What You Should Be Using AI For
A practical filter for deciding which work to hand to AI and which to keep — the tasks it does well, the questions to ask before you delegate, and where AI falls short.
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Make AI work for you.
Why these guides exist: As a former product manager / ops person, I'm deeply interested in AI and use it to power my personal and work life. However, I found that learning about it was more challenging than it should have been. There was a ton of content out there, but there were two main issues with it. First, much of it was piecemeal — providing a one-off solve for a specific use case, but not a holistic overview of how to build a systemic approach to using AI. Second, much of it was simply too technical for most people. A guide that tells you how to use 4 different AI tools to build a morning news briefing agent might get you the perfect newsletter in your inbox every morning, but the barrier for entry is too high for most people to invest in it.
How to use these guides: These guides are loosely organized around progressive skill-set building. They're intended to provide a systematic approach to thinking about when, how and why to use AI in your work and personal life. They're built off the approach I use when consulting individuals and companies on how to use AI.
Staying up to date: To stay up to date on new content and guides, subscribe to my newsletter (it's free). New content will come out there.
One last note: Most of these guides discuss using Claude, because that's where I do most of my AI work. However, you can take the principles and skills in these guides and use them with any AI provider.
Beginner guides: Start here
If you're new to using AI or are just using the chat function in ChatGPT or Claude (not Codex or Claude Cowork), start here to discover what you should be using AI for and how to get the most out of it.
Get Better Results from AI: Personal Use Examples
Get more useful, personalized outputs from AI for everyday tasks — from preparing for a doctor's appointment and planning a family gathering to researching a big purchase and negotiating your salary.
Read guideGet Better Results from AI: Work Examples
Twelve prompting habits that help you get consistently accurate and useful outputs from Claude, with examples for each.
Read guideThe Difference Between Claude Chat, Cowork, and Code
Isn't there just one Claude? Actually, there are three interfaces — and picking the right one is half the battle. This guide explains what Chat, Cowork, and Code are, and what to use when.
Read guideNext steps: Using AI as a system, not just a one-off tool
Once you've mastered the basics of chat, it's time to set up an AI system that works for you on an ongoing, repeatable basis. When people talk about the huge productivity gains they're seeing with AI, it's because they've gone beyond chat to use Cowork, projects, skills, and more. This section will show you how to do that.
How to Set Up Cowork
Cowork is the real AI productivity unlock — it's where Claude goes from chatbot to assistant. This guide walks you through the full setup in 10 minutes: install the desktop app, open the Cowork tab, connect one folder, and give it your first real task.
Read guideMini Project: Set Up Your Personal AI Operating System
Set up Claude as your personal AI assistant — connected to your calendar, email, and documents — so every conversation you have after this is faster and more useful. Includes a step-by-step guide to writing your identity and context documents.
Read guideAn Introduction to Skills: Teach AI to Do Things Your Way
A skill is a repeatable workflow you build once — your format, your rules, your brand — so AI does a specific task your way every time, without you re-explaining it in every chat.
Coming soonAn Introduction to Claude Projects: Give Claude Lasting Context
A dedicated workspace where Claude keeps your documents and custom instructions in view, so every chat starts with your context instead of a blank slate.
Coming soonScheduled Tasks: How to Automate Recurring Work
Describe a recurring job once — a morning email digest, a weekly metrics pull, a Friday report — and AI runs it on a schedule without being asked again.
Coming soonSpecific use cases: Work
Instructional guides for specific tasks or functions. Most of them assume you've already set up Cowork (or similar) and are familiar with creating skills or projects.
Using AI for Calendar Management and Scheduling
Scheduling is one of those highly repeatable, tedious tasks that are perfect for outsourcing to AI. Learn to use AI to find open meeting times, create and delete calendar blocks, and flag conflicts — without manually cross-referencing your calendar.
Read guideHow to Get Claude to Write in Your Voice
Build a personal voice guide and use it to get Claude to draft emails, messages, and longer-form content that sounds like you — not like AI. Build it once, use it on every piece of writing after.
Read guideWhat I Read to Learn About AI
A curated shortlist of what's worth reading, listening to, and watching to get up to speed on AI — newsletters, podcasts, courses, and tools — organized by how deeply you want to go. Includes a software shortlist for knowledge workers.
Read guideSpecific use cases: Personal life
Additional instructional guides for personal life tasks.
Mom Hacks: Finding the Best Baby and Kid Gear
How I use AI to research and recommend the best, safest baby and kid gear for my son's specific needs — turning hours of obsessive comparison shopping into a single briefing, complete with recall checks and pediatrician-backed guidance.
Read guideHow I Set Up Claude to Order Groceries for Me
Set up Claude in Chrome to take a dictated grocery list and add everything to your Instacart cart automatically — using a preferences file that handles brand defaults, substitutions, and organic rules without extra input from you. The setup takes about 20 minutes and turns grocery ordering into a 90-second task.
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