Weekly Wisdom #312 - The most valuable AI productivity habit you can start right now

We're Back! AI Advice, How We Convince Others, Explaining the Chaos of the World Today

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Happy Sunday!

The problem with taking a break from a habit, like writing this newsletter, is that it can take a long time to pick it back up.

And so here we find ourselves, 8 months after I wrote the last newsletter!

I hope it won't go that long again, and I plan to be back to my weekly cadence.

Much has happened in the meantime: I've been planning a house build, learning the ins and outs of "vibe coding" (the term for coding with AI through natural language prompts), and spending a lot more time learning AI tools in general, including using them in my work.

I'll explore some of these topics in more detail in future issues, but for now I can tell you that the most productive habit I've been working on is this: learning to default to asking an AI model instead of typing things in Google.

It's a strangely ingrained habit, and is taking longer to break than I'd like.

But the number of things I've asked one model or another in the past week, and the results, are astonishing:

Modeling energy consumption across a variety of insulation values for a cottage build

Gathering a list of micro-influencers for a friend's business

Modeling the business potential of various ideas

Describing how specific building techniques are used

Finding ideas and benchmarks for lead generation for another friend's business

Improving my own communication style based on research

Advice on supplementation and blood test results

The list goes on and on.

(I like Grok for quick questions, Claude for more detailed, longer-term projects)

So if I had one piece of advice for everyone, it would be that: start defaulting to asking AI tools instead of Google.

Have a great week!

Graham

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Links

📚 Book Notes: The Revolt of the Public - Martin Gurri - This is the best book I've ever read in terms of explaining the chaos of the current political climate. While I don't discuss politics much, I've come to believe the following as true:

"Jonathan Haidt, one of the truly original minds in contemporary American psychology, uses a metaphor of the "elephant" for our powerful passions and instincts, and of a helpless "rider" for the rationalizing intellect. He then summarizes the latest research on persuasion:

"When does the elephant listen to reason? The main way that we change our minds on moral issues is by interacting with other people. We are terrible at seeking evidence that challenges our own beliefs, but other people do us this favor, just as we are good at finding errors in other people’s beliefs. When discussions are hostile, the odds of change are slight. The elephant leans away from the opponent, and the rider works frantically to rebut the opponent’s charges.

But if there is affection, admiration, or a desire to please the other person, then the elephant leans toward that person, and the rider tries to find the truth in the other person’s arguments..."

In other words, we don't change our minds because of some pundit, or someone we don't know. We change our minds when someone we care about expresses a different opinion.

I think most of us would do well to remember that: the first step in changing someone else's mind is to first become their friend.

🏠 Success is in the details - The process of planning to build a home is one of innumerable details, and one of the things I've noticed is that most of us don't go quite far enough.

For example, I'm convinced that having a clean, organized kitchen is mostly won or lost when the kitchen itself is designed; the same goes for most organizational things, like closets, garages, etc.

One example I like is the appliance cupboard: a place where all your appliances can sit, plugged in, ready for use, without having to be taken in and out of various drawers.

Simple, but something that has to be planned ahead of time:

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Tweet of the Week

I mentioned "vibe coding" in the intro, which is the term that's been given to coding using AI tools, which involves primarily natural-language prompting, and no actual writing of code.

In the world of AI and software products in particular, I've been wondering where it will go.

It's the most significant shift in the world of technology (and probably the world) since I've been an adult, right up there with mobile.

Andrew Chen, a venture capitalist, had the following thoughts, which I thought were pretty good:

andrew chen-->

@andrewchen

random thoughts/predictions on where vibe coding might go:

- most code will be written (generated?) by the time rich. Thus, most code will be written by kids/students rather than software engineers. This is the same trend as video, photos, and other social media

- we are in the… https://x.com/i/web/status/1898874271663087622

7:11 PM • Mar 9, 2025

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