Hey Reader
You know how it is when you're supposed to be resting but ideas keep showing up anyway...
Right now I’m in what I call Operation R - a period where I need to rest and only focus on one thing at a time. It’s very hot as I’m writing this and I’ve been working overtime on multiple projects and meds... are doing meds things.
So resting is where I need to be, and my focus is solely on my contract work.
But here’s the thing - during this rest period, I came up with a good half a dozen ideas. And I still needed to get things done.
The problem with ideas when you’re trying to focus
It gets very easy sometimes when you have an idea, it creates a pressure to act.
That desire to do the thing right now because if you don’t do it now, you’ll forget about it.
This is fine when you're... in a position to act. But sometimes you just can't... for whatever reason.
What doesn’t work (and why)
Traditional advice just goes “just focus on one thing at a time.” That doesn’t really work because we’re forever thinking as neurodiverse individuals about all of the possible options and things we could do.
Focusing on one thing at a time can feel much, much worse because the moment you don’t take action on an idea, you feel like you can’t do anything about it. (and then you... forget).
So what can you do? What is the actual action you could take that makes it as easy as possible for you?
What I tried instead
I’ve been developing my AI tools with Claude to help me document what I’m thinking out loud. The breakthrough was realising that the documentation becomes the action.
As I was working through Operation R, I had a couple of ideas - many of them based on what I’ve been thinking for ages.
So I started talking to my AI about it, using WisprFlow to think out loud out these ideas, to think about them and be like “how could I do this in this way and create resources for people that help them use tools in a better way that fits them and how they think?”
That’s when I went back and forth, sharing thoughts and also looking back over conversations I’ve had with my coach where I've been thinking about a couple of small, low-cost offers around real life problems around making decisions and taking action - making it as easy as possible.
Because everything that I do is around creating conditions where people can finally do the things that they’ve been either avoiding or struggling with, including managing very overwhelming ways of working sometimes.
Through the conversation I had with Claude - where I just spoke through the idea, came up with the idea and connected it all together - I was like “oh that’s really good, that’s a cool idea. I like this” and thinking about how we can put that together.
I have trained my AI to challenge me and question everything that I say because it helps me think through my ideas.
And then I use the Memory MCP to store these as insights.
What happened
I went from being overwhelmed with all of the options to being able to very quickly and easily document my idea and then go back to what I was doing before. Because my intention was to complete the contract work that I needed to complete. But I still wanted to be able to capture these ideas.
And then immediately it was like “oh this is actually a really good idea” - how can you work with your idea-abundant way of working instead of against it?
Why this works better than content generation
A lot of AI promotion is about generating content, but for me, AI is more of a way to externalise how I’m already thinking and put it somewhere I can find easily.
I have particular tools built to support that, and that’s exactly how we can think about managing how we’re thinking instead of managing someone else’s knowledge.
- How do we manage our own?
- How do we share our insights out loud whilst also doing other things?
Because often, and especially for me, I like to think out loud.
It affords me so many opportunities to not overthink every single thing because I do have a tendency to try and overcorrect my ideas.
Instead, I can just press a button and record my ideas out loud and then from there I can turn that into a structure and something that fits and works for me.
This is effective AI use in my opinion.
It lets you use AI as an externalisation tool, as a back-and-forth for bouncing ideas around, and then when you’re talking to real-life people (because let’s be honest, real-life people are still way better than AI), it lets you really effectively implement and take action on something you’re thinking about when you need to be doing something else.
What’s working for you right now?
Amelia
P.S. - I use Obsidian for local storage, Claude with Memory MCP for conversation tracking, and Wispr Flow for voice-to-text capture, all designed to protect IP while enabling thinking externalisation. Happy to share more about the setup if you’re curious.
