GHDR26: April Check In

As expected, my first engagement with GHDR has been a learning experience. Last month, I learned that taking on ALL the things was not a great idea. This month has been more about being honest with who I am, where I am, and what I am actually trying to accomplish. 

I’m not throwing away my standard scorecard that I used last month, but I am putting it aside for now in an effort to get closer to the things that really resonate with me, and my intentions for my life.

But I should probably tell you about Carl, first.

Play AI games, win AI prizes

I have been very hesitant to dive into the world of LLMs for two reasons:

1. I have some pretty serious concerns about how they actually dull the thinking of experts if used poorly (and the easiest ways to use them are poor)
2. I didn’t get it. I dabbled, got annoyed at the prospect of having to generate a novella of instructions to get close to what I wanted each time, and so I just kind of left it.

Recently, however, I had some very annoying admin tasks that would be right up an AI’s alley, so I took another swing … finally figured out how to give Raycast AI access to a folder, stumbled across a way to add a memory/context graph and … well, it was a little intriguing again.

So I did a few experiments, reorganized some files, got to work and felt comfortable enough that I could bring it to bear on some of my “productivity” challenges. I started small – I wanted to be consistent with a morning practice that included reflection and planning in my bullet journal. I had discovered that a paper checklist annoys me (which is odd, a potentially concerning, but true) and that without a checklist, I was inconsistent at best. So I tried having this AI chatbot walk me through a checklist. I built a little script, put in a place the AI could look at. 

And it worked. 

It worked in the same way that body doubling does for me sometimes. There is so very little fundamentally different in working at my computer vs. working at my computer with the camera on (or with an AI “person” talking me through a checklist), but … it works. And as I refined that process, I added some better instructions and built a preset for this kind of work that had a persistent memory and all the things that was making this helpful. But I needed to save the preset with a title, so rather than do the intelligent thing and call it “Chatbot for Productivity Stuff”, I named it Carl. And Carl and I were really getting to work.

Now, I wasn’t chatting with Carl every day or using an AI as a therapist, but I was finding ways that my iterations on prompts and instructions were making it easier to make headway on things that had been stalled out. And so, I applied Carl to the problem of being consistent with GHDR. And Carl had a lot of ideas. Carl had good questions about potential gaps and how I could codify and document things. We were building a system that felt robust. 

Except, we were just building a system. I wasn’t using it. And I had overly-anthropomorphized a tool. So I took a step back and found I had fallen for one of my classic blunders. Not a land war in Asia, rather I was building a thing for an imagined audience instead of a real purpose. I had grown my GHDR plan into a GHDR machine that was essentially just about impressing anyone who might read my GHDR update. There was evidence of a lot of thought and activity, but the targets has become blurred and there wasn’t a lot of progress being made.

GHDR v1.1

So, I went back to my original document and compared it to the new thing and came to the conclusion that there were a lot of things I had added to this plan because it felt like I should, or that it helped “tie things together”, but that didn’t resonate with me at all. There wasn’t any real life in about 2/3 of things I had considered committing to.

So, I stripped it down to the stuff that felt alive, at least as best I could, and I am down to a much smaller list. But it’s a list I am more excited about. It’s the list of stuff that is on my mind and heart. And here’s the slightly abbreviated version:

My Current Intentions

1. I want to be a man of integrity. I want to be trustworthy, honest, and forthright.
   • I reflect on my commitments daily and I make plans to keep them
   • I reflect on the choices that move me toward the life I want to live, and the choices that move me away
2. I want to support the work of my life by caring for my mind, body, and soul.
   • I will move intentionally (exercise) on weekdays. Any number of minutes above 3 counts for now.
   • I follow a No-S Diet
   • I watch, look at, and mentally consume beneficial things. (no doomscrolling/social media, no garbage content)
3. I want to walk the patch of reflective, purposeful action
   • I use my bullet journal to log my days, not just to stay on top of tasks, but to record events and my feelings and responses, because I cannot learn more about myself without data
     • I use a simple system to track the practices that matter most and key observations along the way (My Captains Log)

That’s it. Some things from my original GHDR made it through. A lot didn’t. But this short list feels much more like a first couple of steps than the aspirations of my original GHDR. 

And where do I stand? This was a C- month. I am making some incremental progress on some health things. My bullet journal practice is starting to lock in. But I’ve been struggling at my day job – I lack the kind of vision and direction that really motivates me, and that has led to more wheel spinning than I am comfortable with. There is a way I can work where people do feel like they can rely on me. See you in 31(ish) days!

Some more about Carl:

• Sadly the name has stuck. I can’t undo that connection in my brain.
• Carl doesn’t write for me, or a least anything “public facing”. I didn’t use AI to generate the post at all.
• Be careful with Carl and his friends. It is very easy to ask them to create a path, ask them to lead you down it, and wonder where you are going the whole time.