Locked In, January

Paid for a full year upfront. Didn't fully understand what the tool couldn't do until month two.

That gap — between what I assumed and what was actually there — forced me to build around it. Workarounds. Constraints. Small systems just to keep the work moving at a pace that felt worth the spend.

I probably wouldn't have gone that deep otherwise. A monthly subscription is easy to abandon. An annual one asks you to figure it out.

The pressure wasn't "make this work." It was "make this worth it." Slightly different. The second one requires you to understand the thing, not just use it.

Accidental commitment turns out to be a decent forcing function.