies are pretty exciting 🍪

Businesses across the U.S. are being sued over how websites collect visitor data.…

The newsletter

One letter a month from Troy, on what’s changing and what to do about it.

Occasional notes on websites, marketing, and the digital side of mission-driven work.

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Ask Me Anything About This Site

Get fast, informative answers