AI thinking partner: ChatGPT and...

My brain was stuck in a very particular way.

Not tired. Not unmotivated. Not overwhelmed in the classic sense.

I knew exactly where I needed to end up. The outcome was clear. What I couldn’t see was the path to get there. Every attempt to think it through internally just sent me in the same loops. I kept circling the same ideas, asking the same half formed questions, and getting nowhere.

This is usually where people reach for a produc...

ChatGPT Is Not Saving Me Time. Here’s What It Actually Helps With.

ChatGPT is not saving me time.And that’s never been a problem.

From the beginning, the benefit was obvious to me. Not speed, but relief. The kind you feel when a task stops weighing so heavily before you even start it.

What changed wasn’t how fast I worked.It was how much I had left in me afterward. (capacity!)

That distinction matters more than most of the productivity...

I think I accidentally found a truth serum for ChatGPT.

Not a tool.Not a plugin.Not a secret prompt I’ve been hoarding.

Just permission.

And honestly, I’m still a little annoyed it took me this long to try it.

Let me back up

I read a Substack post recently that made me laugh out loud and then immediately open ChatGPT. You know that feeling when something clicks so hard you almost feel silly for missing it before. That was this.

The core ...

Some days, ChatGPT feels like it’s thinking with me.

Other days, it feels like it’s reading from a manual.

If you mostly use ChatGPT for drafting, summarizing, or rewriting, this difference might not stand out as much. But if you use it as a thinking partner, as an external brain, or as a way to work through problems when you’re too close to your own thoughts, the difference is impossible to ignore.

This week was one of those moments ...

The pebble in the shoe

This is one of those things that feels too small to matter, until it does.

Everything else can be working just fine. The system. The process. The tools. You’re in a good rhythm, you’re excited to get started, and then there’s this one tiny thing that throws you off completely. That was me, a few weeks ago, heading out for a long walk with a shoe that otherwise felt perfect… except for a single pebble. Small. In...

This isn’t usually my tone when I talk about tools like ChatGPT.

I’m generally pretty clear about where I stand, I see large language models as thinking partners, not shortcuts, and I’m far less interested in speed than I am in clarity. But I recently read something that knocked me just slightly off balance, in a good way, and I wanted to sit with it instead of brushing past it.

Read more and/or watch this video on Substack:

https://...

Something had happened on a project I’m working on. Someone made a decision that ignored my process and, honestly, it felt like it undermined a lot of the work I’ve been doing. It wasn’t catastrophic. There wasn’t a lot of money attached to it. But it hit that familiar nerve of wait, why wasn’t I included in this?

I could feel myself drafting the message in my head as I walked. You probably know the kind.

Quick.Pointed.Emotionally ac...

I had a realization recently that was… equal parts obvious and annoying.

There’s a lot going on in my head when I write to someone. Context. Backstory. Examples. Reasons. Assumptions. Side notes. All neatly connected in a way that makes perfect sense to me.

And then I send the message.

And then comes the back-and-forth.

Clarifying questions. Misunderstandings. “Oh, I didn’t realize you meant that.” Moments where I realize, oh right, no...

Three years.

Three stinking years I’ve been using ChatGPT.

Since the beginning. Since the “wait, this thing can finish my sentences?” era. Since the “oh no, this might actually be useful” phase. Since the “okay, calm down, it’s still just a tool” self-talk.

And it took me until this week to realize something important:

I’ve been way too polite with it.

Not polite in a “please and thank you” way (although… yes, also that). Polite in a pr...

I thought today was going to be simple. I’d open my laptop, update an old Geopats Abroad episode title, sip my coffee, feel productive, move on.

But nope.

Instead, I found myself deep inside one of those prompt-chaining moments where ChatGPT gives you something technically correct… and totally underwhelming. And honestly, these moments have become kind of fun for me. They remind me that I’m not just typing words into a box , I’m resh...

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Intro: The Blog Post I Wrote… And the Conversation I Didn’t Include

Recently, I wrote a polished, helpful, very grown-up article for The Alitu Creator’s blog about using ChatGPT to make podcast episode titles stronger. It had structure. It had examples. It had tidy sentences like “ChatGPT can analyze your transcript to surface keywo...

I am absolutely floored by how well ChatGPT is picking up on my writing tone, my insights, and the way my brain organizes ideas. That is really what I want to share with you today.

This Substack is a reimagining of a ChatGPT based project I paused about a year ago called Chatty and Me. I am bringing it back with a different angle this time, focusing on the ways AI genuinely excites me. There are plenty of other people doing the crit...

AI is a pencil is a reflective podcast about thinking with AI rather than outsourcing your thinking to it. Through real examples, experiments, and observations, the show explores how AI can support clarity, context, and communication while keeping your voice intact.

If you’ve felt overwhelmed by AI hype but still curious, this podcast offers a calmer, more human approach. Available on all podcast apps, YouTube and Substack at aiisap...