Hi Reader,157 of you have never told me how you work. That is not a complaint. It is the reason some weeks this letter probably reads like it was written for somebody else. Today I want to fix that, and it takes two questions. Mini Insight Most productivity advice fails for a reason that has nothing to do with the advice. It was built by someone whose wiring is not yours. They needed structure, so they prescribe structure. They thrive on momentum, so they prescribe momentum. It worked for...
1 day ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader,Last week you wrote three lines: the Tell, the First Move, the Floor. Most people spend thirty seconds on the third one and move on. This week we go back to it, because the Floor is the line that decides whether September holds. Mini Insight Here is the thing nobody says about a system that stopped working. It did not fail because you got lazy in August. It failed because you designed it on a good day, for a good day. Full energy, clear calendar, nothing on fire. That version of you...
8 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, On Monday I sent you one question. Few of you answered (which is its own answer) and the answers that came mostly said the same thing: stay in the lane. So this is the lane. Saturday Reset goes back to what it has always been: productivity that fits your wiring, designed for your worst day. The AI work gets its own home. I’ll tell you where at the very end, in one short note you’re free to skip. That’s the whole change. Now, September. Mini Insight The end of August does something...
15 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader,One correction before anything else: I told you the live session was August 12. I’m moving it. Here’s the honest reason — the Sampler Pack lands Monday, August 17, and running a live workshop on the loop five days before you have the thing that runs it was backwards sequencing on my part. The workshop moves to September, after you’ve had a few weeks to put the Sampler to work in your own business — so when you watch the loop run live, your own work is in it, not mine. The Sampler...
29 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader,Open the AI you use most and ask one question: if I stopped using it tomorrow, what would I take with me? If the answer is “nothing — my standards live in their tool,” you’re using an assistant, and renting. If the answer is “my standards, my corrections, my whole way of working, because they live in my system,” you’re running an operating system, and owning. Most people, honestly, are renting. Assistant vs. operating system An assistant responds to the request in front of it and...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader,“But my work is judgment work. You can’t measure that.” I’ve heard it a hundred times, and I understand why people believe it — the only way you’ve ever experienced AI is without a standard, without a review, without a number. Just vibes. So measuring it sounds impossible, or like pretending. Here’s the thing. I spent 35 years measuring things people swore couldn’t be cleanly measured — risk, exposure, the probability a number was wrong — at two of North America’s largest banks....
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader,Think about how you got good at your business. Not from a course — from a thousand small corrections, accumulated over years, into the thing we call judgment. “Do it this way, not that way,” ten thousand times, until your standards were second nature. Your corrections are your judgment, written down one fix at a time. The only question that matters is whether they accumulate or evaporate. Cost vs. investment On a stateless tool, a correction is a cost. You pay it today, you pay it...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader,Two weeks ago: the month-six test. Last week: drift. Today, the architecture underneath both — and the single word that decides whether your AI gets sharper or staler. Stateful vs. stateless These aren’t marketing words. They’re standard software-architecture terms, and I spent 35 years living inside the difference at two of North America’s largest banks. A stateless system handles each request with no memory of the last one. A stateful system carries state forward — deliberately,...
about 2 months ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader,Short one this week. Holiday weekend, low attention. One test worth keeping. The month-six test Open the AI tool you bought six months ago — not the shiny one you started last week, the one you were excited about in the spring. Use it on a real task. Then answer one question honestly: is it better than the day you bought it, or exactly the same? If it’s exactly the same, you didn’t buy a system. You bought a pile. I wrote it up here: curiochat.ai/blog/the-month-six-test Why “the...
2 months ago • 1 min read
Hi Reader,The prompt pack was electric for a week. Around week three it drifted — outputs got inconsistent, you were correcting it more than it was helping. So you decided you’d picked the wrong prompt pack and went looking for a better one. That instinct is reasonable. It’s also wrong, and it’s keeping you in a loop. Drift, named The next pack drifts the same way, on the same schedule, for the same reason. You’re treating a pattern as if it were a product defect. I named the pattern this...
2 months ago • 2 min read