The Download
#001
Dear Reader,
I’m writing this on a sunny Wednesday afternoon in the garden, having been forced out of my home office due to an internet outage. But as today is a public holiday for businesses and schools — it’s both Dia de la Comunitat Valenciana and Sant Dionís, the Valencian day of lovers — perhaps it’s better that I enjoy the fresh air outside.
Why a newsletter now? Over the last six years, I’ve spread my efforts across multiple areas of expertise, but I’m now looking to “niche down” and focus on a particular area. Hence my starting up Informatic AI, my AI automation agency, which I’m building in earnest from this quarter onwards.
I’ve started writing this newsletter for a few reasons: one is a commitment to working more accountably in public and rediscovering my passion for emerging technologies; another is to journal my progress as I transition my expertise to new areas.
Thanks for subscribing, let’s get to it.
🥳 New Product Launch
Because launching a newsletter wasn’t enough of a target to hit this week 🤣. From the “Just Ship It Already” Department, I’m proud to announce my ChatGPT Course Creators and Educators Package. Well over 100 (and just under 200) ChatGPT prompts to help with:
- Course Development
- Marketing & Sales
- Student Engagement
- Educational Content Creation
- Course Management
- Content Monetisation
- Course Improvement & Iteration
- Certification & Accreditation
- Community Building
- Email Marketing & Nurturing
- Course Reviews & Testimonials
- Instructor Branding
- Strategic Partnerships & Outreach
It’s available below and on my website. If you’re interested in creating a course or know someone who needs a hand, please share this with them. And if you’re interested in building a prompt library or custom GPTs for your business, let me know.
🛠️ Retooling
Leaving a long-term role where you’ve spent time developing workflows and toolsets can be a bit jarring. I found myself reassessing my software and hardware stacks and thinking about what I would need to adapt, starting with how I organse and prioritise tasks.
What Todo?
I’ve never been able to find a good task manager app that ticks all the boxes. Over the years, I’ve tried OmniFocus, toyed with Things and Todoist, muddled with Microsoft, and noodled around in Notion, among others. They’re either overkill for my needs, lack key features (I’m looking at you, Notion 👀), or have a subscription model I’m just tired of paying for.
At some point, I dismissed Apple’s Reminders. It never seemed powerful enough, but now I’m reconsidering — just how powerful does a to-do list need to be? After reading Joan Westenberg’s post on Threads and Medium this week, I’m starting to see how useful Reminders can be. There have been upgrades over the last few iterations of iOS, including the column, or Kanban board view, which makes it much easier to visualize, categorize, and just work with in general. I’m willing to give it a proper shot, and hey, I’m already in the Apple ecosystem. I might as well make the best out of the tools I have on hand.
Yes we Kanban.
Rethinking the Home Screen
My tech ecosystem generally consists of an M2 MacBook Air in the office docked with monitors. When I’m out and about after school drop-offs or travelling into the city, I rely on my M4 iPad 11”. Rather than having pages and pages of apps and widgets on the iPad, I’ve opted for a widget-based approach that keeps things simple with a few specific widgets and smart stacks.
Top row (l to r): Widgets for Kobo, Books, Kindle and Panels. Smart Stacks for media, metrics and memories.
Bottom row (l to r): Canary Mail, Reminders and Notes.
Canary Mail
A final bit of retooling came in changing my mail client. I no longer need a sandboxed version of Outlook, and I’m not that fond of Apple Mail on the whole, so I’ve switched to Canary Mail across all devices.
Canary is like most mail clients in that I can add my Google, Apple, and Office 365 accounts into it, but where it shines is in its use of AI to summarise the contents of emails — perfect for quickly scanning newsletters (much like this one!). You can also leverage CoPilot to draft AI-generated replies, which I’ve yet to really test out.
I found Canary Mail as part of SetApp, a curated set of apps offered as a monthly subscription for Mac and iOS users. I’ve been using it for years (here’s a kickback “invite a friend and you each get a month off” link). It’s also available for Android and Windows. Highly recommended!
Canary’s Conversation Summary is a real time saver.
📅 Upcoming
Level Up Your LinkedIn Challenge
From the 21st of October, I’ll be participating once again in the Remote Work Europe “Level Up Your LinkedIn Challenge”. Over four weeks, we’ll build and refine our LinkedIn profiles, committing to daily posts and focused engagement during LinkedIn’s peak activity times.
It’s my third time joining the challenge, and I’m looking forward to it, particularly as I’ve had to reposition my offerings. Anyone is welcome to sign up and participate, so if you’re looking to boost your search discoverability and personal brand, I highly recommend it. The more, the merrier! Early bird pricing is available until midnight on the 12th of October.
Level Up Your LinkedIn this Autumn!
🔗 Quick Links
- “Little Shop of Horrors” wasn’t the first musical I saw as a kid, but it’s certainly the most memorable. I came across the “The Little Shop Archive” YouTube channel this week with nearly 150 videos recordings from the original film, 80’s musical, Broadway performances and more - some including Ellen Greene (who played Audrey in 1986) still knocking it out of the park 30 years later with her tremendous voice.
- Bonus find: NPR Tiny Desk medley concert with composer Alan Menken sharing anecdotes about “collaborating with the show’s late lyricist Howard Ashman” throughout. Don’t feed the plants.
- A while ago a former colleague mentioned “Coach Bennet’s Podcast”, which is about running, but is also not about running. Think of it as having access to the enthusiasm and motivation of a real-life Ted Lasso. I started listening this week and found it insightful. Full disclosure: I’m not a runner 🏃. Listen here.
- With Hurricane Milton in the news cycle right now, this week I learned that Waffle House (the American chain best known for serving Southern-style breakfasts) “has developed an advanced storm center FEMA consults with”.
👋🏻 Wrapping up
Next week, I’ll be exploring more AI tools, as well as getting a first version of a no-code solution I’ve been working on out the door. It should be a busy week, but I’ve still got room for clients interested in bringing AI systems in to complement their business processes. Don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Have a great rest of your week!
Jim
Made with ❤️ in Valencia by Jim Christian. For feedback, please reach out to [email protected]. For custom GPTs, prompt libraries, general AI consulting and development, please visit Informatic AI.
