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Ready-made and the alternative

Most of the time buying something that’s been ready-made by professionals is cheaper – especially if you count the cost of your time – and gets you a better result. You pay your money, and in return you get your problem solved.

But it might be that you buy other things by choosing to make something yourself:

  • fun
  • new technical skills and tools that you can use to solve other problems in future
  • new ways of seeing your problem – and (perhaps) a wider range of unexpected solutions and possibilities
  • procedural, “how to” knowledge
  • transferable understanding of underlying principles
  • a new network of people, places and information (experience of a new subculture)
  • a feeling of mastery
  • stories to share
  • the respect of others
  • an identity: as a person of ingenuity who breaks down and solves their own problems

Some things are worth paying a bit more for.*

*Just be mindful of the impossibility of starting from scratch

I'd love to hear your thoughts and recommended resources...

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