Prompting
Showing 1–20 of 30 posts
- Working with AI
Build your skill from a source that has not changed in decades
Pick a framework or workflow that has not changed in decades, such as the Eisenhower matrix, point an AI at it, answer its questions one at a time, and you have a first version of a skill you can test and tweak.
- Agents & Tooling
Plan big, do small
A big model should plan the work and find the tools, libraries and free databases that already exist. Smaller models, or programs on your own computer, do what I like to call the donkey work.
- Agents & Tooling
The Infinite Sandwich and the Made Bed
Why Systems Thinking Is Your Real AI Superpower
- Agents & Tooling
Gems Are Becoming Skills, but I Can Find My Gems, Not My Skills
I am using Gemini more and more for editorial and creative work. I like it for developing ideas and roughing out illustrations, while I tend to use other tools for purely operational jobs. That has meant spending quite a bit of time playing with Gems.
- Working with AI
SoN 2.30: Which of your AI's rules are still doing a job?
Last week's advice and Anthropic's both hold. The test is one question you can ask about any rule you've written.
- Working with AI
From Custom Code to Conversational Prompts
Who's allowed to build software has changed hands three or four times in a decade. Grok Build is the latest handoff.
- Working with AI
Tell AI What You Want and Who You Are
Two takes on the same idea — the ASD-STE100 controlled-English standard and the i-have-adhd Claude Code skill — on giving your AI a writing system.
- Working with AI
SoN 2.28: "That's good, how can we make it better?"
When I think about AI and automation, I see an opportunity opening up that goes well beyond the chatbots everyone’s being handed — well beyond prompting, too. One of the most…
- Working with AI
Paperwork Shot List
A shot list for the paperwork This week I’ve spent five hours or more in the car, driving between schools to move our kid from one to another for the new school year. It’s a mixed…
- Working with AI
What I Automate with AI
What I Automate with AI I went looking today for a list of everything I’ve got automated since I started this AI journey back in 2024. Every tool I’ve wired Claude into, every…
- Agents & Tooling
SoN 2.22: How do you choose "the best" AI tool?
How do you choose "the best" AI tool? A friend asked me this week to explain how to use “all the different AI tools” — ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, the lot. She wanted, in her words,…
- Agents & Tooling
SoN 2.16: Ask your AI what it can already do (Free Edition)
You don't need more AI tools (Free Edition) Ask your AI what it can already do Last Friday, Maya and I spent an hour delivering a post-lunch workshop with about thirty-five people…
- Working with AI
SoN 2.15: Ask your AI to Ask You Questions (Free Edition)
Ask Your AI To Ask You Questions (Free) Ask your AI to ask you questions Last Saturday morning I sat down to write the weekly digest for my build-log site — seven posts from the…
- Working with AI
SoN Vol 2, Issue 10: Same Prompt, Different Model, Worse Results (Free)
Same. Prompt,Different Model, Worse Results Dear Reader, New LLM models drop every few weeks. Features change between updates. The prompting advice that was best practice six…
- Agents & Tooling
SoN Vol 2, Issue 6: The Talking Wrench
Three conversations you should be having with your AI tools Dear Reader, I had coffee with a friend this week — who’s trying to solve a practical problem. He needs a better way to…
- Working with AI
SoN Vol 2, Issue 2: The Art of Breaking Things Down
Last week I introduced the idea of "programming your gaps" — the mental shift from asking "how do I prompt better?" to "what friction in my life can I systematize?" Today's the…
- Working with AI
SoN Vol 2, Issue 1: Stop Prompting Better. Start Programming Your Gaps.
Something shifted over the holidays. Since Claude Code Opus 4.5 launched in November, a pattern has emerged among knowledge workers using Claude Code with their Obsidian vaults…
- Working with AI
SoN 30: Four Questions That Fix Your Prompts
Most prompts fail before you hit enter. Not because of the AI model nor because of token limits or temperature settings. They fail because you haven’t actually figured out what…
