Years ago, computers promised a better way of working. Faster, easier, more efficient. Instead, he found himself glued to a screen, constantly responding, fixing, updating. The work never stopped, it just followed him around.

Then came mobile phones, promising freedom. What they really delivered was being reachable everywhere. At dinner. On holiday. Late at night.

And now here it was again. AI. Same promise. Different flavour of sh*t.

Do more. Faster. Cheaper. Do it yourself.

He leaned into it. It would have felt foolish not to. He built his website with a few prompts. It looked decent. Clean. Job done.

Then the branding. Colours, fonts, a logo in minutes. That would do.

The accounts were next. Numbers in, answers out. Quick. Confident.

When the car made a noise, he searched, watched a few videos, had a go. Same with a leak in the roof not long after.

For a while, it felt like progress, but over time, something didn't sit right. The website was live, but not doing anything. The branding looked fine, but didn't say much. The accounts worked, until they didn't quite feel right. The car noise came back. The roof leaked again.

Nothing was a disaster. That was the problem. Everything worked just well enough to carry on.

What wore him down was the time. Every issue became another task, another thing to learn, another problem to solve. He wasn't building his business anymore. Just maintaining a collection of good enough fixes.

One evening, halfway through another tweak, he paused.

This was supposed to make life easier. Instead, he was doing more than ever. The tools hadn't lied. They made it possible to do everything himself. They just hadn't told him whether he should.

The next morning, he changed direction. A developer fixed the website so it actually worked. A designer gave the brand meaning. An accountant spotted things he'd missed.

Nothing dramatic. Just right.

He still used AI. Every day. But differently. Not as the answer to everything. Just a tool.

Because he'd finally understood something simple.

Just because you can do something yourself doesn't mean you should.

The moral of this story?

Focus on running your business, and get experts to help you.

AI is not the expert you need.